Honestly, I didn’t know there were so many Snow Patrol haters out there, but in a recent interview with Gary Lightbody, the singer managed to both address said haters and give the rest of us a nice roundup of the backlash. First, Lightbody responded to being dubbed the “most boring band in Britain” by Nicky Wire, bassist for the Manic Street Preachers.
“Nicky Wire has earned the right to say whatever he wants, he’s a rock God, so more power to him,” Lightbody told Daily Record. “We only seem dull on the surface. Jonny fights fires. Tom toils shirtless on construction sites, Paul is in the Navy Reserve. Nathan is a volunteer policeman and I explore my Cherokee ancestry. We’re like the Village People, only slightly less gay.”
Hear that, Nicky Wire? How could a band with a shirtless toiling keyboardist be boring?
“Chasing Cars was an inescapable hit worldwide,” he continued. “People think of us as that band with that song on Grey’s Anatomy and decide to hate us. One review said our fourth album would ‘keep Ford Focus drivers happy’, meaning our music appeals to average blokes, not hipsters.” Rushing home from work to catch Grey’s in your compact car with Snow Patrol blasting out of your moonroof? You, too, can be a hipster.
Okay, so people called them boring, non-hipster sell-outs. Anything else? “I have never understood the connection between us and Coldplay, as much as I like their music,” Lightbody added. Clearly, somebody is saving too many of his press clippings.