Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody reveals creative process behind upcoming eighth album after major tour announcement

Virgin Radio

30 May 2024, 09:19

Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody has dished the details about their newly announced eighth record, The Forest is a Path.

The Chasing Cars band last released new music in 2018 with seventh studio album Wilderness, and wrapped up the tour in 2022. 

The official Snow Patrol social media channels sent fans into a frenzy last week after originally teasing their new project, six years on from their last release, and have since confirmed The Forest Is The Path will be out on 13th September. 

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Snow Patrol are back on the airwaves with their fresh single, The Beginning, while chatting on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with webuyanycar this morning (30th May), Gary confessed to host Nick Grimshaw: “We did spring it on everybody. Remember the Father Ted episode where they just take it out by the tap of a hammer and they destroy the car? We were slowly trying to fix it by also breaking it at the same time. We wanted to kind of get it finished before we announced it."

On the creative process behind The Beginning, Gary added: “We got together to write it, Johnny [McDaid] and I and that was written on day one. I literally wrote The Beginning at the top of a blank piece of paper thinking, ‘I’ll change the name of that’.

"The first day was The Beginning, the lyrics were written the same day, so it was a good start.”

It turns out that while the lyrics came easily to Gary and the band, recording the album wasn’t as plain sailing, and the group enlisted famed music producer Fraser T Smith and his Henley studios in order to get it right. 

“The planets aligned,” Gary continued. “We had a first attempt at recording but it didn't quite work out and then we met Fraser. We literally were in love with him by the first 10 minutes of recording. He kind of brought it all together.

“The first time we tried to make the album, it took five months. With Fraser, it took five weeks. He actually created a flow that just everything went really fast. It has a strange brevity to it.”

Not only will fans be treated to new music, but Snow Patrol are also hitting the road. They've also just announced their UK and European tour, which will see the Open Your Eyes rockers kick things off in Paris in January 2025 before landing in London in February. They’ll then travel to Birmingham, Cardiff, Hull, Glasgow, Manchester and Dublin before finishing things up in Belfast. 

Quickly discussing his love of touring, Gary told Grimmy: "I cannot wait, we cannot wait for playing live. We're playing festival shows this summer and then the tour starts in the end of January."

New Snow Patrol single The Beginning is out now. Upcoming album The Forest is the Path is out on 13th September. 

Tickets for Snow Patrol’s UK and Ireland Arena tour go on sale at 10am Friday 7th June at snowpatrol.com

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with webuyanycar weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.