50 Fun Facts About Snow Patrol

Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars became a hit after playing in the second-season finale of which American TV drama?

Grey's Anatomy used the song in an emotional scene in May 2006, pushing it onto the US download and pop charts. It went on to reach number five on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which British singer's cover of Snow Patrol's ballad Run topped the UK singles chart in 2008?

Leona Lewis first sang it in Radio 1's Live Lounge in 2007, and her single became the UK's fastest-selling download at the time. It also topped the charts in Ireland, Austria and Portugal.

Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody made a cameo as a singing soldier in an episode of which fantasy TV series?

Game of Thrones cast him as a Bolton soldier who strikes up The Bear and the Maiden Fair in the episode Walk of Punishment. It was the first time that song was heard in the series.

Snow Patrol's Signal Fire was rejected for Shrek the Third before playing over the credits of which superhero film?

Spider-Man 3 took the song after the Shrek film passed, and it was the only single from the soundtrack. In the UK it came out on web-shaped vinyl and peaked at number four.

Snow Patrol's self-described low point was a gig for eighteen people in High Wycombe, held at what kind of venue?

A strip club hosted the show, and staff had to unscrew the dancers' poles to make room for the band. Gary Lightbody later joked about it on stage at a sold-out Wembley Arena.

Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars got its title from a remark about Gary Lightbody's hopeless crush, made by which relative?

His father compared him to a dog running after a car: he would never catch the girl and would not know what to do if he did. Lightbody calls it the purest love song he has written.

In July 2006 Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars became the last song performed live on which long-running BBC music show?

Top of the Pops ended its weekly run that month, and Snow Patrol were the last act to play live on it. Chasing Cars had only just come out in the UK and went on to peak at number six.

Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody co-wrote and sang on The Last Time, a 2013 single by which American superstar?

Taylor Swift wrote the power ballad with him for her album Red, and the pair sang it together on The X Factor in the UK in November 2013.

In both the UK and US videos for Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars, Gary Lightbody sings in what position?

Lying on the ground is how he sings in both: out in the open in the rain for the UK cut, and in a diner, a subway car and a busy Los Angeles junction for the US one, where people step over him.

Snow Patrol are a Northern Irish band, but in which Scottish city did they form as university students in 1994?

Dundee is where Gary Lightbody and Mark McClelland met as students and started a band called Shrug with drummer Michael Morrison. They played their first gigs at the university and in local pubs.

Snow Patrol pianist Johnny McDaid is one of the co-writers of which 2017 hit single by Ed Sheeran?

Shape of You went on to be named BMI Pop Song of the Year. McDaid has since co-written many more Sheeran hits, including Bad Habits and Shivers.

Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid announced his engagement in June 2014 to which American sitcom star?

Courteney Cox, who played Monica in Friends, began dating McDaid in late 2013. She said in 2019 that the engagement had been called off.

Snow Patrol spent a month in 2009 opening North American shows for which British band?

Coldplay took them along for a month, soon after Snow Patrol had finished an arena tour of their own that played to an estimated 200,000 people.

Snow Patrol opened European shows in 2005 on the Vertigo Tour, the world tour of which rock band?

U2 gave them the opening slot in Europe during the two years Snow Patrol spent touring their breakthrough album, Final Straw. As a boy, Gary Lightbody dreamed of being a rock star like Bono.

Snow Patrol played a short set in London in summer 2005 as part of which worldwide benefit concert?

Live 8 saw them play Chocolate and Run to the crowd in Hyde Park. The band were in the middle of two years on the road with their breakthrough album.

Although he writes Snow Patrol's songs, frontman Gary Lightbody has admitted that he has never learned to do what?

Read music is something he cannot do, and he says he guesses his way through chords. He started writing songs at 15, in a little room under the kitchen of the family home.

Snow Patrol's 2008 single Take Back the City was written about Gary Lightbody's love for which city?

Belfast inspired the song, which Lightbody said was about why his country confused him growing up and why he loves it now. It was the lead single from A Hundred Million Suns.

Snow Patrol's Set the Fire to the Third Bar is named after which household object at Gary Lightbody's aunt's home?

An electric heater with three bars stood in his Aunt Jean's house, and on very cold days she let the children switch on all three. He wrote the song in about twenty minutes.

When Snow Patrol were dropped by their label in 2001, Gary Lightbody sold much of what to keep the band going?

His record collection went to raise cash while the band had no deal and little money. He called the period miserable, but stayed confident that another label would sign them.

Snow Patrol's 2018 album Wildness missed the UK number one by fewer than 1,000 sales to which film soundtrack?

The Greatest Showman soundtrack edged it out after a very close chart race, leaving Wildness at number two with first-week sales of 39,118.

Snow Patrol teamed up in 2008 with which tech company on an interactive app for their album A Hundred Million Suns?

Apple worked with the band on a free iPhone and iPod Touch app for the album A Hundred Million Suns. It gave listeners behind-the-scenes photos and exclusive artwork.

Which singer-songwriter duets with Gary Lightbody on Snow Patrol's 2006 single Set the Fire to the Third Bar?

Martha Wainwright agreed after Lightbody wrote the duet with her in mind; the band had been playing her music during the sessions. It was the last track recorded for Eyes Open.

Nathan Connolly was working in the store room of which music shop chain when Snow Patrol recruited him in 2002?

HMV was his day job when a mutual friend introduced him to the band. He joked that his mother thought he was being kidnapped by rock stars.

Snow Patrol's Open Your Eyes won new listeners after playing over the season twelve finale of which American TV drama?

ER closed its twelfth season with the song, and download sales rose again as more series used it, among them The Black Donnellys, Brothers and Sisters and The Office.

In their broke early years Snow Patrol got into nightclubs by pretending to be members of which Scottish band?

Belle & Sebastian were their far better-known labelmates at the time. Snow Patrol were so short of money that they also slept on fans' floors after concerts.

Gary Lightbody wrote Snow Patrol's breakthrough ballad Run soon after which mishap during a drinking bender in Glasgow?

A fall down stairs at the Glasgow School of Art bar left him with a split head, a closed eye and a few missing teeth. Drummer Jonny Quinn found him in the stairwell.

Snow Patrol's 2009 single Just Say Yes was first written for which American pop star, who turned it down?

Gwen Stefani rejected the song, which Lightbody had written at his US label's request. Nicole Scherzinger then recorded it for a solo album that was shelved, so the band took it back.

For a 2005 Amnesty International campaign Snow Patrol covered Isolation, a song by which former member of the Beatles?

John Lennon's song was their contribution to the Make Some Noise campaign, and the cover later appeared on the 2007 tribute album Instant Karma.

Tom Simpson, a DJ who befriended Gary Lightbody at university, played which instrument in Snow Patrol until 2013?

Keyboards were his job from the debut album, where he added synthesizers and turntable effects. He toured with the band for years before becoming a full member in 2005.

Snow Patrol played a 2007 homecoming show to around 30,000 people in Ward Park in which County Down town?

Bangor is the home town of Gary Lightbody and drummer Jonny Quinn, and the band headlined a mini-festival there on 1 September 2007.

Which former guitarist of punk band Compulsion produced five Snow Patrol studio albums in a row from Final Straw?

Jacknife Lee had no rock production experience when he took on Final Straw, being known for his work with Basement Jaxx and Eminem. He stayed on through Wildness in 2018.

Which member of R.E.M., one of Gary Lightbody's heroes, joined the Snow Patrol singer's supergroup Tired Pony?

Peter Buck signed up for the country-tinged project, which recorded its debut album, The Place We Ran From, in Portland, Oregon in January 2010.

Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody founded which Scottish supergroup with members of Mogwai, Idlewild and Arab Strap?

The Reindeer Section began with a drunken challenge at a Lou Barlow gig in Glasgow, and Lightbody wrote an album the next day. The group released two records, in 2001 and 2002.

Snow Patrol's 1999 Best New Band award from the magazine Hot Press is named after which late Irish rock star?

Phil Lynott's name is on the trophy, which arrived a year after the band's debut album, Songs for Polarbears, won over critics but failed to sell.

Which Irish poet, discovered at school, inspired Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody to write and is named in a B-side title?

Seamus Heaney's work, met at Campbell College, set him writing poetry and songs of his own. The B-side Reading Heaney to Me refers to the poems throughout.

Sessions for Snow Patrol's A Hundred Million Suns were disrupted at dusk by which animals invading the studio?

Bats flew constantly around the windows as night fell, and Gary Lightbody said he once found one in his room. The band made the album over the summer of 2008.

Jonny Quinn drummed one-handed on Snow Patrol's Signal Fire after injuring himself in an accident doing which sport?

Snowboarding left him injured in January 2007, shortly before the band went into Grouse Lodge studios to make the song for a film soundtrack.

Snow Patrol's first EP, made under the name Shrug, was titled after a debate over how to spell which food?

Yogurt, set against the spelling yoghurt, gave the student band its first EP title. They later dropped the name Shrug to avoid a clash with American bands that were also using it.

Snow Patrol spent part of summer 2008 recording A Hundred Million Suns at Hansa Studios in which European capital?

Berlin's Hansa Studios shared the work with Grouse Lodge in County Westmeath, Ireland. Gary Lightbody said the rawness of the single Take Back the City came from Hansa.

Snow Patrol's Open Your Eyes was a particular radio hit in which South American country, placing 21st for the year?

Brazil gave the song particular success, and the country's year-end airplay chart had it at number 21. The single was later certified double platinum there.

Which independent label released Snow Patrol's first two albums before dropping the band in 2001?

Jeepster hoped the band would grow by word of mouth without heavy promotion. Hot Press magazine called the decision to drop them brainless.

Snow Patrol's breakthrough album Final Straw won the Album Award at which British music ceremony?

The Ivor Novellos honoured the album's writers, among them Iain Archer, who co-wrote Run during his spell as the band's guitarist.

The video for Snow Patrol's Open Your Eyes is made of footage from a 1976 short film by which French director?

Claude Lelouch filmed C'était un rendez-vous as a high-speed dawn drive through Paris, and had never before let anyone reuse the footage.

Snow Patrol gave up the name Polarbear because of a rival band fronted by a former bassist of which American group?

Jane's Addiction bassist Eric Avery was leading a band called Polar Bear, so the trio changed names in 1997, not long after releasing the Starfighter Pilot EP.

In 1998 Snow Patrol narrowly missed out on a worldwide Philips advert, which went instead to which British band?

Gomez were signed for the campaign in the year Snow Patrol released their debut album, which critics liked but few people bought.

Which closing track of Snow Patrol's A Hundred Million Suns joins three songs into the band's longest recording?

The Lightning Strike runs to sixteen minutes and eighteen seconds, and grew out of a fierce storm that caught Gary Lightbody one night in Glasgow.

Gary Lightbody reportedly wrote Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars in a Kent garden after a binge on which drink?

White wine was the culprit, and the garden belonged to the cottage of the band's producer. The song became Snow Patrol's biggest-selling single.

Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody received which honour in the 2020 New Year list for services to music and charity?

OBE stands for Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and the citation covered his work in Northern Ireland. He had set up the Lightbody Foundation to support charities in July 2019.

Snow Patrol wrote the new song I Won't Let You Go for the soundtrack of which 2014 film?

Divergent used the track in 2014, in the middle of the seven-year gap between the albums Fallen Empires and Wildness.

For their 2009 Late Night Tales mix album Snow Patrol recorded a cover of New Sensation by which band?

INXS had the original, and every compiler in the Late Night Tales series has to add a track of their own. Gary Lightbody and Tom Simpson put the mix together.