Snow Patrol have responded to Manic Street Preachers bassist Nick Wire, who called the Irish band “utterly deplorable” and “unredeemingly, utterly shit.”
Ouch!
But Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody isn’t being goaded into fisticuffs. Instead of dishing out disses, he’s offering compliments, and even self-deprecation.
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“Nicky Wire has earned the right to say what he wants, he’s a rock God, so more power to him,” Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody told Scottish newspaper The Daily Record. “We only seem dull on the surface.”
To prove his point, Lightbody took the opportunity to illustrate Snow Patrol’s decidedly un-dull, zany sense-of-humor: “Jonny (Quinn) fights fires. Tom (Simpson) toils shirtless on construction sites, Paul (Wilson) is in the Navy Reserve. Nathan (Connolly) is a volunteer policeman, and I explore my Cherokee ancestry. We’re like the Village People, only slightly less gay.”
Lightbody then took a stab at dissecting the motivations of Patrol-haters: “There are people who despise Snow Patrol and think our music is boring — too mellow, too earnest. But, in our heads, the music we make is vital and passionate,” he said. “‘Chasing Cars’ was an inescapable hit worldwide. People think of us as that band with that song on Grey’s Anatomy and decide to hate us.”
But what might sound like a put-down to some isn’t keeping Lighfoot up at night: “One review said our fourth album would ‘keep Ford Focus drivers happy,'” he said. “Our music appeals to average blokes, not hipsters.”
