KEY POINTS:
About three years ago I interviewed Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol and we scoffed our way through a plate of sandwiches.
It was all very casual. He was a laid-back soul, leaning forward on to his knees most of the time and studying his sandwich before every mouthful.
Back then, even though their breakthrough album Final Straw was about to blow up thanks to the song Run, he had no idea he was on the verge of being the front man for one of the decade's biggest-selling bands.
More than 5 million album sales later and not much has changed. "I still like sandwiches," laughs Lightbody on the phone from the band's base in Glasgow. "I don't think I've changed much but we seem to have less time these days and that probably makes for ... well, by rights I should have less patience, but I don't think I have."
He says the band, made up of drummer Jonny Quinn, bass player Paul Wilson, guitarist Nathan Connolly and keyboard player Tom Simpson, are open about saying if one of them is being "inappropriate" or "uncouth".
"And we all have amazing parents. We were all brought up well and we're not about to start having caviar fights and threatening stewardesses. It's not really in our nature. Not that we have any caviar lying around though," he laughs again.
With the release of Eyes Open they sold more albums than any other act in Britain last year and it's safe to say they're bigger than the Arctic Monkeys. In New Zealand they played a sold-out concert earlier this year and they play a bigger show at Vector Arena on September 14. Meanwhile, Eyes Open has sold more than 45,000 copies here since it was released a year ago.
As front men go, Lightbody is unremarkable in looks and demeanour. He doesn't swagger or pose, he's hardly dangerous, and he never says anything controversial (although in a recent interview he admits he was an "arsehole" when things didn't take off for Snow Patrol after 10 years as a band). Lucky then that Lightbody writes a good song, although even some of those are pretty harmless.
So why are a nice soft rock band like Snow Patrol so big?
Chasing Cars, a beautiful song from Eyes Open, helped when it was played on hit TV show Grey's Anatomy.
"We went from the top 100 on iTunes to No 1 after it was on. That was amazing for us in terms of America," says Lightbody.
Snow Patrol have toured America 14 times since the release of Final Straw - "We really worked hard over there," he deadpans - but no amount of touring could beat the exposure they got from being on Grey's.
"In some ways it's great and in some ways it's not so great. "I don't want to slag it off because it's done us a lot of good but whenever you put anyone's music to a set of visuals you're forever associating the scene with that song and it takes away from the meaning of the son.
"It puts a brand new meaning on it, especially when 25 million people watch it in the States and you just become that band from Grey's Anatomy and that to me is a little disheartening because we are so much more than Chasing Cars. "Not too many bands have a worldwide hit so you can't be too annoyed by it."
Even Lightbody struggles to explain their popularity and prefers to look at it in terms of why they make music.
"It's always been the same for us, we make music because we love it and we spent 10 years in a band who did the toilet tour of the UK and if we had any kind of ambition to be as big as we are now then we would've stopped years before that. I don't really know what to say except that it's all we ever wanted."
The first incarnation of Snow Patrol, Shrug, formed in 1994 when Lightbody met Quinn and former bass player Mark McClelland at Dundee University in Scotland. Lightbody was ready to pack it in when they were dropped from their record label in 2001 after the release of second album, When It's All Over We Still Have To Clear Up. It was at this point that he started drinking heavily and "acting like a dickhead".
He says he's proud of the band's first two albums although he admits they lacked cohesion and were a little chaotic - "There was no real songwriting involved and I was just trying too many things at one time and my brain was sort of scattered."
Then, with the help of producer Garrett "Jacknife" Lee who gave Lightbody "the confidence to be myself", they came up with Final Straw.
"All the people involved in Final Straw helped me focus on the type of music I wanted to make. It was always about songs and melody but I just think it was sometimes lost in amongst all the experimenting and nonsense.
"We write classic songs in a sense and I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of and I think that's probably what I was. I had a very indie sensibility and was too self-aware, rather than just doing what was always in my heart."
However, he says there will always be a hint of Snow Patrol's indie roots and a song like Make This Go On Forever from Eyes Open, with its unrelenting wash of soft distortion, is proof.
Lightbody is happy with the band's no-frills approach to music and rates recent visitors to New Zealand, Bloc Party and Editors (both of which use Lee as a producer), among Snow Patrol's contemporaries.
"It's great to see bands whose main passion is the music and not the peripheral stuff of women, drink and drugs. That lifestyle is so outdated these days and it doesn't really happen like that anymore. I guess it does if you want it to be like that but I think less and less people are interested in it to be honest. "It's great to see bands who love music so much and talk about other bands and care about the music rather than perpetuating the myth of themselves.
"Just because we've had a few success records it doesn't really change the way I look at music. I just want to keep it simple. That's been the mantra for the last couple of records and it doesn't necessarily mean you have to dumb down the songs, it just means all the clutter is removed and the song gets to breathe."
Hard work is also a trademark of today's big bands it seems and Snow Patrol have already written 70 songs for the next album. Because they've been touring constantly since the release of Final Straw they're going to take some time off before they start recording.
"We are as passionate and as big a bunch of workaholics as we ever were but we'll stop when the world says stop. You know, when everybody has a meeting and says, `Right, we've really got to get these guys to stop'. We'll take the hint," he laughs.
But one suspects Lightbody is a few years away from declaring the final straw.
THE LOWDOWN
Who: Snow Patrol
Formed: Dundee, Scotland, 1994
Line up: Gary Lightbody (guitar/vocals); Paul Wilson (bass); Jonny Quinn (drums); Nathan Connolly (guitar); Tom Simpson (keyboards)
Where & when: September 14, Vector Arena, Auckland.
Albums: Songs For Polarbears (1998); When It's All Over We Still Have To Clear Up (2001); Final Straw (2003); Eyes Open (2006)
