After touring for two and half years on the back of Final Straw Snow Patrol decamped to County Kerry in Ireland to get away from it and write for two months. It was exactly what the band needed – it allowed them the time and space to really plot their next move. But before too long the itch needed to be scratched, and the band headed out on tour for a further six months, resulting in some of the new songs that are now part of Eyes Open being tested on the road before they were recorded.

All in all, Snow Patrol ended up spending ten weeks recording their fourth album, finishing it in January. They started touring the record over two months ago already, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. It fits well; it’s a more aggressive record in both sound and intent, and so far the crowd reaction has been, in frontman Gary Lightbody’s estimation, nothing short of amazing.

“We’ve been playing lots of new songs and so far everybody’s really liked them, across the board,” he says. “The fans are the most important thing to be honest, and it’s just been amazing.”

Final Straw marked the point where Snow Patrol went from being another group busy doing their thing to one who took off around the world, but Gary never had any inkling that this was going to take place. Success breeds the sort of ambition that can be heard on Eyes Open, and few have been as successful as the likes of Snow Patrol in coming from nowhere to be a global smash. Their previous record was their third, but first to really break through worldwide, positioning them as the Sebadoh your aunt and uncle liked. The success of that album made the decision of the location for the recording of Eyes Open that much easier – Snow Patrol were in the position where they were able to dictate their terms.

“It would have been easy for us to go to L.A. and do it there,” Gary confirms, :but that would have been really not like us at all, as people.”

Finished a few months ago, Eyes Open was once more recorded in the band’s home of Ireland, which made for a more comfortable experience than recording in some bland studio somewhere like Los Angeles. “It’s what we wanted to do,” he says simply and succinctly. “We wanted to go and create our own little environment and have it like that. We knew that it was going to be tough and we were going to have to work hard, so we wanted to have the most relaxing environment as possible.”

The writing process different somewhat this time around in that it was a lot more collaborative. “Somebody would come in with an initial idea, we’d quarrel and then the five of us would work on it together,” he deadpans. “We’d never really worked like that before.”

It certainly made the record bigger and bolder and broader, and more ambitious to boot. “I think we upped our game because of it,” he confirms. “I guess we wanted to push ourselves as far as we could and see what happened, and the more we pushed ourselves and the harder we worked – and we worked harder than we’ve ever worked – and then the harder we worked the more fun it became, to be honest. We’ve never had this much fun making a record. Go figure; we actually enjoy work!”

Now that’s just about unheard of; some buggers get all the luck (of the Irish), eh? Snow Patrol ended up making the record with the same producer as last time, Garrett Lee. They elected to work with him because not only did it work so well last time, but more than that Gary believes he’s just an incredible person who has become part of the Snow Patrol family. He’s definitely someone who he believes he’ll work with on future Snow Patrol releases.

“I think it makes everything easier really, because he has an amazing mind coupled with a work ethic that I’ve never seen before,” Gary says of the recording process with his dear friend. “He works 17, 18 hours a day, so that inspires you to attempt to do the same. I think that’s why we worked so hard on this record, because I guess we started to try and work as hard as he was out of guilt initially, and then we got to like it; we got to like that sort of schedule. He’s just a really good mate now, and it’s easy working with him.”

Snow Patrol already have some of the songs ready to make the next record, but realise that the actual time to get back into the studio probably won’t come until 2007, at the absolutely earliest. “If we had some time off I’d be the studio right now putting down some ideas but it just means that when we do get into the studio we’ll be bursting at the seams.”

Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open is out now, with the band touring for Splendour in the Grass, as well as playing solo shows. Dates to come next week!