Snow Patrol terrorized by bats while recording new album

Scottish rock band Snow Patrol has begun recording its fifth album in Ireland, and all would be fine were it not for a severe bat problem - so says frontman Gary Lightbody in a blog on the group's website.

"We are in the depths of Ireland living in a little house by a lake making guitar shaped noise by day and making guitar shaped pasta by night," writes Lightbody. "As the sun goes down the bats come out. They swoop just outside the bay windows of the living room and we watch and ohh and ahh. Two nights ago Tom closed the window after I joked about the potential chaos that would ensue if one flew through it. A Keystone Cops style flapping of wings and arms and shouting and bumping into each other no doubt. Well still with that ringing in my ears I when to my room turned on the light to find what?.... Yes, a bat."

According to Lightbody, it took the band's industrious drum tech, Graemo Hunter, to devise a "lights off, door open, door closed, lights on system" that seemed to rid the house of all flying critters. "If it weren´t for our Graeme we´d be covered in bats still. Clothed in them. Like the batsuit but made of live bats and no superhero within."

Airborne evil spirits aside, Lightbody reports that the first week of recording has been a breeze. "Some loveliness is happening and it's very exciting to hear songs I've been demoing over the last year or more spring to noise-covered life."

By Joe Bosso