his body" and was never angry towards them. Lightbody has credited their manager with keeping the band together in those years. McIntosh had a gold-coloured splitter bus, in which the band used to travel to play concerts. Jeepster dropped Snow Patrol in 2001, a decision that was criticised by Hot Press magazine as brainless. By July 2001, many major labels had started showing interest in the band, who were cash-strapped and had no record deal. Lightbody sold a major part of his record collection to raise money to keep the band going. The singer calls the time "miserable" but he was confident they would get signed to another label quickly. However, the music scene in the United Kingdom had turned its attention to American bands, and British bands were not getting signed. The group spent this time constantly writing songs. Lightbody, bored at this point, assembled The Reindeer Section, a Scottish supergroup, and found a record label to release the project's recordings. Quinn said that though the time was hard for everyone involved except for Nathan, the question of splitting up never arose. It was during this time the band wrote "Run" (which had been around since 2000) in a room on an acoustic guitar, which later became the band's breakthrough single. The band's "low point" came when they played a concert to eighteen people at a popular strip club in High Wycombe. The show took place in a shoddy VIP area, and the management had to unscrew poles used by pole dancers to make space for the band to play, something that Gary would later joke about whilst performing at a sold-out Wembley Arena. Quinn calls the show "horrendous". Desperate for attention, the band raised £200 to nominate themselves for a Mercury Prize but failed to get shortlisted. Final Straw (2002–2005) In 2002, Snow Patrol began to be managed and published by Jazz Summers of Big Life. Guitarist Nathan Connolly, previously a member of the band File Under Easy Listening, had been working in an HMV store room in Belfast at the time. Connolly and the band had a mutual friend, who introduced them to him. Connolly moved to Glasgow to join Snow Patrol in the spring of 2002. During Lightbody and McClelland's years at the University of Dundee, they had been noticed by Richard Smernicki, a senior student. Richard's brother Paul had come to know the band as