The Place We Ran From their band-mate, "delighted that [Lightbody was] getting to exercise all his crazy ideas." In October 2009, Lightbody in his blog on Snow Patrol's website revealed the members of the group to be Richard Colburn (of Belle & Sebastian), Iain Archer, singer Miriam Kaufmann (Archer's wife), and Jacknife Lee. He talked about two more members whom he was very excited about, but didn't name them. He also stated that the album won't be country as was being reported, but would be "country-tinged". In January 2010, "Hot Press" reported Peter Buck (of R.E.M.) to be a member of the group. Lightbody described
Gary Lightbody previously wrote for "The Irish Times" music section as guest-editor. As an impassioned music fan and DJ, he recommends in his blogs or essays albums and artists of different and wide-ranging genres of music. In May 2009, Lightbody commenced writing his music column, "Gary Lightbody's Band of the Week", in the magazine "Q The Music.com". In 2011, he wrote as an essayist for "The Huffington Post". As a songwriter/bandleader, he has written songs and lyrics for a wide variety of artists and genres. In 2000, he formed the Scottish supergroup The Reindeer Section, comprising 47 musicians from 20 different bands,