Iain Archer is no stranger to success. But now, after Snow Patrol, he is making a name on his own, writes Tony Clayton-Lea
The man before me is a shattered figure. He looks bedraggled, weather-beaten, unwashed and in need of a good week's sleep. And quite right, too. For Iain Archer is one of the busiest, brightest sparks on the circuit board.
He's running here and there, performing under his own steam and as guitarist for The Amazing Pilots. He's just come back from the SXSW festival, in Texas, where he and his band impressed the people that fledgling acts are meant to impress. The past year has also seen the Bangor-bred songwriter come out from under the canopies of The Reindeer Section and Snow Patrol - a hot act in the UK recently - and forge his own identity through his new solo album, Flood The Tanks. And did we mention that he helps out at shelters for the homeless?
"It's really exciting at the moment, and the suddenness of it all has taken me slightly by surprise," Archer says of his seemingly unstoppable flight towards mainstream success. "It's definitely a good thing, though; it's not something I'm running away from, that's for sure. I'm not shy of the hard graft."
Archer's background makes for salutary reading. He has been a musician for almost 15 years, travelling from Bangor to Glasgow, where in the mid-1990s he recorded two folksy records, Playing Dead and Crazy Bird, in quick succession for the independent Scottish label Sticky. Positive reception from music critics and real people alike brought him to the attention of John Martyn and David Gray, each of whom he has supported.
But life plays strange tricks, and just when Archer looked set to capitalise on the resurgence of the acoustic guitar he decided to head down to London. Fear of painting himself into a demographic corner where he might have ended up playing to audiences that were into "safe, acoustic-driven singer-songwriters" spurred him to break out of the music- industry cocoon and work in a hostel for homeless young people.
"It was a genuine challenge," he says of his humbling hostel work. "It's scaled down now, but I remember it as being rewarding and a constant test. Working solely within music can get you swallowed up: there's not a lot of reality there, it has to be said. So I found it very rewarding to share a lot with vulnerable people. I'd cook meals, wash floors and the like; it opens up more and more experiences that these people have had.
"Some have had harrowing lives, and compared to them I've had a remarkably secure upbringing. It's also difficult to feel that you can bring something to them. All you can say to them is that you can give them support, not necessarily completely understand them." Archer insists that a certain sense of the occupation be highlighted: "I always mention it with the highest regard for people whose actual job it is to look after people that aren't as lucky as others. I certainly wouldn't set myself up as a saint, that's for sure."
Music projects kept rearing their heads but nothing, he remarks, seemed right. Thoughts of giving up music altogether drifted in and out of his mind. "The question of quitting came up now and again, but the answer was there almost before the question was asked. Thinking of quitting came at moments of severe discouragement, that point where you start scratching your head and asking why. But then you come back around and start writing songs again."
If working in the real world held his life together, it was music that clasped his heart. Before too long life led him to Glasgow again, in the shape of Snow Patrol and The Reindeer Section, both collectives informed by the songwriting talents of, among others, Gary Lightbody. Invited to join Snow Patrol on the road and in the studio, Archer immersed himself once more in the bubbling waters of rock 'n' roll Babylon. He emerged, soaked in a type of baptismal energy, with a UK top-five single in the form of Snow Patrol's Run.
Archer, then, comes across as a perfect example of someone whom good things have happened to when he hasn't given up. "You find out what it is that makes you write songs," he says. "If you stop doing it for any goal other than as a means of expressing yourself, then it's not good. You learn why you do it in the first place and what it's about.
"Striving to keep that continuous connection open with the place where you know the songs come from is very easy, especially if you're writing to demand at times. If, however, you are asked to write a certain type of song, then the creative process takes on a slightly more functional aspect. And that ends up making you feel sick.
"There's so much value in the way things get stripped away and you get back down to basics. It helps you to re-evaluate and to make you understand why you're in this job in the first place."
Continuing to do what his heart, if not his head, urges him to do: is it down to a sense of commitment through creativity or perseverance through desperation? It is what it is, says Archer. It is what it is? Er, that's not much of an answer, is it? He shakes the mess of hair on his head and smiles through his tiredness.
"It's not so much not having anything else to do," he says, "but more I don't do anything else. Why stop believing that my songs can't get out there and be heard by other people? Ultimately, what kept me going was the knowledge that I had a sense of purpose. There was never a second or a third choice for me: songwriting was the only choice I had to make."
• Flood The Tanks is on Bright Star. Iain Archer starts a tour of Ireland tomorrow at the Lobby, in Cork, visiting Whelan's, in Dublin, An Taidbhearc, in Galway, Dolans, in Limerick, Nerve Centre, in Derry, Auntie Annies, in Belfast, and the Spirit Store, in Dundalk
