The Hour

Emma Curran’s was just 19-years-old when she was plucked from the crowd at a Snow Patrol concert in New York and invited on stage to sing with the band, catapulting her to overnight recognition.

Now three years on, Emma has recorded her very own debut album, and is launching a solo music career, following a series of amazing events.

Check out Emma’s exclusive performance on STV’s The Hour of her single Perfect Isolation.

Speaking about the concert that changed her life forever, she said: “I simply just went along to the gig with my cousin and made the banner which cost me five bucks to make on this big piece of green card…I held it up at the gig and Gary (Lightbody) recognised it, and then came to the big on the gig where they sang a song called Set The Fire To The Third Bar, which is originally on the album sung with Martha Wainwright, and he was asking if anybody would come up on the stage and sign it with him.

“So the banner went back up again, and he said ‘since you’ve travelled all the way from Glasgow come up for a song, and before I knew it I was being thrusted up over this banister and walking over the stage to sing the song.”

Emma’s performance was captured on camera and circulated around the world, making her an overnight sensation. And it wasn’t long before Emma was back on stage with the band.

“The next stage after New York was when I came back to Glasgow and Snow Patrol were doing another gig at King Tut’s, a kind of secret gig for competition winners, and I got tickets to go along and see them and a very similar thing happened to New York,” Emma explained.

“Gary recognised me in the crowd at Tut’s, and said ‘I’ve got a little story to tell you about a girl I me in New York’, and he asked me to come up and sing Set The Fire (To The Third Bar) again, which was a huge privilege to do all over again, and do it in Glasgow, in King Tut’s.”

Emma added: “So things really kicked off after that, that’s when the story really broke here and I started to speak to people, then I got the opportunity to record the album.”

The 22-year-old singer, who is about to finish a degree in nursing, admits that her shot at a music career came out of the blue and that she is extremely lucky – but she wants to make her own way in the business and not rely on using Snow Patrol’s name.

She said: “I’m very keen to give the music a really good go as Emma Curran and not to follow on snow patrol’s coattails, because I’ve been given this opportunity, and I hope people come along to gigs who aren’t Snow Patrol fans, who just hear the record and think ‘I want to check out this girl and see what she’s all about’.”

Find out more about Emma on her MySpace page. Also have a look at Emma’s chat with STV back in 2007.