![\"Snow\"](\"http:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/02\/post-qmagazine_250x309.jpg\" "\\"Snow\\"")
Few singers can claim to have watched their careers take off while serving an eight-month jail sentence for attacking a man with a crowbar, but that`s where Toronto-born toaster Darrin ‘Snow’ O`Brien found himself on the eve of the release of his debut single Informer.<\/p>\n
O`Brien was out in time to see the song climb to Number 2 in the UK in March 1993, but his criminal record put the brakes on his career, and he sank back into obscurity.<\/p>\n
But what`s he up to these days? And has he managed to keep his nose clean?<\/p>\n
Snow: ‘People thought it was strange that a white guy was singing reggae, but i grew up in a housing project that was half Irish and half Jamaican. I just filled my brain with it, and suddenly i was doing it myself. In 1989, i went to jail for a year for attempted murder.’ (He denied stabbing a man outside a pub.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
‘I used my time inside to hone my skills. If you can sing in jail and not get killed, you know you`re OK. After i got out, i went down to New York, i wasn`t looking for a record sing, and suddenly i was making an album.’<\/p>\n
‘Unfortunately, i went to jail again in 1991’ (He pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm, after the incident with the crowbar), ‘Just before Informer came out. By the time i was released, it was a big hit in Europe. That was weird – i went to jail in a paddy wagon and came out in a limo.’<\/p>\n
‘Informer sold three million copies, but i was kicked out of America because of my criminal record, and i was banned from Japan, too. My US record company just gave up on me. I`ve done a few albums since then but they only got released in Canada. I was finally allowed back into the US five months ago, so now i`m getting out there to tell people what happened. I`m not angry though because i`m better now anyway.’<\/p>\n
‘I`m working on a new record right now, which i hope to get rolling later this year. People tell me i paved the way for Eminem. He paved his own way, but he got it easy. I came just after Vanilla Ice, and people were saying, what the hell is this guy doing singing in patois? I had to win people over the tough way. I`m still banned from Japan, though.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Few singers can claim to have watched their careers take off while serving an eight-month jail sentence for attacking a man with a crowbar, but that`s where Toronto-born toaster Darrin ‘Snow’ O`Brien found himself on the eve of the release of his debut single Informer. O`Brien was out in time to see the song climb […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,11,131,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dsnow.co.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}