The Script (band) life and biography

Three young Dubliners Danny O’Donoghue, Mark Sheehan and Glen Power took on the world, with music fashioned from the emotional detritus of their own hard lives raised up by a love of pop, rock, hip hop and soul. In two years they’ve notched up a handful of hit singles around the world, including “We Cry”, “Breakeven” and “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved”. Their 2008 self-titled debut album, The Script, went to number one in the UK and Ireland, and is now approaching 2 million sales worldwide. They’ve played stadium shows with music heroes U2, Take That and Sir Paul McCartney, and to cap it all, “Breakeven” – which has already sold over 1.7 million downloads in the U.S. alone – rewrote history here in America on Billboard’s Adult Pop Songs radio airplay chart to take the # 1 spot where the song completed a record-setting 36-week rise to the summit.
But that was just the first draft. It’s now time to write a whole new Script.

The scene is a recording studio in London. Handsome, dark haired Danny O’Donoghue is The Script’s charismatic vocalist and keyboard player. Shaven headed Mark Sheehan is their intense, loquacious guitarist. Third member, friendly but taciturn drummer and multi-instrumentalist Glen Power is in an adjoining studio, laying down a beat. Danny and Mark cannot sit still. They are leaping about to the music blasting from huge speakers, an addictive blend of hip hop rhythms, flowing melodies, sparkling hooks and emotive, story-spinning lyrics, with Danny’s mellifluous soulful vocals riding high over huge, anthemic choruses. This is their forthcoming second album, Science & Faith, and it’s fair to say the band is excited.

“We’ve gone from playing small clubs to performing in theatres, at festivals and in stadiums,” says Mark. “It’s a little bit shocking to us as new band, playing to these mass audiences. And we feel we have to touch everybody, hit ever fucker in there.”

“I’m just so excited about this record,” declares Danny. “We are more confident about our sound, so you really want to fine tune your writing skills. Find the essence of what we do songs that mean something that people would like to sing out loud at a concert.” “We’ve had to really think about who we are, what we are, and why it matters,” continues Mark. “Take all that experience and try and do something positive with it. We really just want to nail that last album. Put it to the wall.”

The studio door flies open, and in bursts drummer Glen. “I’ve nailed that track lads!” he declares. “Wait til you hear it! I’ve got blisters on my hands!”

The Script are like this all the time, highly passionate, sincere and poetically articulate, with a tendency to talk over each other in their eagerness to express themselves. The journey to their new album has been a strange one, with many twists and turns. Danny and Mark met in their early teens in Dublin, and had a long struggle for musical recognition, albeit picking up early admirers for their prodigious songwriting talent in U2. They somehow wound up in the U.S., working as songwriters and producers with such R&B heroes as Dallas Austin, Teddy Riley and The Neptunes. A chance encounter with Glen focussed their ideas on making their own music, and the trio was formed. But in the midst of recording their debut album in Dublin, both Mark’s mother and Danny’s father passed away, inspiring bittersweet live favorite “The End Where I Begin”. A meteoric rise through the world’s charts followed but, even at the moment of their greatest triumph, they found themselves having to keep their pride in check, as their native Ireland sank into a devastating economic crisis, amongst the hardest hit of European nations following the credit crunch.

Their songs came thick and fast. “Exit Wounds”, about the damage relationships can wreak. “You Won’t Feel A Thing”, about suffering all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to protect your most loved ones. “Nothing” about a drunken, broken hearted phone call to a lost love (“We’ve all been there,” as Danny says). “Don’t Change A Thing” about always leaving the door open for the possible return of a loved one. And the title track, “Science & Faith”, about the primacy of love in the universal equation. “With all of these subjects, we're always trying to attack at a level where it’s optimistic,” insists Danny. “We're dealing with complex emotions in the simplest of ways, that's what we battle with in these songs.”

The Script are songwriters of the first order, combining thoughtful, heartfelt lyrics with lush melodies. They still pronounce themselves incredulous that Paul McCartney personally asked The Script to support him at a series of American stadium shows. “That was pretty mad, that he loved our songs, he knew them, came and watched us while we were playing on stage,” says Mark. “He said the reason he picked us was our message is very humble and honest. We're not preaching, we invite people into our world, and our experiences, and to relate to us. He felt like we were dealing with important stuff.”

There can surely be no higher honor for a songwriter than the imprimatur of a Beatle. But that’s where The Script operate, in the highest realms of pop, easily accessible yet artistically, emotionally and spiritually resonant. “I don’t see us as anything other than lads from Dublin,” admits Mark. “I don’t feel like I‘m in some big band. We come in and we make really heartfelt music. I get to really express myself in this band. And that’s as far as it goes for me. I’m not trying to change the world. I’m not trying to heal anybody. I generally find most of these songs are healing myself because getting them out has certainly helped externalise the feelings. “The End Where I Begin” is such a poignant song for us, from losing parents, that when we play it people ask ‘do you feel like your reopening those wounds every night?’ Well, yeah, I honestly do. I set myself up for that song, I remind myself why it was written and what it was all about, and then we play it. Yet it’s not tough for me at all. I feel justified. I feel like I’m actually sharing something that you all relate to. You have all lost somebody too. You can all understand exactly where this is coming from. And it feels good to do that.”

Danny once explained what The Script actually means: It’s the journey from a feeling of devastation in the pit of my stomach, for me to be able to think about that, put it into words, to be able to sing it, a band to play it, for you to hear it, to go to your brain, to understand it and for you to replicate that same feeling. It’s such an amazing thing. You couldn’t work it out with a calculator. But that’s what we try and do.

Meanwhile Mark added: And that’s the pay off, the thought of some person somewhere sitting in their apartment putting our music on because they are hurting and we’re the soundtrack to that emotion, whatever is going on in their life. That to me is the greatest power of music. And I cannot get over that they might choose our record. Cause I do that. I sit in a room and pick out a song to articulate my feelings. It floors me every time.

The Script’s second album, Science and Faith, was released on the 13th September 2010. It reached number 1 on the UK album chart and the Irish album chart. The first single titled For The First Time peaked at number 4 in the UK charts. The second single from the album will be Nothing.

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