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Tuesday 14 June 8:46 a.m.
It’s been a rags to riches glory ride, an emotional rollercoaster, an all action, all-star blockbuster. Three young Dubliners 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 notched up a handful of hit singles, including ‘We Cry’, ‘Breakeven’ and ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’.
The scene is a recording studio in London. Two young Irishmen are listening to playback. 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 And Faith’, and it is fair to say the band are excited.
“We’ve gone from playing little clubs to doing theatres, festivals and 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.”
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 US, working as songwriters and producers with such R’n’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 favourite ‘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.
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.”
Get ready for the return of The Script. There are going to be more twists in this tale before it is done.