SHOWING UP IN PUBLIC

The Script were the guests of honour last week as this year’s Music Show was officially launched in Dublin’s Westin Hotel.

After some welcoming words from Hot Press editor Niall Stokes looking forward to October 3 and 4’s RDS extravaganza, Danny, Mark and Glen took part in a public interview with yours truly followed by a Q&A session where fans and music students were able to quiz the chaps.
Among the wide range of topics discussed were The Script’s recent support slots with U2 and Paul McCartney, their attempts to crack the American market (going rather well by the sound of it), internet piracy, over-amorous San Franciscan cops, close encounters of the diva kind with Mariah Carey and the perils of buying underwear in Penney’s if you’re Danny O’Donoghue!
Welcoming the event, Martin Cullen TD, Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism noted: “The creativity and vibrancy of the Irish music industry has a long and successful tradition both at home and abroad, whether on stage or in the production and recording area. Our culture and the popularity of all kinds of music produced in this country also has a very positive impact in promoting Ireland as a tourist location and enhancing further the reputation of our country’s creative endeavours. The Music Show provides a contemporary showcase to display all that is great about music.”
All of which is true – but, of course, what we’re really interested in are those pop star Y-fronts!
“Oh God,” Danny winces. “I was in Penney’s in the Artane Shopping Centre yesterday buying jocks and socks. I had me hood up, me hat on and was generally trying to scurry through unnoticed. Anyway, the checkout girl looks at me credit card and goes, ‘Danny O’Donoghue? Danny… oh my God, Jaysus!’ She brings all her mates over and I’m like, ‘Thank you very much!’ How embarrassing. ‘Small are they?’”
There was nothing small about the set up in July when The Script opened for U2 in Croke Park. How did they get on with The Claw?
“We weren’t swallowed up by it anyway!” the singer laughs. “That was another milestone for us. We’ve lived in the shadows of U2 for a long, long time in Ireland – them being the most successful band to come out of here. I remember years ago, me and me brother didn’t have money to go to a U2 concert so what he did was put me on the back of his moped and we drove down to Croke Park and sat outside listening to the gig. When I phoned to tell him we’d got the support slot, he was nearly crying saying, ‘I can’t believe how it’s turned out!’
“To be on that stage… Mark was standing where The Edge was going to be in 20-minutes, Glen was in Adam’s position. It was amazing!”
Perhaps Danny could solve the mystery of where the crew were stashed for us. My money’s on under the stage while ace HP lensman Graham Keogh reckons they were up in the rigging.
“I’ve no idea. David Copperfield had a lot to do with it I believe!”
Did Bono pass on any tricks of the rock ‘n’ roll trade?
“The biggest piece of advice that U2 and Paul McCartney both gave us was, ‘Make those people feel like they’re on stage. It’s about being personal and sharing you stories.’ We do it naturally I think through our music, and that’s maybe what people are buying into with The Script. We’re not trying to be the coolest band out there, we’re just trying to be honest.”
The boys came off stage at Croke Park to find that U2 had gifted them a slab of Guinness and two bottles of champagne for Black Velvet-making purposes.
“Bono also sent Guinness and champagne down to one of the first shows we did in New York,” Danny enthuses. “What a gentlemanly thing to do!”
“He also added a very poignant message to the gift written on a card,” Mark Sheehan expands, “which was, ‘This town ain’t big enough for the both of us – so I’m leaving!’”
Having charmed the socks – and maybe even the jocks – off U2, it was over to New York for another batch of stadium shows with Macca.
“We always feel like Forrest Gump meeting President Nixon in those situations, but again Paul was just an absolute gentleman,” Danny resumes. “I was expecting him to be politely insincere, but he was straight into, ‘How are you doing? What’s going on in your head? You’ve gone from clubs to stadiums in one year, how are you as people dealing with that?’ I thought that was great.
“For those who don’t know, Shea Stadium was opened by The Beatles in 1965 – it was their first gig in America and the one that really set it alight for them – and closed by Paul last year,” says Danny switching into rock historian mode. “Because of the association, he was also asked to open the new Shea Stadium, which is now called Citi Field. We thought, ‘We’re actually going on before him, so we’re the first band to play Citi Field – like The Beatles!’”
“All the time we were talking, I had it in my head that the ‘we’ and ‘us’ he was referring to was The Beatles!” Glen Power takes over. “My mind was just, ‘Beatles, Beatles, Beatles!’”
America is a tough nut to crack as the likes of Westlife, Boyzone and Robbie Williams have discovered. Having spent a goodly part of 2009 in the US of A have The Script worked out the magic formula to be a success there?
“One thing we’ve learned is that unlike here or in the UK, you can’t break an act in America through television alone,” Mark proffers. “Everyone drives everywhere – they don’t walk, hence the weight problem! – and they’re listening to radio constantly. If you don’t have radio station support, you’re in trouble.”
Something I’ve noticed about American artists, and this even includes God of Fucks like Marilyn Manson, is that they’re incredibly polite. Do The Script make a point of minding their Ps and Qs when dealing with the media there?
“To a certain extent but, y’know, we’re not the essence of rock ‘n’ roll,” Danny reflects. “We’re not smashing hotel rooms and we’re not cocky people. What we basically try to do is leave a good wake – you don’t have to be an asshole to make it in this industry, you really don’t.”
Danny & Co.’s drinking buddies Aslan said recently that piracy is so out of control they may be forced to stop making albums. What’s The Script’s take on illegal downloading?
“I’m going to offend our label,” Mark acknowledges, “but nowadays records are a promotional item to get people to come and see you live. If somebody’s downloading the album, generally they’re telling their friends so you’re selling more records believe it or not. You’ve got to look at who a downloader is – they’re that kid when you were at school that told everybody about new trends. They mightn’t necessarily be buying it, but they’re telling bloody everybody. It’s a different breed. We’re tipping over a million records at the moment. At last count, we’ve been pirated three hundred and something thousand times. So we’re still outselling the illegal downloads. I don’t think it’s a good excuse to say that piracy is killing a band. What’s killing a band is them not getting off their arses and going out on tour.
“A person nowadays goes, ‘Why should I buy this album, I haven’t seen the band yet’. They download it, go see the band, love it and buy the record. That’s what happens.”
A point of view that will be fiercely debated in October when people from both sides of the download divide descend on the RDS for the Music Show. Also guaranteed to be high up on the agenda is the art of songwriting.
“We write all the time,” says Mark. “It’s in our system. The magic moments come from us as guys just sitting down and talking about our lives. They’re almost therapy sessions. You’ll go, ‘Oh Jeez, I’m having trouble with the mott’ and you have the concept for a song.”
What’s often forgotten is that Mark and Danny are both experienced producers, who are alarmed by some of the directions that craft has taken of late.
“What’s happening right now is that a lot of producers are finding kids who are good looking but aren’t great singers,” rues the latter. “There’s a programme called Auto-tune where you can talk into the microphone and end up sounding like Pavarotti. The problem is that it doesn’t give you the natural timbre of a voice, which means kids who have the Chris Browns and Rihannas of this world as their role models are singing in Auto-Tune. That’s the exact opposite of what music is.”
Before hotfooting it down the road for their second sell-out Olympia show, what are The Script’s “pinch me I’m dreaming moments!” from the past couple of years?
“I was really nervous about Oxegen because a lot of rock people were saying, ‘What are they doing playing the main stage at Punchestown?’” says Mark straight away. “Well, try telling that to the 60,000 or 70,000 people who watched us! That was an absolutely magical moment.”
Danny?
“For me it would have been the day we got to number one – we’re the first band from here to do that in both Ireland and the UK. We’ve all been through so much and it was like saying, ‘Those 10 years have been worth it. There is a god!’ To have put all that effort in with, first, MyTown and now The Script and not got anything out of it would have been really bad for us. I was inconsolable all day because I was thinking about me dad and Mark’s mam (who’ve both passed away in the last year) and how proud they would have been. And Glen had been through a craniotomy – y’know, we nearly lost him.”
“They did lose me, they just don’t know it yet!” Glen jokes. “My moment would have been the first time we actually played in time together. So, last night!”