12 INTERVIEWS OF XMAS: The Script - "We’re still in the middle of trying to figure out what’s right to do. Some days are great. Some days aren’t"

Originally published in Hot Press in August 2024:

“It was the story of rags to riches for us,” Danny O’Donoghue reflects at one point during our interview, from a relatively quiet backstage corner of Stuttgart’s massive MHPArena. “Going from not having two pennies to rub together, to playing Croke Park.

“But,” he continues, “the story flipped over. All of that was a dream, but the dream turned into a nightmare – and now we have to somehow salvage what we can out of the embers of that burning building. We’re in the middle of that right now.”

I’ve caught the singer pre-show, in the middle of The Script’s run of European dates as special guests on P!NK’s lauded Summer Carnival Tour. It’s the Dublin-formed group’s first major outing since officially outlining their new direction as a band –  in the wake of the tragic loss of their lead guitarist Mark Sheehan in April 2023, following a brief illness.

In a statement issued earlier this summer, Danny and his bandmate Glen Power told fans that, out of respect to Mark, they intended to continue as a band, but wouldn’t attempt to replicate their classic three-piece line-up. Instead, they said, they were reconfiguring as a four-piece, bringing in bassist Ben Sargeant and guitarist Ben Weaver as official members.

Now, after billions of streams across a remarkable career, spanning the better chunk of two decades, they’re back with Satellites, their first album from this crucial new chapter in The Script’s story. Just a few weeks after our interview, it will debut at No.1 in Ireland, and at No.2 in the UK – proving that, although the band’s shape and approach might be different, the fans have gone nowhere.

“Last year we didn’t feel like we could do any of this,” Danny says of the making of the album. “But it was about having something that we could at least aim for – because, sitting around in the darkness of last year, what else do you do?”

Although they didn’t want to let Mark’s passing signal the end of what they had all built together, Danny notes that approaching how they’d attempt to continue on without him was a “very delicate” thing. That’s why “doing something different”, as a four-piece, felt right, he says.

However, some question marks still loom, as the band continue to work out the best way forward.

“We’re still in the middle of trying to figure out what’s right to do,” Danny nods. “Some days are great. Some days aren’t. People ask, ‘Was there ever a day where you felt like, Maybe we shouldn’t continue on?’ And there’s always that day – I’ve had that day numerous times. We may even look back on Satellites in ten years time and go, ‘Fuck, man. We shouldn’t have done that album, because it’s so grief-stricken.’ But right now I’m just so proud of us getting through the past year-and-a-half.

“And we’re all together in this,” he adds. “To not continue on would feel like I’m not honouring his memory in the best possible way.”

The Script at Croke Park. June 2015

Danny’s history with Mark stretched back even further than The Script – back to their days as bandmates in the ‘90s pop group MyTown. Over the past year, the singer has been strikingly open about his grief, and the various struggles that come with it.

“I don’t see the point in being closed about it,” he reasons. “It’s been over a year-and-a-half now, and there’s not a day goes by where I don’t think about him. But there’s also not a day that goes by where I don’t talk about him. So it’s cathartic, in a way. And I feel it’s important to show how I’m getting through grief. I’m not telling anybody else how to get through theirs – I’m just showing people how I’m getting through mine.”

As Danny notes, “everybody goes off the rails when one of their loved ones dies.” He found himself struggling with alcohol, before deciding to get sober in January – giving up “drink, cigarettes, caffeine, everything,” he tells me.

“Considering the circumstances that I’m in right now, I’ve never been more level,” he reflects. “I’ve never been more open to dealing with feelings. And yeah, it stings a lot – because [when you’re drinking,] you’re running for something to cloak over you, to hide from the world. But just because you pull the cover over your head doesn’t mean the world disappears.”

Of course, Ireland isn’t always the easiest place to embrace sobriety.

“It’s probably the only thing that I feel is bad about Ireland,” he agrees. “I love Ireland with all my heart, but the drinking culture there? It’s probably one of the worst places to give up. It’s part of our culture. It’s almost like you’re handing your passport back, when you say you don’t want to drink anymore.”

“It’s funny – if I said, ‘I don’t want mayonnaise on my sandwich’, people wouldn’t be like, ‘Why? Are you addicted to mayonnaise? Have you got a problem with mayonnaise?!’” he laughs.

Danny also notes that he’s not putting pressure on himself to be “totally off it for good”.

“For right now, I just need to digest all of these feelings and these emotions in real time, because there’s massive life decisions being made,” he says. “[Mark’s] family, our fans, my life, Glen’s life, our kids – all of those people can be severely affected by the slightest dropping of the ball right now. So I need to be well aware of all the decisions that I’m making – and I feel being stone cold sober is the best way to do that.”

He also struggled with writer’s block last year – and found it particularly difficult to express his feelings about Mark’s death in his songwriting.

“Obviously everyone’s expecting a song about that, or even a song to lean on that,” Danny resumes. “So there was a bit of pressure there – but I just didn’t have the right words to say how I felt.

“And then this lyric just said the right thing to me: ‘Like a shooting star across the sky, in a second you were gone / Why do stars that light up twice as bright only burn for half as long?’”

Those words ultimately became the chorus of one of the album’s emotional yet propulsive stand-out tracks, ‘Gone’.

“He wasn’t someone who’d get down about stuff,” he says of Mark. “He’d rather celebrate a life than grieve a loss. I would probably be more the balladeer in the band, and he would be like, ‘You need a bit of grit, and a bit of dirt in there – and a bit of fucking pace, and a bit of balls!’ So I feel if I’d written a ballad about him, he wouldn’t have been happy!

“It was the first song that came along like that, and I got over the writer’s block,” he adds. “It was like the world opened up to me.”

Going to therapy also proved crucial in helping Danny to reconnect with the world.

“I’ve been in dealing with a therapist for about a year now, and I just find that it’s a fucking amazing thing to do – to be able to go and offload everything that’s in me onto somebody else, and get actual professional help,” he reflects.

“Going to a therapist, it’s like being able to wipe my fucking shoes at the door before I get into the house – so I can actually be a boyfriend to my girlfriend,” he continues. “I can be a friend to my friends. I can be there for the people who are around me.”

Danny – who recently announced his engagement to his partner Anais Naing  – has developed other methods for maintaining a positive headspace in his personal life too. He works out, and goes kickboxing, several times a week – and regularly attends mass.

“I enjoyed growing up in and around the church,” he tells me. “I was an altar boy, and I sang in church at every opportunity I could.

“But obviously there were scandals in the church,” he adds. “And growing up as a teenager, you rebel against unwarranted authority controlling you, and controlling your life. That’s a natural thing, as a teenager – to rage against the machine. I went to a Christian Brothers school, so my teachers were like priests. That was ‘the establishment’ to me.”

But even while he was questioning organised religion in his younger years, he says that he was always “massively spiritual”. Looking at the world these days, he worries that “when you remove religion completely from a society, a very evil thing starts to come in its place.

“You need to be very careful of what you take out, because you don’t know what’s going to be put back in,” he claims. “And we’re seeing that now. With the internet, everybody’s so segregated, and people don’t really know where their morals or values are.  It’s quite difficult to find out where to get your cues from.”

His own “connection to God”, or “connection to whatever else is out there”, largely revolves around “practising gratitude and forgiveness”.

“I’m not preaching from a pulpit here,” he says. “I believe as much as my mind can believe – but I know that I’m smart enough, to know that I’m dumb enough, to know that I’ll never know. And I’m fine with that. I wouldn’t sit here and debate if there’s a God or if there isn’t, because I wouldn’t have any answers to that. All I know is that it’s worked for me.”

Credit: Jordan Rossi

Danny’s also been grateful – if somewhat surprised – to witness the rise of a brand new generation of The Script fans, who’ve been sharing their music widely on TikTok this year.

“It’s been crazy to see,” he remarks. “They grew up with our music, but they’re really listening to the lyrics now that they’re older. So ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’, ‘Breakeven’ and ‘Hall Of Fame’ are all on this crazy TikTok thing right now – with kids out there miming the lyrics. And that’s all we ever wanted to be known for: the songs.”

For now, the band’s main focus is on connecting with fans both old and new on the Satellites World Tour, which comes to Ireland this November. And as for where The Script go from there, Danny is keeping an open mind.

“Who knows?” he smiles. “We never thought we’d get out of Dublin  – so everything else has been a blessing for us...”

• Satellites is out now