Enjoy The Silence - The Script Interview

“I imagine we’re still about 48 behind them, but we want to be on it as many times as U2,” he laughs. “That was always one of our ambitions starting out; get on the cover of Hot Press... and stay there for 35 years!”

He may have been around the rock ’n’ roll block a few times. However, Danny is still as kid-in-a-sweetshop excited about what he does for a living as he was in 2008 when The Script’s self-titled debut album hit the racks.
Today’s 11am interview kick-off was designed to give the chaps a rare lie-in, but Danny was up early to see the YouTube clip of recent US tourmates OneRepublic doing The Script’s Ice Bucket Challenge.
“They did it onstage last night in Houston and nominated Vanilla Ice, Coldplay and the Queen of England,” Danny beams. “We’re still waiting for Imelda May, American Authors, Jessie J, Colin Farrell and Robert Sheehan to accept, so get to it guys!”
“When you say, ‘did The Script’s Ice Bucket Challenge’, can I just point out it was me and Danny who froze our bollocks off, not Mark,” drummer Glen Power interjects.
“They cut me off for not paying my water charge,” Mr. Sheehan lies. “Oh, it hasn’t been brought in yet... okay, I’m just a wuss!”
It took all of three minutes last month for The Script to sell-out their September 13 homecoming show in Dublin Castle.
“We were hoping to sell it out in two minutes, so we’re pissed off!” Mark deadpans. “It’s amazing to think we can still do that after all this time. When you come back, you’re always worried, ‘Are people still going to want to come see us?’ We’re just dying to play Dublin, and wanted to do something special.”
“Dublin Castle hasn’t been played in over ten years,” Danny notes. “As a setting and a venue in your own hometown... it’s going to be very special for us.”
With Dublin Castle ticket demand outstripping supply by several thousand per cent, one imagines the next time The Script play at home it’ll be in Croke Park. Talking of which, what did the lads make of the Garth Brooks debacle?
“I understand the problem the residents have with it,” Danny proffers. “Going back to when we supported U2 there on the 360 Tour, they blocked the road because there were 400 fucking trucks coming back and forth, 24 hours a day. I’m sure over the years they’ve felt hard done by, but I’m sorry, with things as tough economically as they are, the amount of money Dublin’s lost overrides everything.”
“Garth going, ‘If I don’t do the five I’m not doing any at all...’ That’s a bit of ego, isn’t it?” drummer Glen Power takes-over. “It was such a backfire. If you put us in a situation like that – ‘You can’t play here for five nights’ – I know what we’d do; we’d play the fucking gig. I’m not letting the fans down. Bottom-line, I’ll play in the fucking street if I have to. That’s where Garth Brooks failed – he wasn’t thinking of the fans, he was thinking of himself.”

Hitting the streets around 36 hours before they play Dublin Castle, The Script’s new album, No Sound Without Silence, was mainly recorded whilst they were on the road last year in the States.
“We had this bus, which had previously been used by Lil’ Wayne and T-Pain, that was four beds and a studio down the back with our equipment in,” Danny resumes. “The 20,000-seater amphitheatres we were playing all tend to be on the outskirts of town, so we’d park up and instead of doing what we normally do – fucking fighting with each other and stuff – we’d spend the day recording.
“It was brilliant after the gigs too. Going on stage you’re nervous, but coming off it you’ve got all that adrenaline which in the past we either had to drink or smoke away. This time, it all went into the music. Literally 30 minutes after going, ‘Goodnight, Red Rocks!’ we’d be in the bus working on a chorus, still buzzing off the gig.”
“The album’s like an audio photograph of where we were at the time,” says Mark. “‘That guitar solo? New Mexico’. ‘The chorus? Colorado'. Each place had its own energy which imprinted itself on the music.”
While considerably better known/well off than they were during their dank James Street’ shed days, The Script still retain the “us against the world” attitude they started out with.
“Once I left The Voice and we took ourselves out of the public eye, it was back to three lads doing what they love, which is making music together,” Danny explains. “I talk to other bands and it’s like, ‘Bleeding hell, the hard second album!’ but once you escape from the clutches of the press – no offence! – and all that other shit, it’s really not that daunting. If I feel pressure, I’ll write a song about being pressurised. If I feel uncreative, I’ll write a song about feeling uncreative. Good or bad, everything feeds into the music.”
“‘No Sound Without Silence’ was the album mantra from pretty much day one,” Mark expands. “I love and stand-over the last album 100%, but with all the rapping and lyrics and other ideas we packed in, it was a bit exhausting to listen to. This time we thought, ‘Let’s leave space between the words and the notes'.”
“The point at which everything came together was when we recorded ‘Without These Songs’,” says Danny referring to the No Sound Without Silence standout that, over the course of three strings-drenched minutes, manages to namecheck Johnny Cash, Mick Jagger, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Nirvana, Michael Jackson and John Lennon.
“All the good stuff!” Danny beams. “You’ve the juxtaposition between that and ‘Superheroes’, which we knew straight away was the big ‘kerpow, we’re back!’ single.”
And one that’s accompanied by a stunning video shot in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township.
“We wanted to tell the story of how it’s often the smallest people who are going through the biggest battles – and winning,” Mark recounts. “We’ve a bit of an allegiance with South Africa going back to our first time playing there on the Science & Faith tour. Instead of the 5,000 or 6,000 we were expecting, there were 20,000 people the first night, 25,000 the next... it was crazy!
“We had another gig there in June and thought, ‘Why don’t we do something?’ Not to change the world or make ourselves look good, but to acknowledge the people who are doing remarkable things in the hardest of circumstances.”
Venturing into Alexandra, where 58 people were murdered last year, is not something recommended in the guide-books.
“We were warned and warned and warned about how lawless Alexandra can be – the police don’t go in there so we had 40 local guys looking after us – but the vibes couldn’t have been more positive,” Mark continues. “We went down with a 3k rig, built a stage and just started playing. We were jamming all day and the locals didn’t stop dancing and clapping. It was amazing.”
“We were going round, after, thanking them and they said, ‘Will you come back tomorrow so we can sing for you in our youth centre?’ So, we went back without security this time and got stopped by the police who were like, ‘Lads, are youze lost? We think you’ve taken a wrong-turn!’ Thank God they let us through because it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen in my life. There were about 16 women with no professional training putting on this show marking 70-years of women’s liberation in South Africa. They were playing Winnie Mandela and all these other important figures; it was heart-wrenching stuff. They sang from the moment they started. No lights, no nothing, just pure talent. If Oprah Winfrey saw them and put them on her show, it’d be the biggest fucking thing ever.”
So enamoured was Mark of the Alexandra township crew that he’s hoping to bring them over to Ireland for a show.
“I haven’t been able to look into the logistics of it yet, but I would love, love, love for it to happen.”

Another of No Sound Without Silence’s big tunes is ‘Paint The Town Green’, an emigrant’s tale that with couplets like “I know you’re missing home, it’s been so long since you’ve been/ And the life you had in Dublin now is nothing but a dream” will have 'em crying into their Guinness, from Melbourne to Milwaukee.
“And Montreal, Mumbai and Mombassa,” Danny rues. “You’ve 1,000 people being forced to leave every week, which is shameful. Everywhere we go, we run into Irish emigrants, some of whom are in New Zealand, Australia, America or wherever illegally, and can’t go home. Whenever we play abroad there’s an ocean of green, which in one way is great – but in another is really depressing because a lot of them would rather be back in Ireland. We wanted to give those people a song they can claim ownership of. And sing at football games. We have to qualify for the World Cup or the Euros so we can do the song!”
Meanwhile, at home, issues like abortion and gay rights are having an ever more polarising effect on Irish society.
“I think it’s time that people sat down and just bleeding listened to each other for a minute,” Mark ventures. “Facebook and Twitter have given everybody a platform to state their opinions, but they don’t really encourage debate or compromise. ‘This is what I think and if you don’t agree with me you’re a fucking idiot'.
“There were some comments this year about Gay Pride messing up the streets and encouraging people to get shit-faced, but that bloody happens on Paddy’s Day as well. At the same time I’d say to the gay community, ‘If you want people to respect you and give you your day, behave your bloody self. Don’t throw drink and litter on the ground and propagate the stereotype you’re being attacked with'. This is 2014, we’re all here to stay so let’s get along.”
Amen to that! While it doesn’t make the competition any less demeaning or cringeworthy – I’m afraid I’m one of what Niamh Horan calls the ‘Zero LOLs’ brigade when it comes to Lovely Girls pageants – it gladdened my heart when the newly crowned Rose of Tralee, Maria Walsh, revealed that she’s a lesbian.
“Gay people have had a long struggle with acceptance in Ireland, so it’s great to see,” Mark agrees. “Forget about adults for a second: I’m worried more about children who are gay and fight this all their lives and are ending up bloody killing themselves. Suicide becomes a option because they don’t feel society is ready for them to be able to say, ‘I’m gay’. People spew out this prejudice without realising the harm it causes. Or maybe they do realise the harm it causes...”
“I find it hard to grasp that in this day and age there are still closed-minded mentalities,” Danny agrees. “You were talking about Ireland becoming more polarised – that’s healthy when it encourages discussion and debate, but not when you’re unwilling to listen to each other. That can only end one way, which is, ‘Fuck you!’”
You can have reverse fascism, can’t you?
“Yeah, of course,” Danny continues. “We used to be an inherently Catholic society, which means you’ve people who’ve grown up with very solidified opinions. They’re frightened that society’s fucking changing and want to cling onto the past. Shouting at the old guard isn’t going to make them change their minds though. You have to discuss and debate the issues.”
I noticed one of the Gazans I follow on Twitter quoting the, “Every day, every hour turn the pain into power” line from ‘Superheroes’ the other day. Would, if asked, The Script play Israel?
“It’s hard to comment on that type of stuff because we’re not politicians,” Danny says, picking his words carefully. “We don’t know what the actual ramifications of going there are.”
“We’re a people band,” Mark asserts. “When you look at our audience, it’s gay/straight/young/old. Going in and playing is what makes the fucking difference. To be honest, I don’t give a shit about politics; it just convolutes everything. I want us to be the band that gives people a break from politics, if only for a few seconds or minutes.”
Danny had to move back into the family home last year when his mum suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm. How’s she getting on?
“She’s good, she’s doing fantastic, she’s right on the road to recovery,” he tells us. “Obviously she has ongoing issues and has to get checked up – but from where we were a year ago, we’re laughing.”
With their singer needing to be in Dublin, The Script finished No Sound Without Silence off in the familiar environs of Temple Bar’s Sun Studios.
“We did three or four different things there and it was good because what’s a Script album without being here and soaking it up and being able to put Dublin in the songs?” Danny smiles. “It was a weird time, y’know, living back in Baltinteer in me ma’s house, in my old room. I’d be lying in bed and seeing under the fucking windowsills the initials I scraped in there when I was, like, nine-years old.”

Before heading over to the States in May, Danny got to belt out ‘Breakeven’ in the London O2 with Taylor Swift. The Cheshire Cat grin he’s sporting on the inevitable YouTube clip suggests a good time was had by both him and Reading, Pennsylvania’s favourite daughter.
“Taylor, who’s been a mate of mine for a while, rang up on Wednesday morning saying, ‘I want to do ‘Breakeven’ tonight, do you want to buzz down?’ So I buzzed down, did the soundcheck, hung out with her and the band all day, and then just got up and performed it. I don’t know what everyone’s opinions of her are in the press. She’s a lovely person, a real pro and genuine songwriter. She always has a guitar and is churning ‘em out.”
No Sound Without Silence is also notable for what it doesn’t contain, which is guest artists and producers – one of them, by law, Pharrell Williams – that some record company bright spark reckons will broaden your commercial appeal.
“They’re constantly trying to push ‘features’ and remixes on us,” Danny reveals, “but we’re not going to get somebody on a track because somebody else wants it. There has to be a relationship between us and the artist – like there was with Will.i.am – in order for us to even consider fucking doing that.”
So there’s stuff they’ve turned down...
“Oh, shitloads,” he continues. “There’s book offers every bloody month, to the point where we’ve said ‘No’ so many fucking times that they’ve just gone off and written one themselves. There’s a Danny O’Donoghue autobiography out soon that I didn’t fucking write. Basically what he did was go through Hot Press and take every fucking quote that you’ve ever got from me. He’s got three people credited on the front that I’ve never met in my life to help him out with it. I find that a bit strange.”
It’s noticeable that despite being one of the biggest bands in the world, you rarely if ever see The Script splashed over the front of the red tops.
“We just don’t call the paparazzi and tell them where we are, which is usually how it works,” Danny concludes. “We’re private. We don’t go to the fucking Ivy, we’re not in Krystle. We’re musicians. We do the gig and then go home... or to our local!”