Page turners

The Script’s label rep is looking more than a tad worried.
“It’s their first major round of Irish interviews, and they’re just too bloody chatty”, she laments. “We’re way behind schedule!”

She can’t really blame them, though – happy to be back in their hometown, Danny O’Donoghue, Mark Sheehan and Glen Power have spent years waiting for an opportunity to swan around a swish D4 hotel suite.
“I’m not used to such posh surroundings,” deadpans Power. “The last time I was somewhere this fancy was to rob it…”
O’Donoghue and Sheehan, in particular, appreciate the significance of talking about their new group; as former members of late-’90s boyband MyTown, they know what career heartbreak is like. A debut album produced by Blackstreet’s Teddy Riley and a reputed multi-million dollar deal wasn’t enough to prevent the quartet’s star being eclipsed by the Backstreet Boys and *N Syncs of the day. So is the mere mention of their pop past enough to raise their respective hackles?
“The fact that the spotlight is shone on that part of my career is annoying,” admits Sheehan, who, like O’Donoghue, has since plied his trade as a producer and songwriter in LA. “I was working so hard to get out of Dublin at the time and I’d been producing for years before MyTown happened. It was a positive experience in many respects, but I’d view it as a blip, to be honest”.
O’Donoghue is equally introspective.
“It’s part of our history, so we’re not ashamed to talk about it. I’m very grateful for the start that I got in the industry back then. Without it, I don’t think we would have made it out of Ireland. We learned a lot about ‘the business’, too”.
It took several years, and over 5,000 miles distance from their inner-city beginnings, for the duo to hook up with drummer Power, and form what would eventually become The Script. It makes sense, then – since they technically formed in the States while Power was paying Sheehan a casual visit – that their pop-rock sound is imbued with a distinctly American bent.
“One journalist described us very eloquently as ‘Van Morrison remixed by Teddy Riley’ or ‘U2 meets Timbaland’, and that’s about right. A kind of Celtic Soul,” nods the deceptively youthful O’Donoghue. “Our Irish identity is very important to us. I firmly believe that you get more song ideas from being in Dublin than from being anywhere else in the world”.
“We decided to come here to write the record, which was probably the best thing for us,” concurs Sheehan. “Ireland is drenched in culture, pain, love, loss – all the great ingredients that go into breeding really good artists. And that travels very well too, because people just love the Irish,” he grins. “The response we’ve been getting from some of the UK crowds while on tour with The Hoosiers has been absolutely crazy. I think they were getting a bit annoyed – they were like, ‘How are we gonna follow that, yis bastards?!’”
A quick peek at The Script’s Bebo and MySpace pages confirms that the trio have indeed been going down very well with the British audiences – especially the female faction...
“It’s the illusion of the lights, it’s all smoke and mirrors,” laughs Power. “Nah, you can’t focus on that element, really. At the end of the day, if we do a bad show, we do a bad show and how we look doesn’t really matter”.
“It’s certainly flattering,” smiles O’Donoghue, “but we never set out to be that sort of band. We just wanted to write an album that was a nice little snapshot of our lives for the past year and a half. Anyway, I think if you put any young bloke up on a stage, there’ll be an element of ‘Ohmigod, he’s so hot…’”
With their debut album due in the autumn, an MTV Spanking New Music tour on the horizon and a single, ‘We Cry’, all over radio at the moment like a rash it’s going to be a busy year for The Script. What do they hope to have achieved by the time the credits roll on 2008?
“I’d really love to do an Irish tour,” Sheehan enthuses. “I think the Irish audience would be really receptive to us. We just found out we’re playing with N*E*R*D soon, too – those kind of things are really milestones for us, because I worked with The Neptunes a few years ago. Working with them as a producer and writer – and now as an artist – is really fulfilling.”
“It’s all been rather surreal, the way things have happened for us,” agrees O’Donoghue. “I keep thinking of that scene in The Commitments where Jimmy Rabbitte’s in the toilet being ‘interviewed’ by Terry Wogan. Well, Terry Wogan played our song the other day! It’s mental.”
It certainly sounds like a precursor of things to come for the potentially gargantuan Dubliners; on that note, perhaps it’s wise to leave this particular Script open-ended for the time being. Nevertheless, if all else fails, at least theirs is a story that’s bound to make a great movie some day.