Danny O'Donoghue: I’d escape pain of break-up by going into the studio

Script's Danny O'Donoghue: I’d escape pain of break-up by going into the studio

DANNY O’Donoghue explains the pain of splitting from model girlfriend Irma Mali while recording a new album ...

Hands up if you're famous ... Danny and the band

YOU will know him as Danny from The Script or Danny from The Voice – either way, Danny O’Donoghue is a recognised name these days.

Comic James Corden might have made a gag about the frontman being Danny “I Dunno Who” at the Brit Awards in February but now he gets stopped in the street daily and asked for his autograph.

“But it’s not always been like that,” his best mate and bandmate Mark Sheehan pipes up. “We’ve been unsuccessful longer than we’ve been successful.”

The last time SFTW met Dublin trio The Script — also comprising Glen Power — was just before the release of second album Science & Faith, a second No1 collection, and they were struggling for Press despite sales of four million albums and eight million singles.

“People didn’t know where we belonged,” Mark says in his Irish drawl. “We’d be compared to Coldplay and U2 but then we were writing pop songs. No one wanted to write about us as we weren’t big enough or didn’t fit. It’s not like we were being compared to Val Doonican and his sheep.”

Of course, that all changed when singer Danny became a judge on BBC talent show The Voice.

Mentoring aspiring wannabes alongside Will.i.am, Jessie J and Tom Jones, he became a household name and won over fans with his Irish humour and being “the sort of lad you’d want your daughters to bring home”, according to one fan.

Guitarist Mark says: “Of course Glen and I didn’t mind he was getting all the attention. It’s good for the band as a whole.”

SFTW met up with Mark and Danny in a west London hotel and there were no airs and graces from the boys, who have been best mates since they were teens. Both chat incessantly and entertain a young fan with magic tricks.

Mark continues: “We’ll never get big-headed. I won’t even put our awards and discs up at home. When I moved into my house I didn’t know what to do with them. I thought it was showing off.

“We do get recognised now. I say ‘we’ but I mean Danny. I can escape without a fuss, which is great. I look like Ming The Merciless next to him, so they leave me alone.“ Danny adds: “And it’s fine having people come up to you, but there are times when you could do without it.

“Like, I was getting my passport photos done and didn’t want to be there, I was tired, and suddenly this guy next to me was talking into his phone. Only he didn’t realise he was shouting and, of course, I could hear. ‘OH, IT’S DANNY FROM THE SCRIPT! YOU KNOW, DANNY FROM THE VOICE!’ He was screaming like that. So I joined in: ‘I DON’T KNOW YOUR BLEEDING NAME BUT I’M GOING TO SHOUT RIGHT BACK AT YOU!’

“He was shouting: ‘JESUS CHRIST, DANNY FROM THE SCRIPT IS SO TALL!’ So I was shouting back: ‘JESUS CHRIST, YOU’RE SMALL!’ But it was all a bit of fun and comes with the realisation of a dream for us.”

The Script’s third album shows a new confidence in the band being comfortable with their place in music and not caring what critics say. Danny says: “Someone told us that if you had acclaim and great reviews you wouldn’t have the sales. So we’re happy with the sales, thank you very much.”

Singers, musicians, songwriters and producers, Danny and Mark were both in boyband Mytown before they moved to the US to work as writers and producers.

They collaborated with the likes of Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and TLC then returned to Dublin, recruiting drummer Glen Power and starting life as The Script.

Known for their huge hits such as For The First Time and The Man Who Can’t Be Moved, The Script’s third album #3 boasts plenty of emotive pop anthems and will cement their status as a huge act.

It’s no wonder the likes of Paul McCartney, Adele and Elton John are fans of the trio.

Danny says: “Elton John said something nice — that there’s not many bands that write, produce and perform their music like The Script.

“He said you can tell we’ve quality-controlled everything from the lyrics, the melodies, the experience. That’s all so important.”

#3 isn't a crowd for this trio ... The Script

The latest album’s first single, Hall Of Fame, features Will.i.am, who Danny befriended through The Voice. “We were proud of getting him to work with us,” Mark explains. “I wanted our song but we weren’t giving it away so told him to record it with us. Then Danny got him to a hotel and we recorded it there and then. I was terrified of losing the recording so went straight to the studio afterwards.

“Will.i.am usually produces everything himself so we thought he was hardly going to let us produce him. But he did. He let us do it our way. There’s none of that vocoder stuff he’s known for. We make him sound natural.”

Album opener Good Ol’ Days reflects the band’s philosophy of enjoying music and having fun.

Danny says: “For ages, a Script song would be about singing your heart out in the car but you couldn’t dance to a song.

“But there’s a few songs on this album that you can put on in a bar now. Good Ol’ Days was inspired by our mates in Dublin. We go down the pub with them when we are home and we see what they say we should do next.”

Mark adds: “We stay away from any of those VIP parties and go to the pub. Good Ol’ Days was born out of excitement.

“At our local pub, people would bring in instruments like a tambourine, a tin whistle or a banjo.

“Someone would stand up to tell a poem, a story or sing their heart out and we’d all listen. You’d be engrossed or there’d be tears. That’s what that song is about. It’s about tipping the hat to those traditions that are slightly lost today. We need the good ol’ days in the future. It’s a positive spin on a night out.”

The band are also hoping to put their new celebrity status to good use and are working on a plan to encourage children to read more. Mark, who has two boys and a girl with wife Rina, says: “I get annoyed about young boys who are not reading as much as they should — and girls are following.

“There were some statistics recently and it’s just scary. Are we going to lose our lyricists of the future? Your mind’s a palace and it’s up to you how you decorate it.

“But kids will only read if it’s something interesting to them so we are working on a plan.”

Since The Voice, and Danny’s increased popularity, the only downside, says the singer, has been stories about his private life. He says: “It’s scary now as that has been on the chopping block a bit.”

He recently split with Lithuanian model Irma Mali after four years together and was linked to Voice runner-up Bo Bruce.

He says: “It’s been hard. I’d escape from the pain of the break-up by going into the studio.

“Every problem I have, I always go into the studio as I feel safe in a padded room. I could deal with it all fine but it was all those crazy rumours of who I was dating.

“There was also a big-time difference between me breaking up and all the other stuff.”

Mark, quick to defend his mate, adds: “I worked with Bo behind the scenes probably more than Danny. I took her into the studio, wrote songs and hung out with her.

“No one’s interested in that, though, so Danny got linked to her. But that’s what the track Six Degrees Of Separation is all about.”

The song, a standout on #3, is about Danny’s painful split from Irma, which he says was a huge learning process for him in how to deal with the public and media.

He explains: “This is the band’s first time of dealing with the spotlight. I’ve been asked why I let the rumours go on for so long.

“But there’s no handbooks on how to deal with this, plus I was grieving. My relationship had ended.”

Six Degrees is not the only song on #3 that’s about personal pain. If You Could See Me Now pays tribute to Danny’s beloved late father Shay, also a musician, who died unexpectedly of a stomach aneurysm, and Mark’s late parents — his mother died four months before Danny’s dad and he’d lost his father when he was aged just 14.

Mark says: “We’re quite happy lads in real life but we just vent everything in our music. We wear our hearts on our sleeves and put everything into our music.

“If You Could See Me Now is the first time we’ve rinsed ourselves that deeply. There’s been a lot bottled up and we felt there was a hole in the album and we weren’t being honest enough until this song.

“We really hit the whiskies one night, that was the catalyst. We were very emotional and wrote a song about this — Danny one end of the room, me at another.

“It was a tough one to write and I didn’t want anyone to listen to it at first, if I’m honest. But that’s what we’re in music for — that honest emotion. I’m so proud of that song.”

“Me, too,” adds Danny. “This album has taken it to another level for The Script. We’re a force to be reckoned with. We really are.”

Source: The Sun