0The Script's Danny O'Donoghue is world-famous: his bandmates wouldn't ; get a second glance... but insist they're delighted to cede him the limelight
ELEVEN photographers have gathered outside the Shepherd's Bush Empire arena in London, an unusually large number for a rainy Wednesday night. 'Who's playing inside?' shouts a passing policeman to the paparazzi. 'The Script,' one shouts back. 'You know, the guy from The Voice? His band.' Inside the arena, the 2,000-strong sell-out crowd erupt as The Script step on stage and launch into The Good Old Days from their new album #3. An hour into the show, lead singer Danny O'Donoghue vanishes from the stage only to reappear in the heart of the balcony. A spotlight follows him as he moves through the crowd, adoring fans screaming uncontrollably and pawing at him all the while. Back on stage guitarist Mark Sheehan and drummer Glen Power watch on with wry smiles as Danny embraces his inner Bono.
The Dublin trio scored their first No.1 in the British charts earlier this month, with a little help from Will.I.Am - Danny's fellow judge on BBC talent show The Voice - who features on the track. After eight years together and three albums one would imagine that it must rankle with Glen, 33, and Mark, 32, to be known only as 'that guy from The Voice's band'.
'Danny loves being a lead singer,' Mark says when we meet after the gig.
'The perfect football team is when the keeper loves being a keeper, a defender lives to be a defender and a manager loves to manage. I'm not interested in being a lead vocalist and I never have been. I quite enjoy backing vocals, and I quite enjoy backing him up.' So it doesn't bother him that 30-year old Danny seems to always be the focus of attention from both the press and the fans? 'Danny is able to handle all the limelight and is polite to photographers whereas I'll probably tell them to f*** off,' Mark says.
'You don't want me on The Voice because I'll tell someone exactly what I think. I'd turn it into The Mouth and just offend people. I'm not a lead man in that way. And I am really happy to stay with my wife and kids and go to my local bar and leave all the celebrity behind. I wouldn't be into that and I don't think Glen would, either.' We are standing near the bar in The Defector's Weld, a working man's club a five-minute walk from the Empire.
Arriving at the club, Mark - dressed in skin-tight, red tartan trousers, a black denim jacket and grey T-shirt sauntered through the door unnoticed while Danny posed for pictures.
Meanwhile Glen, wearing a plain grey T-shirt and black jeans, simply blended into the crowd. This sort of division of celebrity has driven a wedge amongst many a band, but Mark insists that he doesn't envy his bandmate his role alongside Jessie J, Tom Jones and Will. I.Am on The Voice.
'How do I feel about Danny on the Voice? To be honest I am happy for him one week and I am embarrassed the next,' Mark says.
'While he is there dancing on his chair I am at home throwing popcorn at the television. But he is my mate and that's the way it is. I mightn't like what he says on the TV but then I wouldn't do it and he is there for all three of us. And there are times in the studio when I embarrass him. That's the way it goes. That's what any relationship is like.' One relationship that didn't survive the first season of The Voice was that between Danny and his long-term girlfriend, model Irma Mali.
When the pair split before the end of the series, rumours immediately sprang up of a romance between Danny and Voice contestant Bo Bruce. While positively breathless in praise of Bo, Danny strenuously denied that theirs was anything more than friendship.
'Danny is my best mate, like a brother and I know Irma really well,' says Mark. 'It was a lovely break-up. They were such adults. I have never seen such a break-up where two people can be friends.
'They are grown-ups and then suddenly people thought he was with Bo, an artist that I was recording with. They had no interest taking a picture of me when I was in studio with her or outside smoking a cigarette with her, they wanted him. And that's the bullet that we dodged and Danny is constantly taking.' Mark leaves to get a glass of red wine and Glen waves over from a table in the corner. He is calmly surveying the room and hasn't touched the bottle of beer next to him all night.
'I felt sorry for Danny,' he says. 'He did us proud (on The Voice). You are always worried for him in case he says the wrong thing and it is a big spotlight for anyone. But if you asked anyone before The Voice if they knew who The Script was, they would have looked at you with a blank expression. If you played them Breakeven they would know the song but they wouldn't have known the group.
'We felt that if he did the show we would finally be able to put a face with the band. And he paid a price for that. I do feel sorry for Danny because he had to sacrifice his anonymity.
'The minute that he got out he was hounded. It was unreal. I saw the darker side of the business and how negative it can be and I never want to be involved in that.' Mark echoes those sentiments. An accomplished singer, guitarist and piano player, he is also the group's financial manager and brokers all of their deals.
'I know psychologically, people must think that they can't be happy about us taking a back seat,' he says.
'I run the business of The Script. I have absolutely no interest in doing what Danny does. I love business and I have studied it all my life. That's not what people want to hear about an artist but it is the truth. My wife is the same she knows the business inside out and that is our passion.' Mark is married to fellow Dubliner Rina Sheehan. They have three children together and prefer to keep them out of the public eye. He is a whiskey fanatic and has a custom-built whiskey bar in his London home which houses more than 100 rare bottles.
In between My Town - the boyband he formed with Danny in 1996 - and The Script, he ran the famous Digges Lane Dance Studio in Dublin.
'I ran the dance centre when I was 16 and every weekend and I had 300 kids in, to choreograph 'And Irish come River Dance had Micheal Flately try and He's a choreographer. It got so popular it took over every night of the week, so I was the main source of incoming into the place. I choreographed Boyzone in the early days. and any time there was a glimmer of talent looking for a break they come through my school. Colin Farrell, was in my class. Michael Flatley came into me to learn street and hip-hop dance. all that way back nobody was doing it into the country and he wanted to incorporate into a show.' At the time Mark was also juggling managing his friend Danny. The pair were writing material to try and launch a solo career for Danny and, in 2005, brought in session musician Glen to work with them.
Immediately the trio clicked and began writing what would become their debut album. 'I was working on Danny as a solo artist,' Mark says with a smile.
'I was actually managing him and then the record company came back and said we sound like a great band. I called the lads up and told them and we decided to go with it.' However, just as The Script were beginning to make a noise on the Irish music scene in 2007, tragedy struck Glen. On a night out with his parents, he slipped in the bathroom of his local pub in Stillorgan and hit his head off the sink and then off the ground.
Shaken, he went back to his parents, but his father Gary urged him to go to the nearby St Vincent's Hospital.
'He saved my life,' Glen says. 'I wanted to finish my pint, but my Dad told me to go.' Glen was quickly moved to Beaumont Hospital where he underwent an emergency craniotomy, a procedure which involves cutting into the skull to relieve pressure from a bleed on the brain. 'I had fractured my skull and it couldn't have happened at a worse time,' he says.
'The first album was taking off and we were seeing some real success and then bang. I woke up in a hospital bed with 30 staples in my head. I was so scared. I thought that was it and my life was over.
'Then I had the fear over whether or not I could still drum and whether I had the ability to be a musician.
'I got out of hospital after nine days and I headed straight to rehearsals to see if I still had what it took.
'I remember the first day I played and it wasn't the same. I panicked and thought: "This isn't it. What am I going to do?" The bang in the head had shaken everything and I actually had to go back and learn everything again. I was really worried.
'Then, one morning, I went in and everything clicked. The slickness came back and I got down on my knees and just started praying.
'It gave me a new found appreciation of life and I am even more thankful for what I have, an attitude of gratitude.' Glen takes a long look around the bar.
He nods his head as the speaker blares out Hall Of Fame, the band's No.1 single. Across the room, Danny is talking to a pair of Scandinavian radio journalists who have flown in for the night.
'I'm the one who lives in Dublin,' Glen says with a smile.
'It is my home and I am a Dub through and through. I bounce back and forth and I do have a place in London but it is just to rest the head.
'The minute I get a day off I am on an Aer Lingus flight home. I actually know all the staff by name now I fly so often. My family is in Dublin and I have to be back there to properly recharge.
'I still live in the place where I grew up and everybody knows me. And I am still just Glen, not that guy from The Script.
'I walk around and nobody hassles me - that's what I love about it. At home people just see us as normal lads. It is the illusion of fame that builds the monster.
'That is what Danny has to deal with more so than us.
'I'm just so happy to be alive that everything else is like winning the lotto. Why would I want to ruin all that by becoming famous?'
'They had no interest in taking a picture of me'
'People would know our songs - but not the group'
'Why would I want to ruin all that by fame?'
Source: Irish Daily Mail / Edited: DannyODonoghue.Net
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