Danny O'Donoghue.net: The Script's Danny O'Donoghue on songwriting and reaching a larger audience The Voice UK

The Script’s 2008 breakthrough song “Breakeven” was everywhere four years ago. The well-crafted lyrics, catchy melody and infectious rhythm brought the band to a whole new level. Since then, the Irish band has been on a whirlwind ride; racking up hit songs around the world not only for themselves, but writing for others [Kris Allen’s “Live Like We’re Dying”], opening for U2 and Paul McCartney, and lead vocalist Danny O'Donoghue was recently a judge on The Voice UK. MSN caught up with Danny, the band’s vocalist/keyboardist/guitar player/writer/producer at a tour stop in Seattle to chat about songwriting, The Voice UK, and the band’s new record, #3.

Mark [Sheehan, guitar/vocals] was talking about “Breakeven” hitting big, and you guys get this massive success, and the economy collapses at the same time. Now instead of you being the starving musicians at the pub with friends buying you pints, it’s turned the other way around. That’s a very interesting thing to happen and informed a lot of the last record, Science & Faith.

Yeah, “For the First Time” was the first song that came along. We went back to Ireland and realized that everyone’s down and out. I’m glad we came home and shared the success of what we’d done worldwide. You almost just wanted to take a shovel and dig in, it was such a long time. We had been there 10-15 years, being very unsuccessful. We were borrowing money and doing the whole shebang. The tables turned, and we were enjoying success. Again, it’s at this period, where in two years’ time, it can all turn around and flip again. You never know. We’re broke, and everyone’s rich. You never know. For us, going back and actually writing about that, and being a part of it, that was really important for us, particularly on Science & Faith. I think now, even on the new record, on #3, we still have the sense of optimism. We may not have a pot to piss in, but at least we’re all here together. We still prescribe that.

Science & Faith is an interesting pairing. Can the two live together?

I’ll tell you now, Science & Faith, the ultimate question is can the two go together. I’ve talked to people. I’ve talked to men of science… doctors, etc… It doesn’t how far you go down one of the two roads; they always lead to the other one, because religion can only explain so much. Then science has to take over. Then science can only explain so much, and then religion has to take over. What I mean by religion, I just mean faith. It’s a crazy thing. A friend of mine, who is a brain surgeon, he wants to help people and start looking at the chaos of the human body. The more that he got involved, and the more that he gets involved on the molecular level, he sees that there’s a pattern to all of this. So he went away from religion, and went to science, and then came back to religion. There’s a pattern here. There’s a maker. There’s kind of an architect. I just thought that that was amazing. I just sat there, kind of, “Whoa!” it doesn’t matter how far you go down the road, you can only explain so much. Something else has to take over. It really is interesting. On Science & Faith, we kind of went, “Well, imagine science being a man, and faith being a woman.” Science being this logical guy. He thinks he has it all figured out, but then faith can say one or two words, and just the flatten the guy down. There is no real winner. I just thought it was a great kind of male energy / female energy. That’s why we have two hands on the front of the album. Which is basically saying, “Well, if her name was faith, and his name was science, there’s the two of them, but the two can’t live without each other either.” Although they are opposing ends, it’s like good and bad. You can’t live without either one. Not one can exist without the other. It sounds like we’ve over-thought it a lot, but I just love over-thinking stuff.

I don’t think you can over-think the “Where do we come from?” question.

I think we’re all made of music. Generally, we’re all made of frequency, and we’re all made of music. Even on tiny level, we’re still vibrating. Every part of your body vibrates, even on a tiny level. Walking around, you’re a piece of music.

I like that. Does that topic come across on the new record #3 anywhere?

Maybe “Kaleidoscope.” I like the lines of it. It basically means that my colours come alive when I’m alive with you. It’s basically about giving everything in this life… the pleasure and the pain. Absolutely everything, because that’s what makes life. That’s the good and bad with life.

“Kaleidoscope” has a very arena rock, Edge like guitar lick to it. It sounds like it’s built for stadiums.

Yeah. From playing in stadiums, you kind of learn a trick or two. We definitely envisioned ourselves playing arenas and stadiums this time around. You always go, “Sh*t, we’ve been to loads of rock shows, and loads of hip-hop shows. What are the best moments, and can we create that with our own music?” “Kaleidoscope” is one of those songs that we just went, “You know what? If it doesn’t make a single, we don’t give a sh*t, because it’s just such a great live song.” You can really sing it out when it comes to playing live. That’s the opportunity to just blast the crowd with a lot of colours. It’s just a really fun, up-tempo song. A lot of our songs are about the ins and outs of relationships, and general life stuff. That was just a fun song. Everyone can just kick off the boots and go crazy. It’s great.

Do you write with the stage show in mind?

We never do that. You can’t help when you’re in the middle of the song, and the chorus kicks in, and you lay down the vocal, you can’t help but dream. You’re kind of, “Oh sh*t, this is going to be f***ing great if...blank.” You know from conception to completion that you’ve done it before. When you find something you go, “Sh*t, this is really f***ing working.” You can’t help but shoot the video, shoot the live. Funny, even going back to Science & Faith, and “For the First Time,” there’s a part of the song where we go, “Oh, these times are hard, yeah, they’re making us crazy. Don’t give up on me, baby.” That part there, I generally heard as a crowd. When that part came, I heard it as a crowd. I could just hear thousands of people singing that part. We laid it down like that. Low and behold, you get to the stage, and that was the first time that I thought of something in the studio that the crowd can sing, and they did actually sing it [laughs]. So many times you go, “They’re really going to sing this bit!” and they don’t. They f***ing whistle the whistly bit.

When did you have time to write this? Because you basically got off the road and went right into the studio, right?

Yeah. We went right into the studio. I was a coach The Voice back in the UK. We just decided that we’re not in this to just f*** around. There are a lot of bands out there who are putting in a lot of legroom, and a lot of footwork. We can either do this: take time off, and I’ll go do the TV show. Obviously it’ll bring out the profile of the band, and give us a better chance, and platform for us to bring our music to people. I think people get misconstrued with The Script, that there’s another point to this band that we’re all about ourselves.

What do you mean by that?

We don’t care about what we look like. We just care about the music. When we go on a show, like The Voice, I guess the real hard critics will go, “Well, they’re a band going on a reality show.” We just feel that that’s quite a pigheaded approach. We’re ¼ of the panel. There are no other bands on any of these shows. I’m in a band. I think it’s really important that bands don’t snub their noses at these opportunities to get their music out there, and to build up a profile. I guess we build up our own profile, but we also brought a band in general. Kids will come up to me, weeks after I’ve done The Voice, and say, “I’ve just picked up a guitar and want to play it like you do, or that U2 song. Or I just picked up the keyboard and play it just like you.” Nobody says, “Wow, I want to spin on my red chair just like you.” I was proud of that. I was proud of the fact that kids are actually watching that, and picking up instruments, and going, “I want to be like him.” I think that’s really, really important. There might be the next little Jimi Hendrix, but he hasn’t had a guitar in his hand yet, and he’s probably sitting the watching The X Factor. I’m just talking these days, because 14 million people are watching this thing, one of them is bound to be good at music. One of them is bound to pick up a guitar. I’m proud of that.

What about you? Do you gravitate towards piano or guitar?

I have a bunch of different stages. I used to spend all of my early days on guitar. That was my first instrument. There wasn’t always a piano in the room, so I’d always go to that.

What about for this record, for #3? Or was it more of a group dynamic, writing in the studio?

I think for this one, it was actually more guitar. There’s piano riffs all the way through like, “If You Could See Me Know,” “Hall of Fame,” etc… but they didn’t start on there. They just started on guitar. Actually, it was more or less logic. I think it was the instruments on there. Just f***ing around with samples. Messing around with bass lines. I play bass and keys as well, so sometimes I’ll write on the bass. “Kaleidoscope” was definitely a bass started song, as well.

“Hall of Fame” is the single and features Will.I.Am. who I assume you met doing The Voice UK?

Yeah that was exactly it. We were on the show, and I had been playing him a couple of tunes, and he just gravitated towards “Hall of Fame.” As soon as I played it, he was like, “This is dope. Dope, dope, dope. Can you play it again?” I was like, “Yes, absolutely.” He said, “Well, what do you think of the song?” I said, “It’s a possible first single.” He goes, “That needs to be a single. Can I have the song?” I was like, “No.” He was trying to get into a verbal headlock for me to agree to do the song.

Are those all your lyrics, or did he write them too?

There all our lyrics. The whole song was done. Literally, the whole thing was done. We brought it to Will, and he just literally wanted to sing it. So we brought the track to his hotel room, where he had his recording studio. It was cool. I thought he was maybe going to take a verse, but he did it line by line. I would sing a line. He would sing a line. It sounded really cool. It just kind of changes it up from the usual duets, where someone’s waffling in the middle of it. This is a proper duet. We’re classing it as a dudette.

You mentioned, “If You Could See Me Now.” A very deep song about you and Mark each having a parent pass recently. Mark has said he was going to have trouble playing it live, and he could barely listen to it in the studio. How are your feelings on that song?

I come from a different mentality. I love the song. The songs that are the most personal and the hardest, you have to play. If it is moving you enough that you can’t bring yourself to play it, then there’s obviously something there that needs to come out. You want to shy away from that. I think what he said was that he was unsure if we should play it every night, or when is the right time. We’ve played it a few times now on tour. We’ve played it three or four times, and it’s gone down incredible. The first night, we were all a bit nervous about doing it. At the same time, when we did it, you just see people who are in tears, just streaming down their face. You know with a song like that, it’s no longer our choice, whether we play it or not, because it means something to other people. For me personally, the more you sing something or talk about something, the better it gets. That’s only for me. That’s why I’m prepared to sing it every night. I love the song. When you’re on stage, it’s an out of body experience. You’re on stage, and you’re like, “OK, look at this person. Look over there. Walk over here.” You’re thinking in your head, but you can kind of get away from it. When you do, if you do zone in on the lyrics, and I do kind of concentrate, I’m on stage, Mark’s on stage, and he’s singing about missing his parents, I would go f***ing mad. It’s a hard song to get through.

“Six Degrees of Separation” needs to be a single and continues your poignancy for writing break up songs. Are these easy songs for you to write, to put them on to paper? You were just saying that you feel better when you talk about things more, so do these words come out easily?

Yeah, they do. It’s just in what order. That’s the conundrum. I’ve been writing songs for 20 years now. The easy part is knowing what you want to say. The hard part is how to say it. When you come from a songwriting background, and just as an artist in general, with songs like “Breakeven” and what I love about it is it manages to wrap up in 3 ½ minutes what I’ve been trying to say for four years to this one person. In the fashion that it wasn’t just me opening up a diary. It was like, Mark came in with the lyric “Breakeven,” and I was like, “F***ing hell, dude.” It was a point in time, where the perfect melody matched the perfect sentiment. I was ready to talk about. Also a lyric that stands above a lot of the people’s lyrics that were on the radio at the time, just happened to come along. I think that’s really where “Breakeven” came out of. It was the right time. It was one of the best lyrics that we’ve written. “Six Degrees of Separation” is no different. Obviously I was going through some crazy sh*t. It was my first time on television. I broke up with my girlfriend, and it was just a horrible time. For the lads being able to see that in me, and not only help me, I think through therapy f***ing writing songs, which is what it is at the end of the day. But then for another lyrics like “Breakeven” to come along. It’s just when you take a look at a lyric that already is something else, like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. You kind of find yourself six degrees away from anybody in the world. It started off being the idea of, and it’s not a crazy thought that no matter who you’ve broken up with in your life, or how far anybody is away from you, there are only six people. That kind of started as, “Wow, that’s a bit sad.” You could be missing them, thinking that half way around the world, but you are still only six people away from them. I thought that was really interesting. Then we changed the lyrics to turn around to being the six degrees or six steps of a separation, then I was I like, “F***ing hell dude.” As a lyricist, and as a songwriter , when you can recognize a great lyric when you hear it, you’re just like, “F*** yeah.” I knew it was right for me to be able to open up and the to talk about, obviously what I did, because you feel comfortable enough know that this is a f***ing big one. Here’s a song, as you said, when we started the conversation, was about it going to be heard by a lot of people. A lot of people are really going, I think, gravitate towards it, because it’s so honest. It shows both sides. I think that’s a brilliant thing in the song as well. It’s when you forget about the songwriter, and you think about yourself.

One of you guys said that you’re still writing “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved.” As a songwriter, you’re still never happy with the finished product. There’s always more that you can improve on. Are you still working around that, or have you been able to separate yourself from that?

It’s kind of the same. It’s like, when is a painting done? When does the artist put the last lick of paint on it. I think deadlines are really good thing when it comes to musicians, because it’s never going to be done. A perfect example of that is when we were just doing “Kaleidoscope,” funny enough. It was time to mix. It was literally like two days before we sent it. I just went into the studio with Mark. We had a few whiskeys with us. I just turned around and said, “I think I come in late with that chorus.” He’s like, “Yeah, let’s rewrite the middle eight.” We’re two days from f***ing completing the album. It’s going to be mixed tomorrow. He was like, “Let’s just do it.” We went in and did the chorus, and a new middle eight. It was two weeks later that we had gone in to the studio to hear the final mixes. We got to “Kaleidoscope” as one of the last songs, and as we were listening, both me and Mark totally forgot that we changed the middle of the night, that we changed the middle eight. There was a lyric in there, and I went, “What the f*** is this?” we forgot that we changed it. He goes, “I don’t know, but I think it’s really good.” Neither of us remembered redoing the middle eight, but it was better consciously, than the one we remembered doing. [Laughs]