The Script's single "Hall of Fame" was released way back in August and while it didn't make a big splash when it first came out, it's been a steady seller. Yahoo! Chart Watch reports that the track, featuring Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am, has just gone platinum, passing the million mark in sales. It's the Script's third song to pass the million mark, following "Breakeven," which is now at 2.6 million, and "For the First Time," which has sold just under 1.5 million copies.
Script frontman Danny O'Donoghue tells ABC News Radio that the song was inspired by something their guitarist, Mark Sheehan, witnessed.
"Mark was going by this marathon one day, and he saw a bunch of women...they were running the four-mile marathon like they were in the Olympics themselves," Danny remembers.
He says those women got them thinking about the accomplishments of regular, everyday people.
"We just thought, 'Wow, that's a brilliant thing,'" says Danny. "There's no hall of fame for charity workers. There's no hall of fame for nurses. There's no hall of fame for people of the community. And we just wanted a song that really reflected that."
As for getting Will.i.am on the track, that was pretty easy, considering that both he and Danny were coaches simultaneously on the U.K. version of The Voice. But Danny says it helped that Will genuinely liked the song.
"With a song that powerful, people wanna jump on it," he points out. "We played it to Will and he really, really flipped out over the song. He just kept singing it to me the whole time...in between takes on the show. It just turned out to be a great song." It also ended up being The Script's most successful single yet in the U.K., reaching #1 on the chart.
As for The Script collaborating with a rapper, it isn't the first time that they've done it: for their previous album, Science & Faith, they recorded a version of one of the tracks with B.o.B. In fact, the Irish band has been very much influenced by American R&B and hip-hop, and their current album, #3, actually includes a bit of a hip-hop flavor on some tracks.
"I suppose we felt that hip-hop has lost what it used to be about," says Mark, explaining why they chose to go in that direction. "It used to be about smart lyrics and being able to flip a lyric, but now it just seems to be a little bit about 'what I have' and 'what I'm gonna pretend I have.'"
As a result, Mark says, "We couldn't help ourselves when we were making this record -- to kinda tip our hat to some of the all-stars of hip-hop, like Tribe Called Quest and some of our favorite bands from back in the day. [We] just played 'em with real instruments."
The Script is currently up for a Brit Award -- the British version of the Grammys -- in the category of Best International Group. The awards will be handed out February 20 in London.
Source: Alice1077 / Edited: DannyODonoghue.Net
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