Glen Power: 'If we don't produce a good record then we'll be finished... they'll drop us like a hot cake'
They are one of the biggest bands ever to come out of Ireland – but The Script know that everything is riding on their next record.
At the minute Danny O’Donoghue, Mark Sheehan and Glen Power are working towards album number four in a Dublin studio.
And as the new collection of tunes is the last in their current contract with Sony, Glen knows how important it is that the band come up with the goods.
He said: “We are between Dublin and London and it’s going well – we have the beautiful thing that we have never had before, which is time.
“In the past it was always a rush job but this time around it has been nice to take a bit more time with this one because of the way the touring cycle fell.
“Realistically speaking it might be the middle of next year when it comes out – that’s what we are hoping for.”
For a band who worked hard to be so successful, the lads have seen other acts come and go and they know that they have to make sure they’re as good as they can be.
Glen said: “It is exciting and scary – if what we do is no good then we’re gone. We have to be realistic – if we’re not doing the numbers, we’ll be dropped like a hot cake.
“But it is exciting for us as it will open up a new chapter in our careers. I have no doubt we will come back strong with the music but it is a really interesting time as we have no idea what’s around the corner. Until we have an album and music in our hand to barter with it really is anyone’s guess.”
Glen took time away from recording to launch the annual art exhibition for brain injury charity Headway.
The charity is close to his own heart as the drummer, 33, almost died when an afternoon in the pub ended in disaster.
He said: “I was out with my mum and dad in my local pub and I slipped in the toilets and hit my head.
“I thought I was fine but my dad Gary made me go to the hospital.
“And that was what saved me – I thought I was fine and I didn’t want to go.
“But if he hadn’t made me go then I would be dead.
“I had a fractured skull and there was a blood clot on my head – time is of the essence when you have an injury like that.
“Because my dad brought me to the hospital I was waiting in the emergency room to be checked and it was only then that I began having fierce pain in my head.
“I started screaming sitting there – my nose started bleeding, I started swallowing blood, my right ear was blocked up as the blood clot was so bad it was pushing into my ear.”
Doctors operated straight away to save Glen’s life and he was left with 30 staples all down the side of his head.
Glen said: “I fractured my temporal lobe and I had an epidermal haematoma.
“I felt lucky just to have survived what happened to me and I feel if I can raise awareness in any way at all then I will do my best to help.”
Glen’s accident happened six years ago just as The Script’s career was taking off but it all came back to him when Liam Neeson’s wife Natasha Richardson died after suffering the same injury.
Glen said: “She was in a skiing accident and it was the same injury that she had – exactly the same – but she sent the ambulance at the hotel away as she said she felt okay. When I heard that it really affected me because it was an epidural haematoma I had too – and if she had gone to hospital maybe she would be alive.”
Glen spent nine days in hospital and it was playing his guitar while he was too weak to get out of bed that helped him recover.
He said: “The power of music and art and what that does for your brain really helped me.
“Headway’s arts programme which is what they are raising money for now gets people who have suffered an injury to use both sides of their brain and that helps them improve brain function.
“For me I needed to get back playing music and when I did that everything else started to return.”
Even so it took two or three months for Glen to get back to normal – something he feared would never happen.
He said: “I couldn’t walk straight, my balance was gone and I couldn’t hear properly. It took two or three months for me to recover properly. The lads used to have to stand behind and catch me getting onto the tour bus as my balance was gone and I was desperately depressed for about a month as I thought I would never be the same again. But I have been very lucky.
“The only thing I get sometimes is when I lie down, I get a little bit of dizziness or vertigo.”
Glen has been teetotal for over two years but it wasn’t the accident that made him quit – just the fact that he wanted to feel better.
He said: “I think everything has a shelf life and I think I just used up my beer vouchers.
“We did a show in the O2 in London in front of 20,000 people and that should have been one of the highs of my career and I was just feeling unwell.
“I remember standing on the edge of the stage looking out at all the happy people in the audience and I was miserable.
“I felt I was after spending the whole of my life trying to get to the top of the mountain and there was something wrong with the view.
“After the gig we went back to the hotel and I had a drink but when I went to get another one something in me just went click and it was over. And since that day drinking was over and the magic began.
“I wanted to see what it would be like to do things differently and it has changed my life – it has made me a more content person, I am healthier in every way. It has affected every area of my life in a positive way and now I know that I wish I had done it earlier.
“I am two and a half years off the gargle now – the first year was tough as you are learning a whole new life thinking how am I going to do this and that. But come year two you realise you can do more than you ever did before, you have all this time, you’re not sick, you’re getting up early.”
Glen is looking forward to spending Christmas in Dublin with his family – as for a love life he will only admit there’s something in the background.
He said: “It’s a little bit complicated but I am very happy in myself.”
He’s going to enjoy some down time for a couple of weeks before getting stuck into the work again and now that Danny has left The Voice, Glen says there’s no stopping The Script in 2014.
He added: “Danny wants to concentrate on the album and the band and be 100 per cent with us.
“It is an important time and we need to come back strong and be on our game – sharp, fresh, ready and hungry.
“If you lose your appetite and rest on your laurels it will be taken away from you.
“We always thought we weren’t worthy of what we had, even though we were working hard for it.
“It’s only in the last two years that we have felt we deserved what we have but we are still very nervous.
“As artists even when you raise the bar high enough with a song that it touches people, you’ve set yourself a target for the next time. When it comes to album time there are always nerves as we remember what it was like to struggle at the start. And I don’t want to go back to that.”
Source: Mirror / Edited: DannyODonoghue.Net
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