Nine Songs: The Script

When we speak on a boiling day in London, O'Donoghue is in a rehearsal studio gearing up for The Script’s upcoming tour. I mention how hot it is in my flat and he tells me, “It's literally the polar opposite here, the north polar opposite. I left the cooler on all night so it’s freezing in here. I walked in this morning, and I was like, ‘This is gorgeous’”.

The Irish musician is an engaging, very funny and open interviewee, who also does a mean Bob Dylan impersonation. O'Donoghue’s chipperness is admirable in light of the tragedy the band faced last year, when Mark Sheehan, his childhood friend and co-founder of The Script, passed away. When I ask how he’s feeling about it, it’s the only time in our conversation that his ebullience drops slightly.

“It's up and down. I’m dealing with it professionally – somebody's not here – but also personally, somebody's not here too. It’s just trying to get through that, and the hard part is living through it in real time in front of everybody”, he says.

“I'm always going to be asked about it and you have to be good with talking about it. I find it cathartic to talk about it and him in our music, because I'm so proud of it. Like anybody who's lost somebody, you have good days and bad days.”

I tell O'Donoghue that my Dad, who was from Limerick, passed a couple of years ago, and there are waves of feelings that come over you in the aftermath, often when you least expect them to. “As your Dad’s Irish, then you know what it's like, Irish people prefer to celebrate a life rather than grieve the loss.”

O'Donoghue finds solace in listening to music as a coping mechanism and how it can tell a story of time passing, citing Lukas Graham’s “7 Years” as a perfect example. “It’s this whole story and each verse talks about a different part of his life. The power of music is amazing.”

Their new record, Satellites, their first since 2019’s Sunsets & Full Moons, will see The Script heading out on a huge tour, where O'Donoghue and drummer Glen Power will be joined by new band members Benjamin Sargent and Ben Weaver, and he views this point in their career as a chance to start afresh.

“It feels like it's back to basics, back to what we love doing, which is recording for a year and then heading out for as long as we can, or right until the wheels come off as they say!”

Of his Nine Songs selections, O'Donoghue reflects that “if you asked me tomorrow, there'd be nine other songs, it’s about whatever the day is.” Listening to the passion with which he speaks about each of them, and the impact they’ve all had on his own artistic journey however, I’m not so sure if they would be different. When he analyses his choices as our conversation ends, he picks out a thread between each of them.

“The funny thing is, if you listen to each of these songs, you'll hear something I've tried to do on one of our records” he explains. “With “I’m Yours” on The Script I thought I was writing a James Taylor song. You make your own sound by trying to emulate your heroes but doing it wrong, so you end up with your version of it. Except for Bob Dylan and Don McClean. All I ever want to do is write something that compares to those two, and every time I try, it bounces off the wall!”

Whilst the question if O'Donoghue’s choices would be different on another day is moot, what is indisputable is his infectious love of music, and his ongoing mission to try and understand what makes it so important.

“What I always find crazy about music is that you don't need to understand how it works, or the complexity of it, for it to go into your brain. It's like the grooves on the records are already there for you to comprehend whatever music is going to throw at you musically, melodically, or harmonically - all of those pathways are there for you. There’s so much about music that's unquantifiable…”

And of course, he finishes the sentence with his favourite word. “…It’s beautiful.”