Irish pop-rock trio The Script are rearing up for the latest leg of their tour in Scotland on Thursday night, and the boys are mighty nervous.
In a sit down interview with tabloid! in the boardroom of the Westin Hotel on February 12, ahead of the band’s RedFestDXB performance later that night, frontman Danny O’Donoghue had no qualms admitting that he, along with guitarist Mark Sheehan and drummer Glen Power, needed to keep on moving if they wanted to stay afloat in the music industry.
“We understand as a band, if you leave the industry for a certain amount of time: you’re gone. You’re gone. There’s another band snapping at your heals,” he said, though he brushed off the idea that it was a stressful way to exist. “If you don’t like it, it’s stressful. But if it’s your life? We live, eat, breathe this life.”
Sheehan said that after 10 years of being in a band, releasing four albums and going on just as many tours, leaving home remains the hardest part of what they do.
“When you’re making music, it’s almost like meditation to you, because it’s what you love to do most. I think the ‘job’ kicks in when travelling kicks in. That’s the double-edged sword, we always say, leaving family, leaving friends. That, to me, gets harder every year,” he said.
O’Donoghue agreed. “When you go on stage, even if you’re tired or sick, once the adrenaline hits you, you get what you need and you do a great show — you get that buzz off the audience. But then you’ve got to get on an airplane. And there’s no audience. There’s no buzz. It’s just… Okay. How long is this going to take?”
For Power, the biggest anxiety comes when he makes a mistake on stage.
“You get like an injection — like someone actually electrocuted you with adrenalin,” he explained. “Your whole body goes ‘Tzzzt!’. You’re like, ‘Oh my god, what did I do?’”
The band said that one thing that doesn’t make them nervous at all is going to award shows, because they just don’t do it.
“We haven’t been to an award show in seven years, because we don’t get awards,” said Power.
Sheehan chimed in that most award shows are fixed, anyway, yet he still had some choice words about the recent Grammy’s debacle over who deserved the 2015 Album of the Year award more: Beyonce or Beck. If you weren’t aware, Kanye thought that Beck, the actual winner of the accolade, should surrender his award to Beyonce in the name of artistry.
“I love the Beck record,” Sheehan said. “I listened to the Beck record a few times, and to be honest, I didn’t like the Beyonce record. So if I was actually going on music, I think Beyonce has lost the plot, musically, and I think Beck has gained in a big way when it comes to music.”
O’Donoghue’s two cents? “Kanye should mind his own business.”
