The Script looking for bigger hit

It’s a Herculean task, but Irish composer Danny O’Donoghue has set the
aesthetic bar high for his blue-collar rock trio The Script.

The
band may only be two albums old, the singer says, “but we’ve been
trying for a long, long time to write that one song where everybody just
stops what they’re doing. They’ll drop their coffee cups on the ground
to listen to it, they’ll stop their cars, they’ll turn the volume up on
their friend’s radio. Those moments are the ones that we try and write
in songs.”

The Script — which appears in Oakland on Friday — has a
remarkable track record, with anthemic hits like “Breakeven,” “The Man
Who Can’t Be Moved” and “For the First Time.” “American Idol” winner
Kris Allen had a hit with the B-side “Live Like We’re Dying.”

O’Donoghue’s
skill is evident in the new single “Nothing,” a chiming singalong with
breakup-themed lyrics delivered in his amiable, Guinness-seasoned rasp.

“When
people listen to our songs — although we’re writing them about us — I
think they see a little bit of themselves,” he says.

The video
for “Nothing” echoes this Everyman approach. In it, a pub-parked
O’Donoghue swills so many pints, he staggers into a canal and nearly
drowns.

“There’s a clean video, where we’re not drinking,” he
says. “But that defeats the purpose — the song is about getting drunk
and realizing that you’re doing the wrong thing. So we’re prepared, as a
band, to go, ‘Of course we’re Irish, of course we’re drinking — who
cares? Let’s get it in the video because it’s real life!’”

Their
Celtic craft was perfected in America, oddly. A decade ago, O’Donoghue,
30, and his future Scriptmate Mark Sheehan left their native Dublin for
Orlando, Fla., where they worked with R&B/hip-hop artists.

“We
had $200 each when we went, but also something called ‘couch
currency,’” the frontman recalls — “where you stay on people’s couches
until you run out of money.”

After four years, the newly minted
production team hastily moved to Los Angeles, when a battle-rapping
client threatened to shoot up their house.

With drummer Glen
Power, the duo returned to Ireland to track 2008’s self-titled debut
album, followed by last year’s “Science & Faith.” They work to keep
things heartfelt — or, as O’Donoghue puts it, “We don’t surround our
nuggets of wisdom with arsey ideas that you need a team of 12 people
working 24 hours a day to figure out. The Script is very plain. Very
simple.”

Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/music/2011/09/rock-trio-script-looking-bigger-hit