The Script Reimagine Hip-Hop For The MP3 Generation

By: Curtis Sindrey –

At first glance, Dublin-based The Script seem like a cookie-cutter Snow Patrol/Coldplay pop band, but upon closer analysis you’ll notice that the trio is far from the Brit pop hooks of those bands. Instead they take on several Stevie Wonder-influenced R&B and hip-hop elements.

Working with producer Steve Kipner (Rod Stewart, Christina Aguilera) their new album #3 cements the band as an eclectic group of musicians that doesn’t exclusively subscribe to the rock label. “A lot of people think that we’re some rock band but we’re not a rock band at all,” said guitarist Mark Sheehan in an Irish drawl. “We’re an R&B/hip-hop/pop band and we like to write R&B songs but we don’t really subscribe to the rock genre at all.”

Sheehan asserts, “hip-hop right now is lacking some cool lyrics and some cool twists, things that it used to be about,” and while he isn’t wrong with that sentiment, featuring someone like Will.I.AM on your album probably doesn’t improve your street cred.

“Our first album there’s not much of a change with tracks like “We Cry”  because it was written with a hip-hop mentality,” said Sheehan. “I think that people are a little bit surprised that Irish white kids are doing this type of thing but we just love music and we don’t subscribe to genres or trying to make everybody happy and just we try to make ourselves happy with our music and we look forward that way.”

While writing #3, Sheehan and company locked themselves away in the studio with little interruptions so they weren’t affected by kryptonite like writer’s block. They’ve been “writing music since we were children” and rode a course that was originally scheduled to last six to seven months but instead lasted only four months.”

The new album provided a sense of reflection for the band, “Rather than an instill of confidence because when we were going to make the third album we felt more confident and we could say what was in our heads more accurately,” he said.

“If You Could See Me Now,” serves as a tribute to front man Danny O’Donoghue’s late father Shay, also a musician, who died of a stomach aneurysm four years ago. Sheehan notes that lead singer O’Donoghue is, “an emotional lad and doesn’t mind wearing his heart on his sleeve where I’m quite private so when I wrote the song I never expected to have everybody reading it like a diary and for me it can be quite embarrassing.” Sheean went on to say, “When I write a song and it gets released, the listeners almost rewrite the song to their own life and it becomes their song in a way.”

The Script will perform in Toronto at Sony Centre on November 6 with support from California-based singer-songwriter Tristan Prettyman.