It’s been a big year for indie Irish rock band The Script. Their self titled debut album launched them to the top of UK Album Charts. Since then, they’ve landed on the US Billboard Hot 100, performed on many TV shows, and their latest album SCIENCE & FAITH came in at #1 on iTunes. Now, they’re doing their world tour, including a sold out show at Toronto’s Kool Haus tomorrow night! We caught up with guitarist, singer and songwriter of the group, Mark Sheehan to learn more about SCIENCE & FAITH and how the tour’s going.
Are you excited for your performance tomorrow night?
Yeah, you know, it’s been a pain for us because every time were in America we don’t get a chance to go up to Canada.
Is this your first time in Canada?
As The Script, where we’re going to play a full show, yes. We’ve only ever been [here] once before doing a little bit of promo, but now things seem to be picking up in Canada for us. We’re constantly getting Canadian fans on Facebook and Twitter saying “Why aren’t you guys coming to Canada?” so yeah, we’re really looking forward to it!
Which do you prefer to perform, the large arenas or smaller venues?
To be honest, we love when we can see the love in the people’s eyes and when you can feel that real energy. We love the smaller shows because it’s almost something different, it’s on a more human level and you really do feed off the audience. We play a lot of arena’s around the world and we love that, we get to really have fun with that, but at the end of the day breaking it back down to a smaller show where we can really get in with the audience is something we absolutely are passionate about.
What cities are you most excited about performing in while on tour?
It’s really weird, because we’re just happy to be employed! We’ve been bum musicians for so long that now that things are working out for us, we’re just happy to play shows everywhere. There’s never a city that sticks out to us, for us it’s just a show and people come from all over to see us, so that’s a real blessing for us. We get a chance to really connect with people, so we tend to forget where we are. We just get on stage and we just perform for the people in that room.
What’s the strangest thing to happen during a concert?
We’ve performed in all sorts of climates, with VH1 alone, we’ve actually played 14 thousand feet on top of a mountain, on a very snowy mountain recently for them. And then they took us on a cruise, which we performed on the ocean on a cruise ship which was absolutely bizarre because while we’re playing the boat was moving. So I’ve never experienced that before, that was pretty weird.
How do you think your sound on SCIENCE & FAITH has changed from your first album?
When we made our first album, you’ve kind of got your whole life to write your first album, and then you’ve only got 6 months to write your second so it’s a really weird time. What we really wanted to do was we felt that with the first album, people wanted us to be on stage for longer and we wanted to be on stage longer, but we didn’t have enough music. So we just wanted to make an album that was almost like a ‘part two’ to the first album where we could just have enough songs to stay on stage for longer and stuff. So that’s really the way the album came about and stuff, it was just a matter of us trying to get out there and get more music on stage. Other than that, it’s kind of an irrelevant record and I think that’s just because of the climate we’re living in today.
After finishing SCIENCE & FAITH, is there something you’re excited to try for your next album?
Yeah, there’s lots! Now that we’re moving forward, we’re coming out the back of the album, we know that we have to grow as a band. There are a lot of things we really want to achieve and do sonically and lyrically. We’re just looking forward to getting back in the studio as well which I think we get to do in November to start our third album, so we can’t wait for that.
What’s your personal favourite song that you guys have done?
It’s really difficult because every song is like my diary. Me and Danny have written all the lyrics and stuff and we produced all the music, they’re like our kids. When you love one so much, the rest of them get mad at you! But when you’re on stage it’s always fun to play the songs that everybody knows, people respond to them so well. But we have a few slow songs that really mean a lot to us, so it’s really hard to pick one or two.
What’s the inspiration behind your songwriting?
When we write a song, it’s a little bit like a therapy session. It’s like we just go in there and chat away and Danny and I just get talking about the crazy stuff that’s happened in our lives and what’s happened and it’s almost like a therapy session which finds its way into a song somehow. So I think the motivation is just our lives in general.
Last year, you guys opened for U2 and Paul McCartney on tour. What was it like on that tour, opening for such music legends?
It’s really inspiring because it gives you a taste of something that you never thought you’d get before. We never expected to be this successful or for things to work for us the way it is working but getting a chance to perform with those guys was a real boost of confidence for us because it really showed us that the impossible is now possible. I think we just have become more of a confident band because of it. It’s great because now we were off to the Billboard Awards in Vegas and U2 just came looking for us and found us and started hanging out with us. And it wasn’t until after the fact that it was like “Holy, I’m hanging out with Bono! What is the deal here?” So yeah, I really think it helps build confidence as an artist and it kind of validates what you’re doing as a band.
And you’ve worked with his daughter, Eve Hewson, before, correct?
What we did was we decided to make a 15 minute short movie to go along with our video and then we decided to put a performance to that because we just wanted to tell a bit of a story. Eve is an actress, she just shot a movie with Sean Penn, and we just called her up and asked her if she would be the actress in the story for the mini-movie and she read the idea and the script and just really wanted to do it, so that’s how it kind of happened.
You’ve been on many talk shows and even featured on 90210 and AMERICAN IDOL performing, what’s a show you haven’t been on yet that you’d love to appear on?
All the help we can get to expose real music is really important to us because we’re in a climate where a lot of music is made with computers now and we’re actually music made by humans so it’s really tough for a band like us to get enough exposure, that’s why we try to do as much as we can so that we can get our music to everybody. There isn’t really one particular show, we just love all the help from the media to help us raise our profile to make more people aware of this kind of music.
While on tour, what’s something you guys do in your down time to help relax?
It’s pretty crazy around us, we tend to not get a lot of time to relax because we do a lot of promo stuff. But when we get some sort of downtime, we’re still stuck on the tour bus, so in the back of the tour bus we turned it into an Irish pub where we play Playstation, play our instruments and write songs. We love Frisbee and foosball and things like that as well.
Do you guys spend much time in Ireland anymore?
Not so much, when people ask us where we live we give them the registration number of the tour bus!
What are your plans once the tours done?
Well it doesn’t end until November… so we’re just hoping to go in and start recording album number three, really.
Thanks, Mark! SCIENCE & FAITH is in stores now! Download their albums here or check out their website.