IRISH trio The Script are set to perform at this year’s Party In The Park in Huddersfield.
They will join York indie band Elliot Minor as support acts for headliners Guillemots at the June 29 event in Greenhead Park.
You might not have heard of The Script, but their name is on the lips of everyone in the music industry right now.
Guitarist Mark Sheehan, lead singer and keyboard player Danny O’Donaghue and drummer and acoustic guitarist Glen Power released their debut single, We Cry, on April 28.
Since then they have taken the music world by storm with their ‘Celtic soul’, a blend of hip hop and pop melodies with all the passion you’d expect from across the Irish Sea.
If you imagine rock band U2 mixed with R’n’B producer Timbaland you will get the idea.
We caught up with Mark to ask how the band felt to be playing in Huddersfield ... and he promises that anyone who goes to see them in the park will have a great time.
How do you feel to be playing at Party In The Park?
We are delighted to be performing!
Have you played with Guillemots or Elliot Minor before?
No, we haven’t played with the bands before. But we’re always up for it!
Party In The Park is one of our big summer events. Will you be playing at any of the big festivals this summer or going out on tour?
Yes. We can’t believe it actually; – we’re playing Glastonbury, T In The Park, V Festival, Oxygen, the works! We’re excited about them all, but particularly Oxygen, because it’s in our home town of Dublin and we grew up with that one.
Your single We Cry charted at number 15 and your name seems to be everywhere right now. How do you feel about your success?
Number 15! For us that’s huge. You’re only as good as your last gig. But if we’re in the top 15, we’ll deal with that nicely.
Although the success seems sudden to the public, we’ve been slogging away since childhood on this. It’s the longest overnight success ever!
You’ve recently toured the UK with The Hoosiers. Did you visit Yorkshire on your travels and how did you find the crowd?
We played both Leeds and Sheffield and it was amazing.
The one thing I loved was that people in Yorkshire seem to buy tickets for the show to actually come and enjoy themselves. What a concept, I know.
But most towns – big cities mainly – are so used to getting every band that maybe they are just so used to it. Watching live music is a great night out and I’m glad Yorkshire people know that too.
You also spent some time in America, in Los Angeles. Did the Americans like your style and did you get any inspiration from being over there?
Dan and I spent the bones of 10 years in the USA. Most of that was in LA. I have such a soft spot for America.
It has inspired us a lot, mostly our production skills.
We worked with so many American producers and musicians that you can’t help but let it rub off on you. I think our writing style is UK through and through, though.
People have said you have quite a different sound to other bands that have come out of Ireland in the past. Is that true?
I think that people say we’re different from other Irish acts there have been in the past because they hear our American days coming out and not fiddly Irish music.
We do love our emotionally charged music though, so singer/ songwriters go down a treat. I think we represent the new Ireland.
How do you feel about the music scene in Ireland and is there any real difference to that in England?
The musical difference from Ireland to the UK is, in my opinion, separated by budget.
The talent is the same. The problem is that music equipment, studio time and all the necessary things that artists need to compete on an international level are just too expensive in Ireland.
There are genre difference, but, to make a short story long, there is not a huge difference in Ireland to England musically. What works in the UK works in Ireland most of the time.
Finally, what can we expect to see from you in the rest of 2008?
I don’t know what anyone can expect from us really. What band can say they do?
But when I try and step outside of us I can only say that music is what we do, live shows is where we get to express ourselves to the fullest and we do have a lot to say.
We have so much music in us and I believe we are a career band.
Other than that, we all aspire to stay humble, to manoeuvre through this industry with respect for others and leave the music for the stage. But most of all, we’re having a great time. You can definitely expect that.
