Saturday, May 28, 2011

An Interview With Mark Sheehan, Guitarist For ?The Script?

?The Script? is responsible for many hits we hear on the radio today, from the ever-so popular ?Breakeven? to the more relaxed ?The Man Who Can?t Be Moved.? They?ve written for fellow artists, including ?American Idol? champ Kris Allen. They?ve performed at major award shows. They?ve done it all.

I got the chance to speak with Mark Sheehan, the guitarist for the infectious Irish band, to see how they?re dealing with international success. By no means am I saying that their success is a new matter, in any sense at all, but for Sheehan it still feels that way.

?It?s pretty bizarre, because it?s like looking at the front page of your iTunes account,? says Sheehan, on attending the Billboard awards earlier this month. ?The next day I?m thinking, holy shit, I was chilling out with Bono last night having a drink, what the fuck, you know??

The band, whose music has appeared in many American television shows and award shows, has definitely begun gaining some major exposure over the past couple of years.

Because of it, the band is now popular across the globe, embarking on an across-the-globe tour they are currently still playing. And there ain?t no sign of it slowing down.

But Sheehan makes it clear that this newfound fan base does not affect their music, nor does it affect how they write and play it.

?The sort of music we do is about genuine connection,? says Sheehan. ?It?s kind of cool in that respect, that we get a chance to play the sort of music for everybody to see the same, everywhere we go.?

Sheehan isn?t using television or mass-media to solely promote his band?s music, though. He uses it for more than that, aiming to use their success not only to promote proper music, but to help out fellow bands with their success as well.

?There?s so many bands that we meet on a daily basis that say ?thank you for getting out there? and for being real forward about your music, because it helps other bands as well,? he says.

But Sheehan does have a boiling point when it comes to overexposure.

?You don?t want to see your music on fucking Sesame Street, you know, but at the same time, when you make food or many anything creative, you can?t choose the people that use it and like it.?

The band plans to make a pit stop in Toronto on the 31st, performing at the intimate Kool Haus venue ? well, intimate at least when compared to the Air Canada Centre.�They could have easily filled a large theatre, so why the smaller venue?

?There?s a certain amount of energy in a smaller show that you just can?t replicate on a very, very large stage, so it?s better that people see us at this venue first. It?s a really high energy show, so we want people to really feel that first and hopefully when we come back, we?ll step it up a bit.?

I don?t think the band really needs to step up anything at all, though. They write their lyrics, they play their instruments, and they make good music ? that is miles better than many artists today. Sad? Yes, but true.

As one of the few bands not ?made by computers,? jokes Sheehan, I ask him what a typical writing process entails. Is there lots of wine and crying involved? Does it come to you while shopping for cereal?

No matter where the inspiration comes from, Sheehan is adamant about one thing: writing holds no barriers.

?We try to just open ourselves completely to the music. We decided that if we?re going to be artists, the cool thing about an artist is that he reveals his life in order to turn the people to relate to that,? says Sheehan. ?We tend to just give it everything and don?t shy away from the actual, let?s call it dirty words, or dirty thoughts.

?There is no line drawn, we kind of write music to heal ourselves more than anything else.?



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