Danny O'Donoghue

Danny O'Donoghue

Danny O'Donoghue (born Daniel John Mark Luke O'Donoghue on October 3, 1983 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish singer-songwriter from the band The Script. He is frequently heard playing keyboard at both live performances and on their debut album, The Script.The Scripts first single We Cry is about James Street in Dublin and the different types of people you would meet there. Danny has been a member of a late 90's Band called Mytown after being signed for $15 million dollars to Universal Records in 1999. He has also worked as a record producer in the United States with fellow bandmate Mark Sheehan.

Forming The Script

Danny and Mark met in their early teens in the James's Street area of Dublin, near the Guinness brewery, gravitating to each other through a shared obsession with music, and in particular a love of American black music. The pair travelled to America, where instead of staying there for a week, like they had planned, they stayed there for 8 years. In the last year they met Glen, who only lived ten minutes away from Danny in Dublin and their fathers had worked together before.

Striking up a songwriting and production partnership, Danny and Mark's exceptional talent was recognised early, and, to their astonishment, they found themselves invited to the States to collaborate with some of their production heroes, including such legends of modern R'n'B as Dallas Austin, Teddy Riley, The Neptunes and Rodney Jerkins. Danny and Mark started as a backroom team, making demos for other artists, but when they met fellow Dublin drummer Glen, the dynamic shifted. Although they had never actually heard him play, such was the connection they made that Mark invited Glen on a working holiday to LA. His collaboration with Mark and Danny produced three songs in one week.

"Individually, we all had our own talents, but together it just went to another level," according to Danny.

And so The Script went into production. But it has not all been happy ever after. When Mark's mother became terminally ill, the trio returned to Dublin so that he could spend time with her, recording in his old home studio in James Street. "That was pulling on my heart strings in a big way," admits Danny. "Lyrically it was pouring out of me."

The trio's debut single, We Cry, was released by Phonogenic/ SonyBMG in April 2008 and reached #13 in theUK singles chart the following month. And it is something special, a soulful anthem of everyday struggle that manages to be simultaneously bleak and uplifting. "There is not a lot of hope in the song, cause not everybody's life is full of hope," explains Danny. "There's not always roses at the end. But out of all these things that have gone wrong in our lives and everybody else's lives, the message is 'together we cry'. Because as long as we're here together then we can find a way to share the burden."

Life and Family

Danny was born in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Ailish and Shay O'Donoghue. When Danny attended school in Dublin, he met current fellow band mate Mark Sheehan when they were both in their early teens. Danny's father was also a professional musician and as a child Danny was very much involved in music. "I spent a lot of my childhood singing when the other kids were outside playing football and getting into trouble."

Just as The Script were about to record, Mark's mother became very ill; so the band moved back to their hometown Dublin. They recorded there for some time. Four months after Mark's mother passed away Danny's father died from an unexpected heart attack. "I came home so that Mark could spend time with his mum, little did I know that I was actually getting to spend that precious time with my dad," reveals Danny. "But then amidst all this travesty and disaster, these songs have risen out of it. That was the time when it finally came home to me how important music was to me, 'cause in my darkest moments that's what got me through."

External links

• Danny O'Donoghue
• Mytown