Vernon Kay became emotional and visibly teared up as The Script frontman Danny O'Donoghue spoke about the death of bandmate Mark Sheehan.
O'Donoghue appeared on Kay's Radio 2 show on Wednesday to discuss ten songs that represent the soundtrack of his life. During the segment, he paid tribute to Sheehan, who died in April 2023 at the age of 46 following a brief illness. The loss left his bandmates "utterly devastated."
Recalling the song "If You Could See Me Now," O'Donoghue reflected on Sheehan's ability to articulate his feelings about his father's death in his songwriting. "His father passed when he was 13 and he's from a very rough area in Dublin as well," O'Donoghue said. "He had a quite a tough upbringing but to see somebody like that in the studio being able to articulate what that meant to him for his father to to leave was insane."
O'Donoghue described Sheehan as "one of the best lyricists of all time," noting that his lyrics are taught at Berkeley, even though neither he nor Sheehan graduated from school. "It's like he wrote that about his dad and now I'm singing that about him on stage. It's like there's generations of pain and truth and hurt," O'Donoghue added.
Kay, visibly moved, wiped away tears, stating, "It’s got me that… Give me a minute." O'Donoghue, in turn, expressed the difficulty of discussing the topic but felt compelled to honor Sheehan's memory. "I find his talent so unique and so beautiful that how dare I not honour his memory and I could retire the song and never sing it again. But how dare I not do that?"
Sheehan and O'Donoghue had been friends since childhood and were previously in a band called Mytown, formed in 1996. The Script was formed in Dublin in 2001, with Sheehan on guitar, Glen Power on drums, and O'Donoghue on vocals. The band achieved global success, selling 20 million records worldwide with hits including "The Man Who Can't Be Moved" and "Hall of Fame."
Following Sheehan's passing, O'Donoghue shared that he turned to "drinking, smoking... everything" in the aftermath. He described going "off the rails" and experiencing a "mental block." After a heavy drinking session over Christmas 2023, he decided to abstain from alcohol to confront his grief "stone cold sober."
"I want to face the grief stone cold sober because if you don't, you're only kicking it down the street," O'Donoghue stated. He initially gave up drinking, smoking, and caffeine for January but continued the sobriety, noting in May that he felt "better than ever" and was beginning to emerge from a "black cloud," which has inspired new music.