The Script's Danny O’Donoghue on speaking for the first time after vocal surgery: ‘It was an emotional experience’

The Script frontman was forced to stay silent for two months 
Comeback: Danny O’Donoghue is back after vocal cord surgery
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Safeeyah Kazi28 July 2017
The Weekender

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Danny O’Donoghue has said that finally being able to speak again after having throat surgery was an “emotional” experience.

The Script frontman , 37, was unable to talk for two months after having nodules on his vocal cords removed, forcing the band to take a break.

“It was huge to take away my main form of communication. At the start it was more difficult then it turned into more of a spiritual thing,” he told the Standard.

“It was more of a head mess because you don’t know if you’re able to sing, you the first thing to do is be able to talk because if you can talk then you can probably sing but you’re not allowed to and even straight away I could [only] speak for five minutes every hour for the first two weeks.”

He added: “The more emotional part was speaking for the first time after the surgery because 99.9 per cent of the time it all works out but there are those one or two high-profile cases.”

The band have recently returned to the music scene, with a progressive sound change in their new single ‘Rain’, after taking time off for the ‘first time’.

The Irish pop-rock band told the Standard how the situation in politics and news was so prevalent that it influenced their upcoming fifth studio album.

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Guitarist and vocalist Mark Sheehan added that being in America at the time that Donald Trump was elected inspired the theme of unity for the album as a result of the election dividing people leading to the creation of song ‘Divided States of America’.

The 40-year-old said: “It was the first time the news penetrated the studio walls. One minute we realised we wanted to be very much more free with our sound, with our lyrics, with who we are as people and then you realise that a lot of people’s freedom is being threatened right now, freedom of expression, freedom to be gay or straight, freedom to [go against] peer pressure at schools.”

“All this stuff seems to be at a heightened sense at the moment. We wanted to have a flagship song called ‘Freedom Child’ which ended up being the mantra for the album. It was purely to find that inner child and not be afraid at this moment in time and not be afraid to be who you want to be.”

He added that politics is ‘dividing humanity’ and how it should simply be a conversation instead of an argument rather than using it to make a determination of who someone is as a person.

He said: “Now all of a sudden people are being judged because of their political stance of who they are as a person.”

“We were just trying to say that there is a great divide so let’s just reach across and listen to each other. “

The band has just announced a new tour beginning 21 August on home soil in Dublin, playing London o2 Brixton Academy on album release day 1 September.

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