'Music Can Change The World': The Script's Danny O'Donoghue On Grief & 'The User's Guide To Being Human'

Having just announced their upcoming studio album, The User’s Guide To Being Human, and a world tour to go along with it, The Script’s Danny O’Donoghue is animated, reflective, and above all, energised.  

The Script

When The Script's Danny O’Donoghue talks about music, his passion is infectious.

Having just announced their upcoming studio album, The User’s Guide To Being Human, and a world tour to go along with it—including arena dates in Australia, O’Donoghue is animated, reflective, and above all else, energised. 2024’s Satellites came with some emotional weight, marking the first album following the death of guitarist and founding member Mark Sheehan, but this time around, there’s a noticeable shift.

The User’s Guide To Being Human by no means ignores the grief, but it definitely doesn’t stay buried in it, either. For O’Donoghue, this was a return to form for The Script and a sound that came naturally once they stopped trying to outrun what made people connect with them in the first place. The lead single, Man In The Arena, is the perfect example of this.

“We have songs like Hall Of Fame and Superheroes, which always kicked off the album, so we were looking for something that has a bit of balls to it,” O’Donoghue says.

Inspired by a speech by Theodore Roosevelt, Man In The Arena is an empowering track. “Who cares about what the critics think or the people who are sitting on their couch pointing as the strongman stumbles…. It doesn’t matter if you fail in life, but if you dare greatly and you still fail, that’s where the honour is,” he adds.

Straight off the back of their 2025 tour, O’Donoghue was feeling inspired. Wasting no time, he jumped straight into writing the next album. The Satellites tour helped the band deal with their grief the only way they knew how: by celebrating music in front of live audiences.

It helped them make sense of the past few years, but also left them feeling refreshed and more focused than ever on creating something that leaned into their earlier sound a little more.

Reflecting on this time, O’Donoghue shares, “Through that time, I really was just looking for something to pull me through it all, and music did. Music really pulled me through… I didn’t see myself sitting around for months on end not doing anything… so I got back into the studio again, and we went back to basics.”

To capture that earlier sound accurately, The Script assembled their A-Team: writer Jimbo Barry, who wrote on Hall Of Fame and Superheroes, as well as The Man Who Can’t Be Moved and Breakeven, and Steve Kipner and Andrew Frampton, who worked on their first two records.

That sense of familiarity extended beyond songwriting, too, as the band reunited with several other longtime collaborators. Even Charles Melling, who directed the Man In The Arena music video, had worked with the band during earlier eras, reinforcing the sentiment that this album was a conscious return to their roots.

Recording the album in Los Angeles, where The Script spent their early years following their formation in Dublin, only added to that nostalgia.

It was a healing experience for them all, reminiscing and looking forward. “It all came through,” O’Donoghue says, “All the lyrics—all of that grief, sorrow, empathy, excitement even about life… I didn’t feel like I was drowning this time, I felt kind of like I was walking on water.”

O’Donoghue keeps dropping these incredibly insightful one-liners, and it’s no surprise considering some of the lyrics he’s written. It’s a testament to the incredible songwriter he is, and also to his rediscovered appreciation for music.

There’s a formula to early The Script music, O’Donoghue shares with me. It’s a mixture of rock and hip-hop, some rap thrown in there with a flow over the top. “You obviously can’t do a whole 20 years of that, but that’s how we started off, and people fell in love with us,” he admits.

“Then, we started to experiment… You can’t go over that same space again. But this time around, I was like, ‘No, we go back to the hip-hop frame of mind, and we’ll just loop a guitar lick for the whole verse and then I’ll rap over it, and we’ll add a melody to the rap.”

There’s a looseness and spontaneity to the way he talks about making the record that also mirrors the energy of the band’s earliest releases. Rather than overthinking every creative decision, The Script leaned back into instinct and chemistry, focusing on making songs that felt exciting to them rather than chasing trends and expectations.

Australia has played a massive part in The Script’s history, with this upcoming tour marking their twelfth Australian headline tour. When I ask him what keeps them coming back, O’Donoghue says, completely straight-faced, “Oh, the money, 100%.” But he can’t keep it up for long, before laughing and saying, “No, it was never about the money. If it was, I would have stopped coming a long time ago.”

O’Donoghue outlines his appreciation for Australian audiences by saying that if he had to pick anyone in the world to have a beer with, it would be an Aussie.

“You just know you’re going to get on—you’re funny as hell, you love a good drink and showing your emotion when you go out to a show,” he says. “They’re the type of people I want to play in front of—the people who are unashamedly human, two hands up in the air when the chorus kicks in.”

For a band whose catalogue is jam-packed with emotional, arena-sized choruses, this connection means everything. The genuine affection for Australian crowds that O’Donoghue shows is a testament to why their longstanding relationship with Australia has remained so strong over time.

The Script have certainly left their mark, delivering anthems that have soundtracked heartbreaks, celebrations and everything in between for millions of people around the world. Chatting with O’Donoghue now, it’s clear that The User’s Guide To Being Human represents far more than just another album cycle. It’s a fresh start and a way for The Script to reconnect authentically with themselves, the sound and their audiences.

After over two decades, for O’Donoghue, there’s one simple thing that keeps the spark alive: “It’s the music. I believe that music can change the world; it changed my life… It’s just part of my whole entire being.”

The Script return to Australia in March 2027. Pre-sale tickets are available now, ahead of the general sale this Friday. You can find more ticketing information on the Frontier Touring website.

Presented by Frontier Touring