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An Interview With Mark Sheehan, Guitarist For ‘The Script’

Christian Allaire — Sat, 28 May 2011 14:17:39 +0000

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‘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.”

Interivew: Orianthi On Life After Michael Jackson

Sara Harowitz — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:22:31 +0000

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I walk into the dressing room at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre in Toronto to meet with pop singer and guitar sensation Orianthi. With her blonde hair tied in pigtail braids under a hat, she stands up to greet me. Orianthi reaches out one hand to shake mine, and in the other hand she holds a stuffed animal chicken. Apparently I am the only one in the room who finds this peculiar.

“I grew up with chickens and I want to have a chicken out on the road with me but I can’t,” she says, staring at the stuffed toy that now sits on the coffee table in front of her. “Everyone keeps giving me chickens, stuffed ones, so hopefully I’ll get a real rooster. That would be awesome. I’ve had chickens as pets since I was really young.”

At this point everyone in the room is giggling, including Orianthi and I. She flashes a gorgeous smile that lets me know she does not take herself too seriously. And for someone who became instantly famous for being Michael Jackson’s main guitarist in This Is It, that is no easy feat.

“A lot of people say that,” Orianthi says of the fact that even though she now has an established singing career of her own, she is still widely known as the girl who played guitar for Michael Jackson. “I don’t want to break away from that because I got to work with him for three months. … It was such an awesome time and I wish he was still around.”

For Orianthi, now 24, music goes back as far as she can remember. She started playing piano at the age of three and switched to guitar at the age of six.

“I can’t remember not playing [the guitar],” the Australian native says. “I wrote my first song when I was six. It was kind of terrible but I thought it was awesome. I played it to everyone in the school and I performed it at assemblies and had back-up dancers.”

Starting so young definitely paid off, because at the age of 18 Orianthi had the amazing opportunity to play on stage with one of her idols: Carlos Santana.

“It took me a while actually, afterwards, for it to sink in that I had actually got up there and jammed with him because he’s my idol and he’s the reason why I picked up the electric guitar,” she says modestly, almost as if she still does not quite believe it actually happened.

Not only an established guitarist, Orianthi is a songwriter and also has the vocal talent to back it up. Her first album, Believe (featuring the hit song “According To You”), is already out and is gaining momentum for its bright outlook and high energy.

“When I’m going in to write a song, I want it to be fun to play live,” she says. “I don’t want it to be a drag, so you look down the set list and you kind of get excited by it. That was sort of my frame of mind going into the record.”

And while staying true to pop music, Orianthi does not leave behind the instrument that made her into the person she is today, making room for various guitar solos amongst her pop melodies.

“[It was about] bringing in the guitar solos and also the guitar parts sort of throughout the songs, but not too much,” says Orianthi. “It’s finding the right balance so that people who are not guitar players are not turned off by it.”

Growing up in the guitar world, Orianthi often faced the double standard of being a talented woman in a predominantly male-oriented world. Still, it did not stop her from succeeding, and now it just fuels her to inspire other young women to pick up the guitar.

“My main goal is to inspire more kids, more girls to pick up the guitar and keep at it,” she says. “When people, when young kids come to my show, I want them to go home and want to pick up a guitar or paint a picture or be creative.”

“It’s pretty hard being a female guitar player,” Orianthi continues. “And some guys say, ‘You’re just getting attention because you’re a girl,’ so you’ve got to work twice as hard. You’ve got to play twice as hard just to get the respect. And for a guy to say, ‘Oh, you know, you’re just ok,’ I think there’s sort of a double standard with that, which hopefully will change.”

For Orianthi, gender is not an issue; the only thing that matters is the heart of the player.

“And it doesn’t matter if you’re a guy or a girl, it’s the way that you play,” she says thoughtfully. “[If it’s] with conviction and you put a lot of passion into it and you love it, I think it shows.”

Interview: Joe Satriani Just Wants to Rock

Sara Harowitz — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:41:20 +0000

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Getting a peek into guitarist Joe Satriani’s brain is like opening up a musical wonderland where perhaps not everything makes sense, but everything is fascinating.

Songs are constantly forming in his head, and he was taught from a young age a very interesting way of dealing with it.

“Ever since high school I was taught to pay attention to the little noises and musical daydreams in my head, and to learn how to catalogue them mentally in musical terms so that I wouldn’t forget them,” the 54-year-old told andPOP. “You follow the creative musician in your head so you don’t have to depend on your fingers.”

Satriani does this by assigning each note in, for example, the classic “do re mi fa so la te do” scheme with a number from one to eight. He memorizes the specific number scheme, and then later relates each back to its respective note to retrieve his melody.

“If you’re sitting in a cafe and all you have is a napkin and your girlfriend’s eyeliner, it’s going to be tough to write that down,” Satriani said with a laugh.

Aside from being an amazing musician, Satriani recently tapped into another creative facet when he joined the team behind his latest DVD, Live in Paris: I Just Wanna Rock, which was released on Feb. 2 (a two-disc live CD was also released). Acting as producer of the DVD, he had a major role in its production.

“You don’t just want to be blown around like a leaf in the wind because then people will make decisions and people don’t know your audience like you do,” he said. “Doing something creative and pushing into new territory is very important for the soul of an artist.”

The DVD was filmed at Paris, France’s Grand Rex Theatre in May 2008 and, according to Satriani, is unlike any other live DVD he has made.

“We wanted this DVD to get the person at home to imagine the intensity of the feeling of actually being there,” he said. “It was very unique light show on that tour.”

For Satriani, the choice to make the DVD in Paris was easy. He said his best show ever was in Paris during his first tour back in 1988.

“We have just the greatest history with Paris,” said Satriani, a New York native. “We fell in love with the Parisians.”

Besides the intensity of the show, Satriani said the DVD also allows fans to see a different side of him. Instead of the usual silly behind-the-scenes footage featured on past DVDs, this one has an in-depth interview that highlights Satriani’s calmer side.

“It’s kind of an interesting flip flop,” he said.

In contrast, Satriani and his new band, Chickenfoot, are releasing a live DVD in a few months, with bonus features that he says are “like a comedy show.”

And though Live in Paris features a different side of the guitarist, it is still every bit as Joe Satriani.

“We had no preparation which was great,” he said. “Very rock n’ roll!”

Panic! At The Disco Welcomes New Band Members

Ilan Mester — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:18:30 +0000

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Weeks ago, former Panic! At The Disco guitarist Ryan Ross and Jon Walker left the band to go off and do their own thing, leaving remaining members Spencer Smith and Brendon Urie to search for a guitar and a bass player to perform an upcoming tour.

Since the band is set to carry out Bink-182 tour dates, they needed a new guitarist and drummer. Ian Crawford will be replacing Ross on guitar, while singer/songwriter Dallon Weekes will be playing bass for Panic!

“Yeah, we’ve taken on a couple of new guys for the tour. They’re friends, so the decision was easy. Plus, we’re really excited to play with them as musicians,” Smith told MTV News. “Ian is probably the most talented guitar player that me and Brendon have ever played with, and Dallon is a really nice guy and a really great bassist. It’s new. Like I said, we’re really excited.”

Smith insists that despite the split, they remain friends. “Brendon and I are still friends with Ryan and Jon, we really like their new band [the Young Veins], they really like our band, and we hope fans like both of them,” he told MTV News. “There’s thousands of songs on my iPod, there’s room for both our bands on it.”

He also said Panic! is “working on an album now”.