The guitarist for chart-topping band The Script has died after a brief illness, the band has announced. Mark Sheehan, who was 46, was a founding member of the Irish hitmakers.
The band made the announcement about Mark's death on social media on Friday (April 14). In a post, they said: "Much loved husband, father, brother, band mate and friend Mark Sheehan passed away today in hospital after a brief illness. The family and group ask fans to respect their privacy at this tragic time."
When the band toured the US last year, Sheehan was absent from the line-up. The Script’s frontman Danny O’Donoghue had told the press that he was attending to family commitments.
The singer and keyboardist told the Sunday World: “It’s his story to tell, but yeah, I guess if I could paraphrase, his children needed a father and his wife needed a husband."
In 2017, Sheehan told Music Radar that he was proud of his expansive musical influences: "When you talk about a lot of guitar players in the UK and Ireland, they tend to be rock and alternative-based, so they do a lot of riffs and runs and things like that, whereas I’ve ignored that pretty much all my life as I grew up on Stevie Wonder, James Brown, and rhythm and blues and things like that.”
The Script formed in Dublin in 2001, bringing together childhood friends Sheehan and O’Donoghue and drummer Glen Power. The Script's eponymous debut album was released on August 8, 2008, and went straight into the charts at the number one spot in the UK.
