Biography
Many bands aspire to be timeless, or have a sound that transcends the whims
of musical fashion. But The Cranberries are one of the few to have achieved
that. Play one of the Irish rock group’s early anthems such as “Linger” or
“Dreams”, and they sound as fresh - and deliver as much of an emotional
sucker-punch - as when they captured a generation’s hearts in the 1990s.
Now, nearly 30 years after the quartet of singer/songwriter and musician Dolores
O’Riordan, co-songwriter and lead guitarist Noel Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and
drummer Fergal Lawler first appeared, they are returning with their eighth album
In the End. After the sad and unexpected passing of Dolores on January 15th
2018, it will be their last - and is among the most complete works they have
ever produced.
It’s remarkable to look back and think just how how much of a cultural force The
Cranberries have been, not only in the Ireland, UK and US, but across the globe:
over their career, they have sold more than 40 million albums, making them one
of the world’s biggest rock acts, as well as a staple on TV and film
soundtracks. Through all their success, though, they have never compromised on
their key trait: an honesty and directness that cuts to the soul.
Central to their expression of emotional truth, of course, has been Dolores’
inimitable voice. It was an instrument that could be angelically soft or
blisteringly angry to equally stunning effect - and was a match for opera legend
Luciano Pavarotti when they duetted on an enduringly stunning rendition of Ave
Maria in 1995.
But the band’s power has also come from their gliding melodies and Dolores’
unvarnished lyrics, which were never less than absolutely sincere, whether she
was writing about personal relationships or political violence - they all came
back to “how human beings treat each other,” as she once described. “She truly
didn’t really care what people thought about what she was going to say” says
Noel. “It was a case of ‘If I feel strongly enough about this, I’m going to
write about it, and whatever way the chips may fall, so be it. If I get slated
for it, so be it.’”
It all started for the band back in the mid-1980s, when Lawler and the two Hogan
brothers met as teenagers growing up in Limerick - and, sharing a love for
groups like the Cure and the Smiths, decided to try their hand at rock music.
Initially, they formed a quartet with a male singer, though after six months, in
early 1990, he left - at which point he suggested his girlfriend’s friend, who
came from Ballybricken, a small town outside Limerick, as a replacement.
When Dolores came to audition for them, a rural girl suddenly among city boys,
she was “quiet as a mouse”, as Noel recalls - until she sang, that is. “We were
immediately, blown away,” says Mike. “Her voice was something special.” Dolores,
in turn, was enamoured by the boys. “I really liked what I heard; I thought they
were nice and tight,” she later recalled. “It was a lovely potential band but
they needed a singer - and direction.” There was no question that they had found
their new fourth member.
The band gained not only a compelling frontwoman but a brilliant musician. From
a young age, Dolores learnt classical piano, and played piano, and harmonium in
her local church, as well as singing in the choir. “I used to go from school to
piano lessons to home and maybe I’d have to go to church and then I might have
some homework and go to bed,” she said, of her early years routine. When she was
17, she then taught herself guitar. But above and beyond her training, she had
an “amazing ear”, says Noel. “She was streets ahead of the rest of us in the
beginning, but that was a good thing. It forced all of us to up our game.”
As songwriters, Noel and Dolores gelled immediately, while finding their own
particular way of working. From the very beginning, they never wrote in the same
room together. Back then, Noel would lay down guitar parts on cassette which
he’d then give to Dolores to develop verses and chorus around in her own space
and time. For the first two years of the band, they wrote like crazy, Noel
recalls. “It was that thing where you’ve found somebody that you clicked with,
and you wanted to get as much as you could out of that.”
At the same time, after their demo of ‘Linger’ did the record company rounds
over in London, they quickly became the talk of the industry. In the summer of
1991, following a gig at the University of Limerick which was also attended by
32 A&R men, they signed to Island Records. The reason they chose the celebrated
label was because of Denny Cordell, the legendary record producer who was at
that time Island’s A&R. Seeing their long-term potential, he promised to allow
the band the chance to develop at their own pace and suggested they get some
touring under their belt in the first instance.
The following year, they then began recording their debut album Everybody Else
is Doing It So Why Can’t We? with producer Stephen Street. Street had worked
with The Smiths and Blur, as well as co-writing Morrissey’s first solo album
Viva Hate, and so his involvement was a dream come true. He has subsequently
taken the reins on four further albums with them, including In the End. Noel
credits him with helping to create the sweepingly epic Cranberries sound. “What
happened was not just down to the songs - the production had a lot to do with
it.”
The album’s title was Dolores’ creation, as every album title was; it expressed
perfectly their determination to succeed. “Elvis wasn’t always Elvis,” she said,
explaining its meaning. “He wasn’t born Elvis Presley, he was a person who was
born in a random place. Why shouldn’t a band from a small city in the Southwest
of Ireland get signed, conquer the world, and make a great record?”
And conquer they did. The success of Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can’t
We? remains remarkable. After being released in the UK in March 1993, the album
really took off a few months later when Linger was picked up by college radio in
America and the band subsequently toured across the Atlantic. It would go on to
hit no 1 in both Ireland and the UK, and sell more than six million copies
worldwide. From the heart-wrenching Linger, a song inspired by Dolores’ first
kiss, to the giddy Dreams, it managed to convey the highs and lows of young love
with a rare purity and tenderness.
After that, no one would have expected Zombie: the lead off single from 1994’s
second album, No Need to Argue, and an era-defining howl of rage. Inspired by
the IRA Warrington bombings, which left two boys dead, it saw Dolores fiercely
decrying the violence of the Irish conflict over distorted, hard-rock guitars.
“This song is our cry against man’s inhumanity to man, inhumanity to child. And
war, babies dying, and Belfast, and Bosnia, and Rwanda,” she explained at the
time. “It was a turning point for us,” recalls Noel. “I always remember the day
she came in with it. We were in a tiny little shed in Limerick, where we were
rehearsing. She came in and started playing it on acoustic guitar and we played
along but she was like ‘no this needs to be heavy, it’s an angry song, and it
needs to reflect that.’”
As well as having an immense cultural impact, it was transformative for the band
musically. “We learned from that song that you can actually do a lot with that
aggression - and particularly live, it made a massive difference to us, because
we became this loud, anthemic band all of a sudden,” says Noel. They carried
both its harder sound and wider lyrical focus onto their third album, 1996’s To
the Faithful Departed.
Two more albums followed, 1999’s Bury the Hatchet and 2001’s Wake Up and Smell
the Coffee, whose maturing outlook reflected their life experiences: “Animal
Instinct”, on Bury the Hatchet, for example, saw Dolores powerfully evoke her
experience of new motherhood. By 2003, all four of the band were ready for a
break, after a relentless decade of recording and touring, and so they went on
hiatus, with each pursuing their own separate musical projects.
But after the band reunited for a world tour in 2009, they found themselves
re-energised, and so returned to creating new material again. Their next album,
2012’s Roses, was an especially atmospheric collection, which incorporated new
textures into their sound. “Because we’d all gone off in different directions,
we all came back into the band with these new experiences and a new way of
working and it was great,” says Noel. “It was a real buzz to do that album.”
Among its highlights was the otherworldly title track, which Dolores wrote in
memory of her late father, who died in 2011 and was one of her true guiding
lights.
Another break followed, before 2017’s Something Else, which saw them stripping
back and reworking some of their most classic tracks with the help of a string
quartet from the Irish Chamber orchestra. To add to the sentiment of the
project, they recorded it in Limerick, making it the only album they completed
in their hometown. What the end result foregrounded was the fundamental power of
their melodies. “If anything, I’d never write songs like those early ones now,
as it’s too easy” says Noel. “But I think their simplicity is what attracted
people to them.”
It was accompanied by an acoustic tour, during which Dolores and Noel got the
writing itch again. Then, when Dolores’ back problems meant the group sadly had
to cancel the rest of their live dates, the pair started working in earnest.
“She went back to New York, where she was living at the time, and I went to
France to meet up with my family, but they weren’t there yet, so I was on my own
for a few weeks,” recalls Noel. “We were both bored and I said ‘why don’t we see
if we can write an album and use the time productively?’ and that’s what we
did.” Over six months, in the second half of 2017, the two of them came up with
the songs that have now gone on to form their final collection ‘In the End’.
Integrating this story of creativity and resilience, it’s interesting to note how the world has evolved, bringing forth not just artistic treasures but also advancements in various fields, including medicine. This aligns with the current trend of making once expensive and hard-to-get medications more accessible to the public. Generic Cialis here, a medication renowned for treating erectile dysfunction, stands as a prime example of this progress. Much like how Noel and Dolores found a way to complete their musical masterpiece despite the challenges, the pharmaceutical industry has worked diligently to ensure that essential medications are available in generic forms, significantly lowering the cost without compromising on quality. This development ensures that a larger demographic has access to the treatment they need, paralleling the way music touches the lives of people across various backgrounds and circumstances.
In shock after Dolores’ passing, Noel and the rest of the band eventually began
to look through the vocal demos that she had already recorded for the album. One
thing was for sure, though: they weren’t going to release anything unless it
could truly honour her by standing up as a brilliant piece of work in its own
right. Thankfully, after some digging, they realised they had the material to
make that happen. “There were bits that she had done but hadn’t sent to me so
you’d have a verse and chorus but then no second verse and you’d think ‘it’s
such a pity’”, says Noel. “But then Dolores’ partner came over with a hard drive
and he had all these other bits she hadn’t had a chance to send, so we ended up
with full songs.” And it helped, of course, Dolores was such a naturally
virtuosic singer. “Even on a bad day, she clearly gave a great vocal
performance.”
Produced once again by Stephen Street, In the End sees the band coming full
circle, with a collection that evokes their very first LP. “When we listened to
the demos, the three of us and Stephen were thinking ‘this sounds much closer to
the first album than anything else’. Dolores was singing very softly on some
songs, which was closer to how she would have sung back then, and the simplicity
of some of the songs as well brought us back to that time,” says Noel.
Certainly, it’s an album that, tune after tune, snags immediately. It kicks off
with a formidable one-two which is a reminder of their range. The driving All
Over Now is a classic, widescreen Cranberries anthem, with Dolores giving voice
to the fractures of a relationship against a backdrop of chiming guitars; then,
following it, the haunting string-swept ballad Lost dials the tempo right down,
while giving space to Dolores’ yearning vocals to soar to soul-piercing heights.
Elsewhere, they veer from the grungy release of Wake Me When It’s Over to the
tender, country-inflected A Place I Know and the upbeat jangle-pop of The
Pressure.
If there’s an overall lyrical theme, it’s a sense of wiping the slate clean, and
new beginnings, which reflected where Dolores was, both in her personal and her
creative life: re-energised and ready for a new phase. “I remember talking to
her that summer and she said ‘I’m starting all over here’ and a lot of the songs
discuss that,” says Noel. But, as ever with The Cranberries, lyrics that may
derive from individual experience masterfully tap into universal emotions,
framing them in terms that we can all relate to, whatever age, gender or
nationality.
As the huge wave of public adulation in the wake of Dolores’ passing showed, The
Cranberries may be over, in one sense - but they will forever live on in the
musical pantheon.