growing pains the cranberries

Rip It Up, Issue 210, 1 February 1995, Page 24

growing pains the cranberries

The Cranberries have topped charts around the world with their often sweetly melodic brand of pop, but the Irish quartet don’t always have the sweetest disposition when it comes to interacting with the music business. They’ve actually become part of showbiz lore in Toronto by cancelling no less than four gigs in just 14 months. Not always their fault, as reasons ranged from Simon Le Bon’s laryngitis (The Cranberries were supporting Duran Duran at the time), to immigration problems, to singer Dolores O’Riordan’s thyroid problems. Along the way, however, they managed to annoy local promoters, radio stations and their own record label, with their somewhat prickly attitude.

. . -_• •. — ...... Anyway, they finally fulfilled their gig obligations in Toronto in December, and squeezed in some ■ interviews, albeit reluctantly. Lead guitarist E Noel Hogan made it clear he’d rather have ■ been home Christmas shopping and downing II pints with his Limerick mates, but here’s what Il the lad had to say for himself. » “We’ve been on tour about four months, and ■ everyone’s really tired. We leave early tomorrow ■ and get back home for Christmas. Next year * we’ll leave all December free. We don’t have time to do shopping or anything. Everything is a rush." Will you get to play Downunder in 95? “Yes, March — Australia and New Zealand. [The single has] really gone well down there. ‘Zombie’ is No. 1, we hear.” Your second album, No Need To Argue, has come out pretty fast. Is that to prove you’re not a one-trick pony? “What happened was that we recorded the first album, Everyone Else Is Doing It, So Why > Can’t We, two years ago, but it wasn’t released I in North America for a long time. Then it took I months to grow. So that’s a two year span I between when we did it and when it hit, so we || already had a second album ready. We hadn’t I recorded it, but had all the songs. This time ■ last year we were at home and knew we r weren’t going to tour till the summer, so we had January to March 94 to do this album.” Was it an easy process, having worked with Stephen Street as producer before? “Yes. We were used to each other, and were really good friends. Since we did the first album, every time we were in London, we met up with Steve. That made it so much easier.” Has he had a big influence on your sound?

“Definitely with the first album, because we didn’t have a clue. We just walked in off the street. With this album, he helped us as well, but he lets you do most of it and he’ll be there to keep everything going, to keep the band charged. We come in with a song and play it, and he never changes it, never says: ‘Well, do this.’”

Was it fun to record at [legendary English studio] The Manor? “It was great, a really beautiful place. Spent three weeks there and got most of the album recorded. It was in the country, so there’s nothing else to do. If someone else was putting something down, you’d just watch TV. It was our first time in a residential studio, where you live and eat there. We loved it. If you got hungry in the middle of the night, you could just go help yourself!” What is the songwriting process within the band?

’’There are two different ways of doing it. One is that I get something on guitar and bring it in to [rhythm section] Mike and Feargal. If Dolores is around, she’ll take it home and write lyrics and a melody, and she’ll go: ‘Change it here, put the chorus there.’ When I do it, I don’t know where the verse and chorus will go because I don't have any lyrics. I’ll give her 30 odd bars here and there, so she’ll have loads of space to figure out what to do. The other way it’s done is if Dolores comes in with the melody and lyrics done, and we’ll add in. But never does it happen where one comes in to the others and says: ‘Well you do this,’ or, ‘you do that.’ Otherwise it wouldn’t really be a band. It’d be like session men."

Have you never suggested changes to her lyrics?

“Never. They’re her lyrics. She’s the one that has to stand there and sing them, so far be it from me to tell her what to say.” You’ve had such a strong response to ‘Zombie’. Did you anticipate that? “Yes, it was different to anything else we had done, or have done after it. To us, it’s just a good song, and you don’t really worry about anything else. People outside the four of us tend to worry more about those things than we do. The response has varied. It’s a song about Ireland, but you could apply it to a lot of different situations. A lot of people get that, but others think it’s like ‘up the Irish’ — that it's a big rebel thing, and it’s not. You try to beat that into people’s heads [unfortunate imagery]. The video was banned by the BBC and [lrish TV network] RTE. The video they show has the bits of us playing, and that’s all there is.” That must have been frustrating. “The video actually has something to do with the song. Like, the next day the record company are trying to change it. We were saying: ‘This is it,’ but they insisted we do an edit. We said we didn’t want to, but they went off and did one, then came back. We said it was crap but knew we were fighting a losing battle.” Was that a difficult lesson learned?

“Yes. It’s just really stupid. You can’t smoke in a video, or drink. You can have a cigarette or drink in front of you, but you can’t touch it. Do you ever find it overwhelming, coming so far so fast?

“For us, it happened slow. It’s been four years now. We were around for three years and we played every dodgy club in England. Did seven or eight tours of England alone, then a tour of Europe last year that wasn’t much better. So, we’ve been to all those places. To us, nothing was happening at all. This was just before we broke in North America. After touring like eight times and feeling we’d come no further than when we started two years earlier,

you kind of wonder if it’s ever going to happen. When we released our first album at home, we didn’t expect it to do well, but thought it’d get our name known at least. But we were playing clubs to 14 people, so that plan wasn’t working.”

Are you bitter it took American acceptance first?

“Yes, it’s a bit annoying to practically travel to the other side of the planet to get noticed. In Ireland they still slag us. We live in Limerick, which is about 120 miles from Dublin. In Ireland, that’s a very long distance. We were

seen as ‘culchies’ — as useless. We were just generally slagged off — ‘get rid of them’ — because we weren’t hanging around in Dublin in the right clubs. A lot of that goes on. So we were annoyed with that long before we had even released an album. But at least we can say we did what we wanted. We never compromised. We never had to go to the clubs that everyone goes to. We all still live in Limerick. It worked out for us, and it was great to be able to go back and laugh at these people. We do go as far as to say: ‘No, we’re not doing an interview with you.' You don’t forget what they do to you, instead of giving us a break when we needed it. Then, in London, they took to us first, then kind of got sick of us. They give you the hype first, then cut you down. Even when we had quite a lot of press early on, we weren’t really selling anything. No-one was coming to the gigs. It didn’t mean anything.” Irish bands always had to move to London. Is it hard to operate from Limerick? “I think it’s very important, to us anyway. If we wanted to move to London we would, but none of us really like it there. We just told our managers and record company, we were going to stay there. They all accepted it, but they had no choice! We told them: ‘There are phones there!’ I live at home with my parents, and I tell them to say I’m not here if people call!” Were your parents supportive? “I’ve gone through many jobs. I left school when I was 17. Had one year left, but I never went back after the summer holidays. Got a job in a bar. I thought: ‘Great, I’ve got money now.’ I soon realised I hated the job, but it was too late. I worked myself through another few jobs before ending up on the dole. I thought: ‘Oh no. What am I going to do now?’ But, with the band, they never said: ‘Why don’t you stop and get a real job.’ I think they thought I’d just do this for a few months, then go on to something else.”

How did the first line-up of the band, without Dolores, differ?

“A lot. We borrowed instruments and didn’t know how to play. We met this guy we knew who said he could sing. He’d show us a chord, and he’d wail over it. We used to have a good laugh. Wasn’t serious in any way. We were 17, so it was just ridiculous.” It sounds like something out of The Commitments.

“Yeah. He was with us a few months but, as the weeks went by, we realised we were doing something we didn’t really love. So it was kind of coming to an end when he said he was going to leave, down to the three of us. That’s when we started writing. ‘Linger’ was the first thing. I just had a few chords on the guitar and the others added to it. We had that one for ages, till we met Dolores. That was the first song we did.”

If someone said it would be a hit, would you have laughed them out of the room? “Very much so. We just played it in this little room. Never thought it’d get played around the world.”

Do you have any favourite guitarists? “Johnny Marr is probably my favourite. I was really into the Smiths. He really stands out. I came close to meeting him a couple of times. Probably better off I didn’t, in case he turned out to be horrible, or you just won’t say anything. Even meeting Stephen was weird. I didn’t know how it was going go, but it was fine.” Have you played with any Irish superstars?

“I’ve met Bono, and I met Sinead O’Connor very briefly. I met Bono at these awards in

Ireland last year [93] — that’s about all. Did a tour with Hothouse Flowers, and they’re really nice guys, but haven’t met Van Morrison or any-

thing.” Do you have any theory about Ireland producing such great singers? “Singing is such an important thing in Ireland. Everyone is encouraged to sing growing up — somewhere or other you’ll have to sing. That goes back years and years. You can go into a pub and there’ll be a guy who just starts singing after two pints!” I gather you can’t see yourself leaving Ireland?

“For now, as long as I’m left alone, it’s fine.”

KERRY DOOLE

We do go as far as to say: ‘No, we’re not doing an interview with you.’ You don’t forget what they do to you, instead of giving us a break when we needed it.