Prepare to be spoiled as more and more new interviews surface. This new interview is from the September issue of the Italian magazine “Tribe”, which has 4 pages on the band, as well as photos.
Thanks to our Italian reader Daria for the translation!
Music and scent of coffee. The Cranberries issue their new album “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee”. Ready for the great return of Dolores’ voice and the touch of a band who knows to play well.
The second time you visit a place you see many more things. In the Cranberries’ case, their ranch near Limerick (or rather Dolores’ ranch, she lives near there) seems bigger. The Cranberries are going to issue a new album, “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee”. Since the last time, many things have changed, Dolores and Noel have little girls. New is their relation with the press too — they don’t fear it anymore.
“”Bury the Hatchet” referred to our relationship, but there was an allusion to the press. The CD cover with the eye watching from above was an allegory of those persons who criticized us for many years.”
WHAT HAS CHANGED?
“We decided to not care about what they write about us. The last album sold 5,000,000 copies in the world even if it has been criticized. But these are not important things, they don’t change our life, so we are not worried”
THE ALBUM SEEMS TO HAVE A CONSTANT REFERRING TO THE TIME THAT GOES BY, “NEVER GROW OLD”, “TIME IS TICKING OUT”, “THIS IS THE DAY”, “EVERY MORNING”. IS IT A THING THAT COMES AS YEARS GO BY?
“Even the title “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee” has something to do with this. We understood that many persons don’t live in the present and everything he/she does is to moan for the past, something so wonderful you can’t recreate. So they all live in the future, worrying of what they will do and saving away for the dark times thet will come. Acting like this you don’t appreciate the present, the moment in which you live. Yes, time is a recurrent theme in this album. We say to people to open their eyes, to look around and appreciate the nice things that life gives you. We look to the future, but we are not obsessed.”
WITH YOUR FAMILY GROWING YOUR PRIORITY CHANGES. DOESN’T IT?
“Yes, naturally.”
EVEN YOU, NOEL, THINK SO?
“Some years ago the band was our life. Everything concerning to it was really important, all the negative things were big problems and difficult to resolve. We spent much time in touring for seven years to promote our music. You get married, you have babies and you guess there are many things more important. There isn’t just the band in our thoughts. Coming back home is a thing we appreciate. In the darkest moment we didn’t fight ourselves. We were exhausted and we got angry with the rest of the world. We often thought it was not our band anymore, because there were so many persons who managed it for us. The record company and the manager said we had to go touring for another year and we just said yes, we didn’t moan, but the only thing we wanted to do was to stop and get rest.”
THE TOUR THAT BROKE UP THE BAND HAD 117 CONCERTS. FOR “BURY THE HATCHET” YOU DID 110. DOLORES, WAS IT THOSE 7 DAMN CONCERTS THAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE?
“No, it was the way we did it, not the number. This time we had some breaks and we never played two days running. It has been more expansive because it has been longer and the technician spent days doing nothing, but it has been a necessary choice to keep our mind sane and to get the right breaks and to come back and see our families. In Europe I took private planes to go from a concert to another, or to come back home during the breaks. The crew was intolerant to this. They got bored and and they went often to the pub. It happened more than one time to come back in tour and find the technicians totally drunk, after drinking for two days. For “To the Faithful Departed” we played without breaks, for “Bury the hatchet” we did the opposite. We acted like spoiled rock stars. We’d do the same even if we didn’t have much money right to play and sing together. I guess this time we will find a middle solution.”
YOU KNEW YOU WERE PREGNANT FOR THE SECOND TIME WHEN YOU WERE ON TOUR. DID YOU HAVE TO CANCEL SOME DATES FOR THIS REASON?
“No, I went on till the doctor said to me it could be stressing, with bad consequences for my baby. At the end we had to cancel 3 concerts. I was pregnant for 14 weeks, I was running a risk. Especially when we do a festival, there are more stressing things because situations change every time, with different problems during your tour where after a while you act automatically. I had particular necessities for my condition, and not everyone is well- disposed do give you something just to put yourself at ease.”
“It would be nice to go to a place like Brazil, where a tour would be really expansive, but to go to a festival is less expensive. Something like Rock in Rio to satisfy all those fans who always ask us in chat when will we play in their country. These are embarrassing questions, we never know what to answer…”
WITH THIS NEW ALBUM, THANKS TO STEPHEN STREET, YOU HAVE COME BACK TO THE OLD PRODUCTIVE LEVEL. TALKING TO YOUR FANS YOU SAID YOU DID SOMETHING YOU NEVER DID BEFORE. WHAT WERE YOU
TALKING ABOUT? SOMETHING TO DO WITH STEPHEN?
“We never record live, everybody in the same room. The last song of the album, “Chocolate brown”, was recorded in this way. We studied our positions in the room. We around the room 4 trying to find the best sound. We had those microphones that pick up every little murmor. It was the first time. It’s been really interesting and we saved a lot time. We did it again with “In the Ghetto” (* see editor’s note below), a B-side, an Elvis Prestley cover — It has got a nice feeling. Those microphones are unbelievable, luckly I can sing very well, so they don’t accentuate any deficiency that I don’t have. Often you like a band for what it does on the disc, but when you go to a concert it’s disgusting because they’re not able to sing. My voice is so that there aren’t effects. That’s why many people come to our concerts. We know we give the best in the concerts. Unfortunately there aren’t top models in this band: We are not beautiful, but we are great.”
DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE TO SHOW TO PEOPLE YOU CAN SING AFTER 4 ALBUMS AND MANY TOURS?
“There are places in wich we haven’t gone yet, the Brazil for example. We have many fans in Mexico and Puerto Rico and we never went there before the last tour.”
IF YOU ARE SO APPRECIATIVE OF YOUR PERFORMANCE, WHY DON’T YOU PRODUCE A LIVE ALBUM, INSTEAD OF THE GREATEST HITS YOU ALREADY ANNUNCED?
“Many persons asked it…There is a disagreement, the managment and the record company. We think that a greatest hits is worthless. It would be too soon, it’s something like to close a door, but we aren’t closing anything, so it has no sense. Anyway I don’t think we’ll have a greatest hits. At the end we will impose our will. With all the changes we had in the last years it’s not easy to have a constructive conversation. It’s all new people and we never worked with them before, so we are building a relation. Contrary to what other think not all the hatchets have been buried……”
* Editor’s Note: The actual article says the Elvis song is titled “Indicator”. However, The Herald can find no existance of such an Elvis song, so it’s very likely that the author misheard the title, which is actually the well-known previously-announced “In the Ghetto”.
Source: Exclusive