Dolores O’Riordan told Toronto’s the Star that the process of writing and recording Are You Listening? was therapeutic for her.

She describes the process of writing over a period of four years as a “hobby and a kind of escape” from both the good and bad elements in her life.

The Star is quick to point out that although it was written in seclusion at home, the album is loaded with heavy themes of death and insecurity — something we pointed out in our own review.

Here’s what The Toronto Star commented:

Are You Listening?, released in May, didn’t turn out to be a tip- toeing ode to domestic bliss, though. Minus the odd, sweet- natured ode to O’Riordan’s toddler daughter, it’s long on themes of death and escape while the music, like that of the Cranberries, is sometimes startlingly heavy and roiling.

Dolores also revealed that producer Dan Brodbeck actually moved into the basement of her home in Howth to work on the tracks on ProTools in O’Riordan’s spare time. She said:

“It was great because one minute we could be recording and the next I could be mashing the potatoes. He was brilliant,” says O’Riordan. “The set-up was downstairs and he’d be down there working all the time, so I’d go down and say, `I have an idea’ and I’d put it down and leave him to come up with some percussion while I went upstairs to peel some spuds. He only came upstairs when he smelled dinner cooking. Otherwise he was in the studio.”

You can read the whole interview at The Toronto Star or below after the jump. Thanks to Tara and others for the tip.

thestar.com