Noel Hogan reflected on his pre-stardom years as a musician and meeting Dolores at the Xeric studios on his “Smart Arts” series interview.

“Lots of songs from the first album were just instrumentals for months and months [before we met Dolores]” explained Hogan.

Hogan spoke about the first album’s slow start and empty venues in the UK until “Linger” became a hit in the USA.

Noel also spoke about The Cranberries hiatus and his Mono Band project. “I started getting interested into other things, listening to other people -what they were playing and doing- and I kinda thought ‘You know this is more interesting to me than what were are doing’. I could see how you could make electronics stuff with guitars and it kinda interest me a lot.”

Noel finished up the interview talking about his work as a producer and The Cranberries reunion.

You can listen to the whole interview here, thanks to ciaranryanproduction2 on Soundcloud