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Andy Culpepper talks with The Cranberries
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Web posted on: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 5:59:11 PM EDT

By Andy Culpepper
Turner Entertainment Report Senior Correspondent

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- What a difference five years makes.

It was almost that long ago, on a balmy August afternoon, that a brassy rock band from Ireland held forth on a stage in the New York countryside and announced its presence as a force to be reckoned with. It was the 25th anniversary of that singular late-'60s musical love-in known as Woodstock, and the Cranberries were having a ball.

"It was amazing, that was," says Fergal Lawler, the band's drummer, recalling the event.

"Yeah, it was really cool," says Dolores O'Riordan Burton, lead singer and songwriting muse. "It was a really fun gig because there were lots of other bands there and stuff. And it was the first time actually we went in a helicopter, too, wasn't it?" She remembers with a wry smile. "And our bass player declined. He's afraid of flying, so he took the bus, and we took the helicopter.

"And we had a good day. And felt pretty rock 'n' roll, because we were doing the helicopter, and there was mud everywhere."

Well, not everywhere, as Lawler remembers it. "Actually, the sun was shining when we were playing, and we were one of the few bands that had sunshine, so that was pretty nice."

Not quite five years later, that sunny interlude onstage at Woodstock reads like something of an omen. Since that early taste of stardom on America's shores, these unlikely rock stars from Limerick have weathered a stormy path -- and have avoided a career-ending breakup in the process.

It's a cool atypical California afternoon. O'Riordan Burton and Lawler sit for this interview only hours before they're to join the rest of the band in concert at L.A.'s art-deco Wiltern Theater -- part of their mini-tour promoting the band's new album, "Bury the Hatchet."

The title, as goes the saying, speaks volumes.

It's been three years since the release of the band's last album, "To The Faithful Departed." Talk about ironic labeling. Everything that made the Cranberries such a worldwide phenomenon seemed to unravel.

Immediately after releasing the third album, the band took off on what was to be a lengthy worldwide tour. But the constant video shoots, interviews and promotional appearances proved too much. And the music -- rougher edged, louder and considerably darker than before -- was generally panned by critics.

The Cranberries had developed a reputation for taking themselves and their music too seriously.

In October 1996, amid internal friction and outside speculation, the group abruptly cancelled the remainder of its tour. The band members went their separate ways. Two years passed before they broached the subject of working together again.

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"A fine, melodious CD, if lacking in edge," writes Newsweek. "Who knew these guys could get even mellower?"

O'Riordan Burton, for one.

"I guess when you experience big success and stuff you also experience the behind-the-scenes, ya know, which is always darker than people think." The word comes out "tink" in an earnest, straightforward, no-nonsense brogue. So having experienced that, I think we're a lot more mature now."

In the band members' time away from each other, O'Riordan Burton has given birth to a son, Taylor, now 18 months old. Two other band members married.

"It's pretty much from experience," Lawler offers. "You learn from experience. And you make mistakes ... of course you make mistakes, you know. But you learn from them, and you go forward, and you won't make the same mistakes twice, hopefully, you know."

O'Riordan

Lessons of the past

And what were the worst mistakes the Cranberries made? -- mistakes that almost forced them out of business after worldwide sales nearing 30 million albums?

"We just overworked," says Lawler. "That was what happened to us in our last tour."

O'Riordan Burton, generally described as "waifish" in print when the Cranberries' popularity took off, had become the target of tabloid sniping. Words like "anorexic" were being bandied about.

No one should have been surprised at the music they were singing, says the once-blonde singer, now sporting a starkly shorn reddish do. "If you look at the photographs of us four years ago ... we went away from ourselves. We were miserable," she says. "I was, like, so thin. I just couldn't sleep. And I was just this person who just ...I had no reality."

O'Riordan Burton gave up on the idea of going home to Ireland even for a visit, she says, because the tabloids hounded her. So she retreated to Canada with the Canadian she'd married in 1994, Don Burton.

"So I would just go up north to my husband or go to another hotel. But to me I was never going home. So I wasn't grounding -- and if you don't ground you get really depressed, actually, eventually. If you don't go home to see your friends and family -- if you can't go home to be who you really are. I was very unhappy. And the guys were the same."

To her credit, O'Riordan Burton takes no issue with past criticisms she and the band endured in the media. Her description of the music from that period would be laughable if the problems behind it weren't so serious.

"The music did sound more rock 'n' roll ... it was more complaining about life, and it was more 'the miserable pop star stuck in a hotel room without a real life,' you know? The album was like that."

The solution seemed obvious to all of them.

Lawler

"We went home, got a life, got away from this 'fame pop star world' and went back to reality," she says. "And that's why this album does sound more like the Cranberries in the early days -- because we're more like the real people now."

The resulting change in outlook comes through on the new album, particularly in two songs inspired by the birth of O'Riordan Burton's son. "You and Me" and "Saving Grace" showcase her keening soprano to full advantage. Writing about a live appearance of the band in New York, Newsday called the singer's acoustic rendition of the former number "...a gem of exquisite simplicity."

Not all the reviews have been so glittering. But the band's self-proclaimed new maturity keeps the good and the bad in perspective. O'Riordan Burton seems determinedly clear about what's important and what isn't.

"When you live in a world where people obviously give you a lot of attention and stuff, but it's not, like, real. It's rock 'n roll. It's your job. You write good songs, OK," she says. "It's like some people make a good bowl of soup. Some people write good songs. But at the end of the day everybody's a person."

And what are these persons doing to make certain this regenerated and healthy attitude doesn't fall prey to the pitfalls of musical stardom? They have a freshly-minted credo which bears repeating as often as the need arises.

"We've got this new motto in the band." O'Riordan Burton says. . "We say, we're doing like six weeks on the road. And no matter what, we're going home for four weeks."

Sitting next to her, Lawler nods his head and smiles his assent.

"Yeah, because I have a very clear picture," she goes on. And you believe it. She stares straight ahead with those green eyes focused. "It's like fame and all that stuff for money, it's fine. But that's not what counts. When you're dying, and you're lying on your death bed -- you're looking at your children, and you're thinking about the beautiful spiritual experiences you have."

"Now, all the gold and diamonds and crap. You can't take it with you. It's all irrelevant. And all that fame, that means nothing. Because it's not real. The real things are the children around you," she says.

"And all the feelings, and the thoughts you have in here," her gesture refers to her heart. "That's what really counts. That's what you take with you when you die."

Somehow, you get the feeling you've heard the genesis of a new song. The Cranberries are back. And they're not going anywhere -- for more than six weeks at a time, at least.