[jv11]

Долорес дала шикарное интервью испанскому гей-порталу Chueca.com. Несмотря на это, интервью очень информативное.

Оказывается, Stay With Me рассказывает об отце Долорес, у которого был рак. :( Сейчас отцу уже лучше, но все равно - такого мы не знали. :( Тогда эта песня приобретает еще более страшный смысл... А я-то думал, она про Дона...

И Долорес любит Snow Patrol, Coldplay, Metallica, Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy и Evanescence. :)))


Dolores O’Riordan: Lesbian icon?

March 13th, 2007 by Alex

“If women find me attractive, that’s great. If men find me attractive, that’s fine too,” Dolores O’Riordan says in an interview for Spanish gay portal Chueca.com. The site, which proclaims her a lesbian icon (er?), asks her about religion and about the androgynous look that she sported for most of The Cranberries’ early career.

Interview with Dolores

Dolores O’Riordan announced the temporary separation of the Cranberries in 2003. But she has not until now decided to publish her new album. We spoke with her on her new release, “Are you listening”, on sale in May, on the future of her old band and on how it feels for a religious person like her to be a gay-lesbian icon.

Q:If you could imagine how the Cranberries 6th record would to be, what would be the difference between that record and “Are you listening”
D: It would be a completely differenct record, because the songs I wrote with the guys were completely different.

Q: However, songs like “Loser” or “When we were young” would fit in a Cranberries album.
D: Yes, because I wrote 70% of the Cranberries music and I write my own songs now. I haven’t changed, and I’m still the same person, and also the same singer. My record is more experimental and for the first time I’ve had to take care of everything myself. Different musicians helped me, and for the first time it’s been pretty experimental. It took me way longer, but I enjoy taking everything calmly, relaxing, and resting.

Q: The first time that there where rumors of your solo career was in the early 90s. When was the first time you really thought about it?
D: Not until I record the “Greatest Hits”. Before it had gone through my head, but I knew I wanted to finish what I had with the guys: the 5 CD’s, and the contract we had signed. I wanted to finish the Cranberries with the Cranberries.

Q: SO do you consider the project completely done?
D: It’s a possibility we will reunite, of course. The door is open. It hasn’t closed, who knows.

Q: The theme of death has always appeared in a lot of your songs, and now it’s present in your song “Black Widow”. How do you confront it?
D: “Black Widow” is a song about my mother in law’s death. She had cancer, and she fought with all sorts of treatments: chemotherapy, radiation…but everything made her worse. “Stay with me” is a song about cancer my father had. Fortunatley, he was able to get better, but the song is about the fear I felt about losing him. Music is very good therapy to deal with death. It’s a part of your life. Everyone is going to die, everyone around you. And in the end you have to try to move forward.

Q: Religion must help calm your fears, because you are a very religious person. At least from what we can tell with songs like “Angel fire” or “This is the day”
D: It’s good to have faith, to think there’s something after death, that we are going to a better place. Maybe we’ll find eachother in another place. It’s good that heaven exist. It would be horrible to think that one day you’ll be underground and that’s it…so I like to think there’s something else.

Q: Does your religion prohibit you from supporting gay marriage?
D: I don’t understand conventional/established religion. I don’t follow anyones established rules. It’s just that I have faith and I beleive in a greater spirit, & that’s it. If gay people want to get married, that’s very good. Everyone is happy.

Q: At one point you became a lesbian icon, given your androginy. Does that bother you given your religion?
D: It was just cos I had short hair. But why would it bother me? I think we should accept each other the way we are. Humans have to be able to love each other. Love can present itself in many different ways. If girls find me attractive I find that fantastic. And same thing if guys find me attractive.

Q: There are songs that seem to be inspired by your husband, and they sound very happy.
D: “Apple of my eye” is a very obvious one. It’s about loving someone, it’s very simple. I think it’s such a simple song that it’s very pretty.

Q: Part of Cranberries charm was that simplicity, but the critics never seem to understand that.
D: I have never cared what the critics thought about my lyrics being too simple. I think it’s always been a charm about the music that I do, and I think that’s why people like my songs.

Q: In this new record you worked with new producers like Dan Brodbeck and Youth. How did you find them?
D: Through Sanctuary. They suggested people for me to work with. Most of the disk belongs to Dan Brodbeck. Youth simply came to Canada and worked on a couple of songs one of them being “Ordinary Day”. It was great working with new people. I can’t find a word to describe all the ideas Dan brought in. It was a bunch of things.

Q: What music have you bene listening to lately?
D: I don’t listen to much music now, but I really like Snow Patrol and Coldplay. I don’t have a lot of time now to listen to music. I’m very busy.

Q: There are some metal songs in the album. Do you like metal?
D: Yes I like: Metallica, Aerosmith. I like Think Lizzy and Evanescence.

Q: You start your solo tour on May 29th in Barcelona. Do you hope to come back with a more extensive tour?
D: Right now there are 12 dates in Europe, and 15 in North America in June. I hope to come back to bigger places. It all depends on how the record does. It depends on a lot of things how my kids are doing, how the record is received, how everyone feels.

[Dess]

Dolores O’Riordan, at home in Ontario

Ingrid Randoja

Dolores O’Riordan’s unmistakable Irish lilt comes wafting over the phone line. She’s in Toronto, having just returned from her cottage in Northern Ontario. Why does the former lead singer of the 1990s band The Cranberries, and a girl from County Limerick, own a cottage in Ontario? “Well I married a Canadian,” she says with a laugh.



Thirty-six-year-old O’Riordan married Duran Duran’s Canadian tour manager Don Burton in 1994, and although the couple and their four kids — ages 16, nine, six and two — live in Ireland, they spend their holidays Canada.



It’s also the place where O’Riordan wrote many of the songs found on her first solo album, Are You Listening? (available May 15th).



“I love it there,” she says referring to her getaway in the woods. “I love the rustic life, and it’s great to have a pad in Canada for when we’re touring.”



The Cranberries disbanded in 2004 after 13 years together and producing five albums that sold a total of 32-million copies worldwide. That meant O’Riordan would finally have the chance to write and sing — in her distinctive, trilling voice — her own songs.



“It took me four years to make the album, the longest I’ve ever gone between albums, and that’s a good thing because I didn’t rush it and I picked the cream of the crop out of the 32 songs I wrote.”



Are You Listening? is bursting with O’Riordan’s trademark vocal dramatics. Songs that begin quietly eventually grow louder and more elaborate, and her haunting voice remains at the centre of it all. Since O’Riordan started singing with The Cranberries when she was just 18, I ask if anyone tried to alter or interfere with her singing style.



“No,” she says quickly. “I was never trained or anything. I just go out there and feel the music and let it in. It’s a spiritual experience for me and anyone who shares the stage with me feels it.



“It’s funny, I’ve gone full circle,” she continues. “When I started music was fun, a hobby, but after The Cranberries became so successful it stopped being fun...it wasn’t fun at all. And then I got busy with my family and it’s come back to being fun, a hobby, and that’s the best place for me to be to enjoy singing and what I’m doing.”