The Cranberries guitarist Noel Hogan has remembered the death of lead singer Dolores O’Riordan, calling it “the biggest shock of my life”.
Hogan said that O’Riordan’s death in 2018, from accidentally drowning in a bathtub while intoxicated, came at a time when the Irish alt-rock band were finally working on new music for the first time in six years.
“The day before she passed away, she texted me about songs that we’ve been working on,” Hogan told the i.
Drummer Fergal Lawler said he still wakes up in the mornings to expect an email or call from O’Riordan, adding: “I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever actually get over.”
With the blessing of O’Riordan’s family, the band completed their final album, In the End, in the immediate weeks after her death. Released in 2019, it contained O’Riordan’s final vocal recordings and demos she had worked on with the band.
Lawler remembered how O’Riordan would arrive at recording sessions in the evenings to lay down the vocals, but when they were finishing In the End without her, coping with her absence was difficult.
“When we finished up at the end of the day, we were looking down the hall, almost expecting her to walk in,” said Lawler.
Hogan added that the final day of recording the album was difficult because they realised it would be the “last time we’d all be in the studio together as The Cranberries”.
The Cranberries rose to fame in the Nineties, with hits including 1994’s “Zombie”, 1993’s “Dreams” and “Linger”. O’Riordan joined The Cranberries – then called The Cranberry Saw Us – when she was a teenager, after spotting an advert for a female singer in a rock band. The band included O’Riordan, Lawler, Hogan and his brother, bassist Mike Hogan.
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At the height of The Cranberries’ fame, O’Riordan would later say she was “really sick and screwed up… I felt like a puppet, an object”, and appeared to struggle around the release of the band’s 1996 record To the Faithful Departed.
Reflecting on O’Riordan’s legacy, Hogan remembered her carefree spirit and unmistakable talent.
“I mean, she was born with that voice, right? And she genuinely didn’t care what people thought. That filter wasn’t there. We’d all love to be that carefree,” Hogan said.
“All the other stuff that happened through all the years, it fades into the background. It’s the songs people will remember Dolores for.”
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