Bad Wolves create a great tribute to Dolores

All profits from the band’s cover of ‘Zombie’ go to the family of the late Cranberries singer, writes Ed Power.

On January 15, Tommy Vext of heavy metal band Bad Wolves received a phone-call from his manager: “He told me to turn on the news.”

It didn’t take long for Vext to discover the cause of the consternation. Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries had passed away in London. She was just 46 and the music world was united in shock and grief.

Vext was shaken too. O’Riordan had gone to London to record vocals for Bad Wolves’ cover of The Cranberries defining hit, ‘Zombie’. A few hours before her death she had left a voice mail for Dan Waite, head of the LA outfit’s record company, expressing her enthusiasm for their take on the song.

“Our first intuition was that we needed to shelve this,” says Vext.

“We don’t want to even think about [releasing it].”

But as the initial shock faded they concluded that, far from a shameless cash-in, their cover of ‘Zombie’ would be an emotive tribute to O’Riordan — who had reportedly adored their intense reading of the track.

This would prove to be the correct decision, with Cranberries fans responding to Bad Wolves’ ‘Zombie’, propelling it into the Billboard charts (all proceeds go to O’Riordan’s family).

Vext is still processing everything that has happened.

“It’s an emotional rollercoaster,” says the Brooklyn-born frontman.

We’ve been all the way up and all the way down. I’ve shed tears over this. Someone asked me, ‘how could you cry about someone you don’t know?’ The truth is we don’t mourn the death of an artist because we know them — we mourn them because they helped us to know ourselves.

Vext was an angry and confused 13-year-old growing up Brooklyn when he heard ‘Zombie’ for the first time. O’Riordan’s angst spoke to him — though it was only later that he came to appreciate it as a protest against political violence.

“I started reading about the bombing in Warrington, the references to the 1916 Easter Rising — it felt that the message was so powerful that it kinds of transcends genre.”

Bad Wolves are considered an alternative metal supergroup, with members from high-profile outfits Hersey, God Forbid and Bury Your Dead, while they are managed by Zoltán Báthory of Five Finger Death Punch, whose popularity is such that they have played the 12,000-capacity Wembley Arena in London.

‘Zombie’ was recorded by Vext and company in late 2016, just as they were figuring out what sort of band they wanted to be.

We weren’t sure it if was going to make it onto the record. The song is a masterpiece and a massive hit. Some art is sacred — you become afraid to do a rendition of it.

On the fence as to whether to release ‘Zombie’, Vext asked Dan Waite to play it for O’Riordan, a close friend of hers for several decades.

“He called me and said Dolores loved the song and wanted to sing on it. We had no idea — it was like, ‘oh my God this is a dream come true’. We re-recorded some of it in LA — and sent it to London for her to sing on.

"That’s why she was there. I went to bed that night thinking we had a collaborator who was very influential in shaping my formative years.. The experience has been overwhelming but bittersweet too.”

Having performed the song on the Late Late Show, Bad Wolves hope to return to Ireland for a longer trip. Their recent journey here was squeezed into a 12 hour whistle-stop, between promotional duties in the United States. However, they wanted to honour O’Riordan in her home country, no matter what it took .

“We re-routed everything to come here. We arrived this morning and fly to New York at 9am tomorrow. We knew we had to come. When we got asked, it was a case of ‘well whatever it takes’.”

O’Riordan notoriously struggled with stage fight and the burden of stardom. Her vulnerability on stage spoke powerfully to Vext. “All singers to some degree feel that way. Sometimes we just mask it— I have an exterior that protects that vulnerability. Dolores was just incredible and I guess that’s why she was so influential.”

The single ‘Zombie’ is out now. Bad Wolves’ debut album Disobey is released May 11.