Noel Hogan on the mixed blessing of his first major project since The Cranberries
Noel Hogan of The Cranberries.
The 2020 Grammy Awards were hugely bittersweet for The Cranberries’ Noel Hogan. The Limerick indie icons had been nominated for In The End, the farewell album completed by guitarist Hogan and his bandmates following the sudden death two years previously of frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan.
To walk down the red carpet and pose for photographers without their charismatic singer was obviously strange and tinged with sadness. However, there was a comfort in having O’Riordan’s swansong and theirs’ acknowledged publicly. A big jumble of emotions came rushing in as they sat through the ceremony (in which they ultimately lost in the Best Rock Album category to Cage the Elephant).
“We didn’t expect the Grammy nomination – it was a surprise. It was our first time,” says Hogan from his garden shed studio in rural Limerick. “But given the circumstances, that it was the last Cranberries album after Dolores passed away, it was a nice nod. We went out there and had a great week. And then we came home and the world completely changed.”
The change was of course the pandemic. A month and a half after Hogan had attended the Grammys at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles he was locked down in Limerick. But rather than sink into a funk he put the time to good use by collaborating with Derry songwriter and actress Bronágh Gallagher on a Dusty Springfield-esque single, Crybaby.
The project was a leap in the dark for the two artists. Thought familiar with the other’s work, they had never met face to face. Their first in the flesh encounter was earlier this month when they performed together on the Late Late Show.
“You send someone a song and wonder will they like it,” says Hogan, introduced to Gallagher via her music manager Ciara Davey, previously a tour manager with The Cranberries. “I’ve had times where I’ve sent songs to somebody and it didn’t work out. That’s the chance you take.”
This wasn’t an entirely new process for Hogan. Remove the dystopian backdrop of the pandemic and the process wasn’t a massive departure from the method by which he and O’Riordan had interfaced in The Cranberries.
“It’s part of the excitement. I spent 30 years sending ideas to Dolores. Dreams started in my bedroom in my parents’ house, me recording a cassette and giving it to Dolores.”
In other ways, the change of scenery was welcome. Having recorded with the Cranberries since the 1990s (excluding a six year hiatus from 2003 to 2009) Hogan relished the opportunity to work in a different context. And to try different ideas.
“Once you stick that label on it – The Cranberries – then fans expect a certain sound. There is a point at which they go, ‘this is ridiculous’. So to do stuff like this is great. You get to flex your muscles a bit. There are no expectations.”
It’s also as close as he’s come to 'going solo'.
“This is the first time I’ve put my name to anything. Anything else I’ve done has been part of a group – I’m comfortable with being in a group. That’s the thing about lockdown: there is no question of being in a group. You have to do it yourself.”
If Hogan was in the deep freeze of lockdown, Gallagher had a less claustrophobic experience. Television production has found a way of continuing through Covid. And so her back-and-forths with The Cranberries’ guitarist were fitted around a schedule that included flying to Manchester to film season two of Sky One comedy Brassic (she plays a traveller and the sister of one of lead character, Ash).
“It was amazing – we were tested twice a week. It was a brilliantly-organised, Covid-compliant set,” she says. “Everybody was swabbed. They pulled it off incredibly well. We are very lucky we work in an industry still able to function. It was amazing it went ahead, really.”
Gallagher was thrilled to brainstorm with Hogan, whose music she has admired from afar. And it heartened her hugely to know there are decent people in the business. She has met plenty of the other sort.
“I’ve been in that world where people take songs you’ve worked hard on and you put on shows and then you never hear from them again. You literally do not hear from them. They don’t answer your calls. They just ignore you. It’s such a difficult thing not to take personally. I’ve been kicked in the teeth so many times - 'you’re too old, you don’t look a certain way’."
She recalls going to the UK for showcase gigs – only to be ghosted by the very industry figures who had invited her over in the first place.
“I’ve brought my band to London three times for three big gigs that I financed myself, bringing some of the best musicians in the country over. And you hear back ‘that was great’. And then you never hear from them again. I’ve take that as a life lesson to build me up to be strong – to keep going. And I’m doing that.”
In that context, collaborating with Noel Hogan was exciting. Gallagher has a background in blues and roots music and famously starred in Alan Parker’s The Commitments. Leaving her safety zone was a joy.
“Dusty in Memphis was a big starting point for us,” she says, referring to Springfield’s blue-eyed soul classic recorded at the legendary American Sound Studios Memphis with producer Jerry Wexler.
“It was a different way of working. And sonically it was a very different sound from what I was used to. That in itself was inspiring. There were more modern influences too. To go and listen to music from the 1980s onwards – for me, that was a whole new way of thinking. When you’re sonically surrounded by different stuff, you move into a modern time.”
Hogan was pleased, too. And with hindsight he is glad he and Gallagher completed Crybaby last year before taking on the major new project. He’s soundtracking a HBO documentary about the notorious Woodstock 1999 festival and the orgy of violence into which it descended (the film is from the producers of the Netflix hit Fear City: New York vs. The Mafia).
“There’s a lot of work in it. Out of all the things I’ve done in the past few years this has been the biggest learning curve. It’s not like writing a song. There are pieces that are three minutes long and pieces 30 seconds long.
“And then you’re sending it off. The director has to hear it, the editor has to hear it. A whole line of people will come back with ideas. It’s an unbelievably different world. It was a big learning curve but I have enjoyed it even though there were days I wanted to run into the wall. And it has helped with the lockdown in that you’re still going to work every day.”
- Crybaby by Noel Hogan and Bronágh Gallagher is out now
