You get older and come to the conclusion that it's a great gig making music. Even if you turn into an old gnarly fart, no one cares what you look like if you write good songs - the only gig is to sing well and perform.
— Dolores O'Riordan
I write about what is getting to me at the time, about the things you need to talk about, but which would sound silly if you sat down and told them to your friend. I only write for myself, to get my emotions out. It's self-therapeutic.
U2 and Sinead O'Connor - I haven't a clue why we're compared to them. Apart from us all being Irish, we've nothing in common.
When I got pregnant, I started singing again. It was my saving grace. I literally mean having this amazing human life, and our relationship in the sense of mother and child, redeemed my soul.
I lived in a small village outside the city and grew up in a large family, so my world was very much centred around that. I used to sing in the local church, and I would also occasionally sing in the local pubs for which I used to get a few bob. That, for me, was the start of my interest in music, which has obviously expanded since then.
It was different to what everyone else was doing. It was very hard to pigeonhole The Cranberries. And we were just huge; it was just sensational.
It's very difficult to break in Europe unless you break in England, and it's very difficult to break in England if you're Irish.
When the Greatest Hits came out and we did that tour, I just felt I wanted to take a break, totally. Probably because, as well, I was so young when I got famous. I did album, tour, album, tour, album, tour, then I had a public nervous breakdown where I just lost tons of weight.
I think there's a difference between somebody who grows up in Paris or London and goes to Los Angeles. But if you grow up in the green fields, and you rarely go into the city, you're so overprotected that when you do go to L.A., it's almost a bigger slap in the head.
When my grandfather died, I was on tour, and I didn't go to the funeral. I never got to say goodbye, and this is one of the problems of being in a rock band is that you're away, and your loved ones die, and you can't even see them.
I look like that in the morning: my hair's all greasy - it's not, 'Hey, look at the babe of the band!' I hate that kind of thing, the way women are always pushed forward as beauties... it's very easy: you can make the ugliest pig look lovely in a photograph.
When The Cranberries got really big in Ireland, it became difficult for me to be there with all the photographers and paparazzi.
A lot of these songs just came from day-to-day experiences. And it was a very natural, kind of organic process.
What's amazing is - I actually have problems getting it into my head - Canada is so big, right? And Ireland's small, you know; you drive from coast to coast in three hours.
I always come across like I'm looking serious, but I just don't like smiling. Honestly, obviously I'm different in person.
I'm an artist, and I need to work, like everybody. We need to be challenged and that we're getting up and doing something with our lives.
There's always a party in my bus.
In 1997, we took time off, and that's when Oasis broke and Princess Diana died and I was home with my baby hating the music industry. People asked what I thought about the Spice Girls, and honestly, I was so happy to tell them I couldn't be bothered to care.
It was great about the sizes of the audiences we were getting in America, but sometimes you feel like telling some of the men that you're not on stage to have your body looked at.
Each gig is brilliant and fun. When it becomes a routine, we'll take a break. There's no point in doing it if you don't enjoy it.
I hated singing, I hated being on stage; I hated being in the Cranberries. I was constantly crying. I was going insane. I wanted to be a shopkeeper, a hairdresser, anything. I was so desperate to have a reality, friends, a regular, boring life. I missed that.
For a while there, our writing got really edgy... I've always written about experiences, so when your life gets a bit crazy, you start to write songs that are a bit edgy.
I worked myself into a frenzy. By 1996, I had a nervous breakdown just from working. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, just getting anxiety attacks and all of that stuff because I was doing too much, too young, all the time.
Once you succeed at what you're doing, your parents see that what you were doing wasn't so bad after all, though they'd prefer to see you in a secure lifestyle where you have a contract for years and years, or you have a diploma or degree.
I didn't get a lot of attention from my dad when I was young. That's a big part of it for girls. Because your dad is the first love of your life. If he doesn't put you on his lap and give you a pet, you do end up not really liking yourself that much.
I went to Irish dance when I was four. I was playing the tin whistle when I was five. So I think certain things are bred into you.
We all wonder about death, where people go and what happens. But certainly, they cross over from this dimension to another one.
Room service is nice. Ooh-la-la, a hotel. At home, it's laundry and school lunches.
In Canada, anything that's not in the city is referred to as a cottage. Or a log cabin.
Men have no idea how much more difficult it is for women in the rock and roll industry, and while we are trying to give birth, breastfeed, all they do is have a good time.
It's important to take time off because it's a long journey this life, and I want to be singing in 30 years' time. You see a lot of artists who get caught up in the here and now, and they just burn themselves out, and I kind of did that myself with my third album.
I didn't know initially whether I'd like doing TV and whether I'd be able to work with other people. I've always done my own thing. I've never put myself into that situation, but it's the most fun I've had in years.
I am just trying to live for my kids. It is all about my kids now. I love them endlessly.
I'm an icon. I'm the Queen of Limerick.
I remember when MTV first put 'Linger' in heavy rotation, every time I walked into a diner or a hotel lobby, it was like, 'Jesus, man, here I am again.'
My parents were in the local church choir, and I used to go along and sing and play the organ at all the weddings and christenings.
I missed a lot of family weddings and funerals because we were out on the road and had these big gigs, and you can't pull out of these gigs at the last minute because too many people are counting on it. It got to the point where I was consumed with that.
Why can't we actually sing and get respected as good singers and songwriters without having our boobs and butt hanging out?
We have a certain bond that we don't have with anyone else on the planet. You just have that bond, that journey when you are in a band together.
When I was about 14, I got a tacky keyboard for 250 pounds and put on a drum machine and found I could write a song.
I was 19 when I wrote 'Dreams,' and that would have been when it started to happen. The band got signed, and I was probably beginning to see different things besides my small town of Ballybricken.
My husband Don's mother, Denise, was diagnosed with cancer, and she was given eight months to live. We decided to go and stay there and help live her days with her, 'cause you don't get those chances again, right?
My father, I spent a lot of time with him at the hospital. I was with him when he took his last breath, but I felt something coming from him into my hand and into my body.
You know that band that are all over 'Melody Maker,' Huggy Bear, they're just a load of crap, right? Riot grrrl group - y'know, it's all sexism and stuff, women standing up for their rights: 'This girl said this at the gig off the stage.' It's nothing got to do with music. They're probably untalented gits when it comes to the crunch.
Only we were in The Cranberries. Only we know what it was like being in that crazy whirlwind of fame. We have children and spouses and lives, but there is only one Cranberries.
'Linger' was the first song I wrote after joining the Cranberries. I was 18, and the youngest member of the band was 16 at the time. We never imagined it'd be such a big hit.
For an artist or an entertainer, it's the ultimate when you can go to the forest when you're done your work and escape.
I was so young when I got so famous, and then I kind of put up a wall around myself. I didn't really want to show people any fragilities or fears; I was trying to be this tough person that I felt was expected of me.
Sometimes your kids give you that shove out the door to do things that you need. Teenagers are good that way; they keep you in the loop.
I love to go home to my kids. I don't have that lull in my life when I didn't have them.
