Don’t look for Noel Hogan, co-founder of the Cranberries, to be producing any other music this year. The decision to take a step back from his production and solo work wasn’t an easy one to make, but he felt he just couldn’t juggle the demands of both sides of his career.
“There really just isn’t enough time to do everything,” Hogan said. “The Cranberries really is a giant beast of a thing. Next year, I will go back on the production side of it, but trying to do both things just made me tired. I wasn’t feeling 100 percent about either thing by about Christmas.”
| Onstage |
| The Cranberries |
| When: 7 p.m. Monday |
| Where: 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW |
| Info: Sold out at press time; 9:30.com; 800-955-5566 |
His feelings are understandable when you consider the Irish rock band hit the major leagues almost as soon as the release of its 1993 debut, “Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?” Though the band ran out of creative juices and disbanded in 2003, fans never gave up hope the Cranberries would return.
Sure enough, that happened after what was planned as a one-time reunion in 2009. Now the band has released its first new album in a decade, “Roses,” which has won plenty of critical kudos and fueled the band’s sold-out shows.
What do the Cranberries have that took them to the top and keeps them there? After years of producing the work of young artists, Hogan has formed some opinions.
“I think it is a combination of things. We didn’t sound like any other band at the time,” Hogan said of the grunge craze that was popular when the Cranberries broke out. “We weren’t grunge, and that kind of worked to our advantage. And we just had a bunch of songs click with people. The hard work you put in during the beginning — for five or six years we just lived this thing and we toured nine or 10 months of the year — also really paid off.”
Now that he is an established musician, Hogan said working with younger bands helps keep his sense of wonder alive and fuels his own creativity.
“It does influence you when you go back to do your own thing, whether it’s the Cranberries or other projects,” he said. “A lot of the bands [I work with] are pretty young and full of excitement that you only have when you begin. In some sad way, that gets kicked out of you when you face the reality of the business. With young bands, I listen to what they do and what they say and it allows me to share that excitement.”
