Dolores O’Riordan

Author: Aidin Vaziri
Date: Sunday, May 13, 2007
Source:

San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/

As the lead singer of the Cranberries, Dolores O’Riordan owned the ’90s. Named the highest-earning woman in

Ireland, she married Duran Duran’s tour manager in a transparent dress, relegated her band members to separate tour buses and feverishly battled anorexia rumors. The Irish band sold more than 30 million albums before imploding after its fifth release, “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee,” in 2001. After taking six years off to raise her family, O’Riordan, 35, returns with her solo premiere CD, “Are You Listening?” She plays July 20 at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

Q: How did you manage to make an album with two kids running all over the place?

A: Four, my darling.

Q: Four kids?

A: Four kids, yeah.

Q: I must have lost count.

A: I’m an Irishwoman. I always wanted a good brood.

Q: But you only took six years off.

A: Well, I have a 15-year-old stepson. I gave birth to my first child 10 years ago this year, my second is 6 and my baby is 2. I’ve been a busy bee — hatching and singing and hatching and singing.

Q: In that order?

A: Totally in that order.

Q: That makes it doubly impressive.

A: Actually, it’s kind of weird. When you have a few good kids, they play with each other. The older kids entertain the babies, they help dress each other, they like to be involved. They like to help load the dishwasher and bring their laundry up.

Q: So, basically, you put them to work.

A: It’s good for them.

Q: It doesn’t look like a bunch of kids came out of you.

A: Thanks very much. I’m flattered. It’s funny, because when you’re having the babies you don’t socialize. You’re staying at the house waiting for this little thing to grow, so I took up knitting.

Q: It’s hard to picture the woman who sang “Zombie” knitting mittens.

A: I know. It’s amazing what we go through, us women. When we get pregnant, we get all soft and motherly and we knit. It’s quite normal, actually.

Q: Did you experience any postpartum depression?

A: No, I was very lucky. I breast-fed the children, and that helps out quite a lot. It makes you feel good because your body releases all these hormones that make you relax. Also, when you’re nursing your baby, it feels like they’re back in your tummy, so it’s not that big of a departure. It’s something I was really blessed to do.

Q: Britney Spears shaved her head after she had her babies. You did it before you had yours. What was your problem?

A: I was 18 years old when I joined the ‘Berries. The first album was huge. Six million is an awful lot to sell for a bunch of kids from a small town in Ireland. It was all a big party, and then the pressure was on to make another. The next one was even bigger, so there’s even more pressure. We were living in buses for five years now. No sense of normality. No friends. No freedom. I overdid it. I was obviously losing too much weight and getting depressed from working too much. I had no normality, no sanity.

Q: How did you get through it?

A: It was just getting away from the public eye. You have to jump off the treadmill because you’re going to break your neck otherwise.

Q: Do you feel sane now?

A: Totally. You relax more in your 30s. You realize the most important thing is that you have to look after yourself and get dinner on the table. It’s grand when you find that head space.

Q: So people shouldn’t be afraid of you anymore?

A: No. I don’t bite at all.