Cranberries

Biography

The Cranberries Biography: 1993

The band released "Linger", their second single. Once again, reviews for the song were excellent. And once again it only dented the bottom half of the UK charts, getting to No. 74. Funny old world.

"Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Cant We?", their debut album, went on sale in March 1993. Like the singles, it would be slow to grow. But grow it did. A year later it would be No.1 in the UK. And seven years after its release it has sold more than seven million copies worldwide.

What made it happen was the taming of the toughest market of them all ? America. While on a support tour with Suede, they found U.S. crowds turned up for the Cranberries and went off to the bar for "Suede".

And later, when Duran Duran's tour was cancelled, due to the singer's illness ? something The Cranberries would experience themselves years later ? Dolores and the lads remained in the States and played a series of sold-out concerts.

The album continued to crawl slowly up the Billboard Top 200. By the time they came home for a show at Feile - Ireland's answer to Glastonbury - they were placed in the U.S. albums charts at No. 84. For Dolores, to be even associated with the very name 'Billboard' was exciting enough. But it wasn't to end there.

Surprisingly, the Irish public still hadn't caught on to the Cranberries sound by this stage, which is why they played that festival gig in a side-show tent, while Chris DeBurgh was the headline act on the main stage. The following year they were the headline act of the whole weekend event.

The Cranberries were on their way up. Slowly, throughout the summer and autumn the album crawled up the American charts, and finally into the Top 10. It was an astonishing achievement for this humble band from Limerick.

"I was 18," says Dolores. "So was Ferg. Noel was 17 and Mike was 16. And "Linger" got to No. 8 in the American charts. The pressure was starting, but we were fortunate in one area. We wrote those songs. We knew where they were going. And we were capable of writing some more. So we had some control over things.

"It's harder being a manufactured, pop artist, you know. You're given a song and the manager says here honey, get a boob job. We were just so much more lucky in that respect."

The band completed their first support tour in Europe, playing alongside Irish rising stars Hot House Flowers.