September 6^th 2016

What an amazing day Dolores’ birthday has been!! Just a few days after we had to communicate the sad news about the cancellation of their European tour, D.A.R.K. have decided to put a smile on fans’ faces by sharing two brand new tracks from Science Agrees: “High Fashion” and “The Moon”. Curiously enough, according to our polls and discussions on social networks, these are fans’ favourite songs from Science Agrees.

We started with the podcast of the interview D.A.R.K. conceded The Talkhouse last April, where the band shared “High Fashion”. You can listen to the interview in the link below:

http://thetalkhouse.com/andy-rourke-smiths-talks/

The introduction starts presenting the career of both bands The Smiths and The Cranberries –with a nice mention to Dolores’ solo albums – and the premier listening of “High Fashion”, a song about drug addiction and love. Andy Rourke and Dolores O’Riordan procede with a lovely interview to each other:

They discuss how they met through their manager and Dolores poses the first question to Andy: how old he was when he started playing the guitar. Andy answers he was seven or eight when he started playing the guitar, and twelve when he started playing the bass. Dolores keeps interviewing Andy as he talks about how he is familiar with several instruments and left school when he was 15 to start working; he explains how he met and started working with Olé seven years ago and Dolores tells Andy how she was a fan herself of The Smiths in her teen years.

They carry on with the interview and Dolores admits it is easier working with The Cranberries because fans have the music and they sing along with the band, while in D.A.R.K. the band have to be aware of every detail. However, since Olé is the lead singer of D.A.R.K., she feels like a backing singer, and she concludes she enjoys both the pressure of being a lead singer as much as being “in the shadow”.

As an anecdote, Andy Rourke comments on how Morrissey got knocked once by a packet of sausages during a festival and Dolores got thrown a bitten apple on stage.

Andy and Dolores continue commenting on their favourite tracks from Science Agrees: Dolores likes “The Moon” but both of them are also fond of “Loosen The Noose” and “Underwater”. They also talk about how it is when their families come to see them on stage and they comment in laughter that they feel like they cannot make any mistakes.

Dolores is not worried about people liking D.A.R.K. or not; she hasn’t got great expectations about it and feels it is an experiment, and she is enjoying the process of doing new things. She is aware of the different reactions D.A.R.K. has caused on the internet since it is very different from what they have done before (The Smiths and The Cranberries). Dolores thinks it’s important to challenge oneself and try different things. She explains how she was in Ontario when she had a first contact with D.A.R.K.’s music and she hadn’t been given any instructions about it; how they moved to Electric Lady in New York and everything regarding what would come out of the project was unpredictable at the time.

The lovely interview ends with “Loosen The Noose”, another enchanting track you will find in Science Agrees.

Just when we thought the day was over, another excellent piece of news came our way: D.A.R.K. have shared and talked about “The Moon” to Consequence of Sound:

Cranberries/Smiths supergroup D.A.R.K. share gothic club track “The Moon” — listen

In Olé Koretsky’s words about “The Moon” in Consequence of Sound: “It was just a vague disco sketch that Andy [Rourke] and I kept pushing… ‘Think Angelo Badalamenti, think Twin Peaks,’ we would say to the mix engineer. That’s what we were going for and we really wanted to feature those guitars. I advocated for a cleaner mixdown and wanted to restructure it into a proper song format but Dolores didn’t want to change a thing. She put her vocals on and now it’s probably my favorite track on the album.”

As you may remember, “The Moon” has often been described as the band’s favourite track from Science Agrees, since it captures the different personalities of the three members and, although its structure may seem chaotic, its mad guitar riffs and the enchanting vocals of Dolores’ solo at the end have made it one of fans’ favourite tracks from the album.

Source: The Talkhouse: http://thetalkhouse.com/andy-rourke-smiths-talks/ Consequence of Sound:  http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/09/cranberriessmiths-supergroup-d-a-r-k-share-gothic-club-track-the-moon-listen/