The Cranberry Merchants: hard rock origins with a "punky" touch and so much fun to offer

Spanish translation of this article available here

One good day of November, my friend Oli, from RadioTFSC sent me over a song – Check out this track! You’ll love it! – he said. I trust him always with his recommendations, so I clicked the link straightaway and started listening: amps plugging sound followed by a hard, catchy guitar riff, smashing drums and strong vocals with high energy shouting out quite funny lyrics talking about calling the police. The song title was “Disturbing the Peace”, and it contained the spirit of the early days of punk, but with much better quality sound and modern production style.

The minds behind the scenes are Steve and Dianne Moore, aka The Cranberry Merchants.

They are a rock duet from Atlanta, EEUU, which met when they were students in The Art Institute of Atlanta, learning Music Business, Management and Production, and stayed together since then as life partners and music makers. Although we could track down their origins to 30 years ago, what we know today as The Cranberry Merchants is a relatively new project, started in 2018 with their debut EP “In the Blood”, that was very well received, and that soon got into different radio stations all around the globe.

The Cranberry Merchants have a very interesting music catalog, where one can find tracks ranging from relatively calm instrumentals, with a nice touch of post rock feel, such as “Diosa de la Luna”, to hard rock, full energy tracks, like “The Black Maria” or “Disturbing the Peace”.

It is an inspiring experience to go through their playlist and get surprised by the different colors The Cranberry Merchants manage to put in their music. Their punky sound, that a lot of people found in some of their tracks, is totally unintentional, although the band is delighted to hear about it. They see themselves more like a four chord rock and roll type of band, that tries to have fun and make party music. They set their influences in classic hard rock bands like Led Zeppelin or AC/DC (for Steve), and the 80s new wave groups such as Depeche Mode or Duran Duran (for Dianne). By checking their songs, you can experience the unique creations that come out from such a blend.

When asked about the inspiration behind “Disturbing the Peace”, they explained that it was a song that came out spontaneously whilst they were working on another track – “I just started bashing out something on the drums – said Dianne - and it sounded very loud and boisterous. Something you would disturb your neighbors with”. Apparently, the entire arrangement of the song came to place in about two hours, a really impressive speed that even the authors seemed to be surprised about, taking into account that, as they confessed, there are some tracks that can take years to be completed.

Nevertheless, music is not the only love in the life of Steve and Dianne, there is another one, a hobby that they have been enjoying for years that they are not shy to share: Lego games. Together with their high creativity, their Lego mastery allowed them produce an amazing stop motion music video for “Disturbing the Peace”, where The Cranberry Merchants feature their awesome Lego collection together with their construction and storytelling abilities. This video is a mandatory stop for anybody interested in checking further this band or witnessing the creative possibilities that a great dose of patience and a stop motion smartphone app can offer.

As you might've experienced already, The Cranberry Merchants bring us great music and an original and developed style. Their abilities haven't passed unnoticed and Dianne and Steve have recently won the Gold prize as the best vocal duo in the ISSA Awards (International Singer Songwriter Association) in 2020, and the mention of “Artist of the Year 2020” in Radio TFSC. Apart from being great musicians, The Cranberry Merchants are highly supportive to the indie music community online, and they are really engaged with fans and other musicians from all around the world in their social media pages.