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Interviewer: Gerry let me take you back right to the beginning and Dundalk and your youth, what do you remember of it?

Gerry: Yeah there were originally 10 of us in the family, 12 of us with the other 2 mammy and daddy, 9 of us are still living and we were born down in Seatown place, we had a shop down there ‘Corrs’ beside the Shamrock bar.

Early memories I suppose, serving mass, having to get out of bed for half six mass in the morning, and maybe coming around the corner, skidding around the corner in the middle of winter and arriving at the church late, I always seemed to be late Ray! (laughs) And I remember a particular priest, Father O’Brien and err he was very hard to be late for, if you know what I mean and I used to be a very nervous child, it was Latin mass at the time as you know and if you missed a syllable during the mass and I missed many of them at half six in the morning (laughs) no problem to me, you got a bit of a lecture on it, that’s probably one of my early memories as a child.

Gerry: err yes, my father had a fine tenor voice, bit light I suppose, but a fine voice and he loved music. I remember his records, we weren’t allowed to touch, he had Jimmy Shand, he had John McCormick and generally they were only played at Christmas time, he had this early record player, very impressive, but we were not allowed to touch it, that was for certain!

Gerry: we all took piano lessons, Maureen, Avis, Josephine, I don’t remember if Roisalin played piano much and myself Willie and Cathleen I don’t think they took lessons. The piano was actually bought for the eldest, she actually died in 1936 and believe it or not, I still have the piano and it’s in a pretty wretched state (laughs) at the moment.

They go on to talk about Gerry’s Brother Peter, who went on to play Gaelic football for Louth & Liencester, then he turned to football and played right wing for Dundalk, then to Preston, then Everton, he sadly passed away 3 years ago of Alzheimer’s.

Interviewer: Going back to Dundalk Gerry, and memories of especially around Xmas time as I am a Dundalk man and have certain memories of Xmas in Dundalk, I’m sure you have too, do you?

Gerry: Going back to my childhood, I always remember the excitement of Xmas and the lead up to it, I suppose all great occasions have a great deal of anticipation and the reality delivers the anticipation. I remember the lead up to it and presents coming, then I remember a wooden train I got which was very special as a child, then of course the food, turkey and ham and all that which was a very special treat, not like now when you get turkey & ham every second day of the week (laughs)

Interviewer: people say Christmas comes every day, then of course there was the turkey fair which used to be held by St Patrick’s church

Gerry: yeah I remember going up there, as daddy bought his turkeys there, I remember the people un-feathering, is that the word? The turkeys in the freezing cold, snow & everything.

Gerry then chooses to play Simon * Garfunkels, Bridge over troubled water. Gerry remembered learning it in the 1960’s and playing it on the organ in church on a Sunday morning

Interviewer: School days probably have a lot of memories for you, where did u actually go to school?

Gerry: Initially it was the convent school in Mill Street, run by the Mercy sisters. Then after that it was Christian brother’s primary & secondary school.

Interviewer: Obviously peter was a very talented athlete. Did u have any talents like that?

Gerry: I loved football & tennis, I wasn’t sturdy enough to achieve any level of success in football but I loved it. I played Sunday league for Dundalk B for a good few years. I always think that maybe something might have happened for me if I hadn’t contacted tuberculosis, which I believe I had for a number of years before I was diagnosed and I spent a year up in the sanatorium up in the hilltop on Ardee road there, that was 1957/58.

Gerry then talks about playing piano and that he would recommend to any family to buy a piano and build a house around it, that it’s the most important thing that will come into a house. He said for him & the band they can’t pass a piano without playing. He says he took lessons & that it wasn’t a natural gift, in the convent he went to he would have lessons before school, the nun would say to him (puts on an old voice) ‘I’m too old to teach anyone anything and to put me teaching piano and I’ve no patience & I’m sorry’ (laughs)

He say’s he loves all music except Rap, Heavy metal, progressive jazz, no thank you (laughs)

Then they go on to talk about what the success of the Corrs has meant to Gerry, he says they have worked hard and deserve all of their success, after years of disappointment, where record companies express interest, but nothing emanates from it. He says he could never take it for granted and the band don’t class it as working, they class it as something they love and are always working to get better at it.

Then Gerry talks about touring with Jean, the interviewer had seen them gig often, Gerry goes on to say how he played on his own playing organ after marrying Jean and then Jean expressed an interest, but she told him she was joining the band, not just expressing an interest:o) they played with various artists and were in the business for 25 years.

Gerry: As a sense you could say they had no option but be involved in some way in music as they were saturated in it. We were constantly rehearsing, Jean was a perfectionist, she aimed to have us up to date all the time, so anything new in the charts like any Abba, Carpenters, Eagles song etc we had to have it rehearsed & be doing it that weekend y’know…

Interviewer: The family went on and had as you say, a lot of disappointments before it came good, tell us about some of the disappointments

Gerry: We did a show for I remember it was EMI’s representative in Ireland, a man called Thomas black & literally from the moment he heard the Corrs, he said they gotta be signed, he reckoned that we had it and so he got onto his boss in England & his boss came over & we put on a show in Dundalk in the house and they played 5 or 6 songs for him & he was truly impressed, he said they were really very good and he headed back to England and never had contact again! And even our manager John Hughes tried to contact him and he just wasn’t returning calls, so that was 1 experience, we had another record company arrive in Dublin and he expressed great interest, raised the hopes for a brief period, but again nothing happened, but that’s the way of the music business, you have to bring your demo’s around to all the record companies and hopefully somebody will hear something special and be prepared to invest in it.

Gerry: That happened with Jean Kennedy Smith, she came to Whelans we were doing a gig there and she heard the Corrs & invited us to the Kennedy library in Boston to play, that was a month afterwards and so they went over there & played for the Kennedy’s and all the celebrities where there and we used the occasion to try and make contact with record companies in America.

Gerry: The Corrs walked round to where the music factory was, he knocked on the door & security said something like oh we have an appointment to meet with David foster, we are the Corrs, so he pushed the girls ahead and they had a violin and drums & stuff, so David foster came to the door & he just looked at the image and at that moment it was sealed. So he said OK you guys, you come in here and we’ll see what you can do, so Jim sat down at the grand piano and Sharon took out her Violin and Caroline took out her what do you call it? The name eludes me at the moment, Err it’s a little drum…. So they played a few songs for him & I’ll always remember what he said. He said “Well I’ll give u guys an A1+”

Gerry talks more about David Foster
They next play Runaway, Gerry said it is special for him and Jean, as he remembers Caroline and Andrea working on it at the old piano which his father had given to him when he got married and they worked at it at the house before they went to America.

Interviewer: So Gerry after that it went onto mind boggling success around the world. But as u said earlier, they worked very hard for their success

Gerry: People don’t realise what is actually involved in this business, initially there is a big mention of a record company, y’know a big investment & they call all the shots and if they said we want you in Lisbon tonight & in Melbourne the following night, you’ve gotta go for it, so early on they were processed around the world like pieces on a chess board, y’know the great cosmic chess board. And they were ill at various times, but happily they were strong enough, they were young enough & committed enough to handle the job.

Interviewer: As a father you’ve seen so much happening to them over the past few years and there must be one moment when you just stood back & looked at them and went well I’m rally proud of these kids, what was that moment, can you remember?

Gerry: they did a gig in the Olympia, it’s a very intimate theatre and everybody has a sense of closeness to the people performing, and on this particular night, the sound was absolutely perfect, they had done gigs previously where the sound wasn’t the best possible, or the balance wasn’t right, the vocal might have been louder. I mean all things like that are looked after nowadays as the funds are there and the people are there to ensure that the balance is right at all times, but at this particular gig, the sound was just fantastic and of course the acoustics of the arena are wonderful and I remember saying to John Hughes & he had the same feeling about it, he put his hands up in the air and 2 fists in the air and went ‘we got it tonight’ and that’s very special for me.

Interviewer: If you’d have been there Gerry, would you have been very aware of the sound not being right? Would you have been aware of it at the early stages and have gone to Jim & the girls and said look there’s something not right and would they have listened to you?

Gerry: Well they would ask me for my opinion, but I would only be confirming what they already knew themselves, see it’s very hard as they have these things in ear monitors now and u have to get used to using them, they are very difficult to use, but earlier on we didn’t have anything like that and I remember Queenlands and Andrea’s, we could hear the second line of Sharon’s harmonies and Caroline’s harmonies before Andrea’s lead and she had a very frustrating night and we had anew young engineer that night and sadly he was a nice chap and he didn’t last very long (laughs) but the balance was really bad, but of course the equipment we were using was pretty mediocre.

Interviewer: So what happens now? they are taking a year off, the family and you have enjoyed your year off now I think, but are they going back on the road, to the studio and of course a new album coming out haven’t they?

Gerry: Yeah, people keep using the phrase ‘taken a year off’ they are not taking a year off! They are doing what they had to do, they had to write their next studio album, that will be the 4th studio album and that’s a different type of pressure, it’s a different space and OK it’s great they are not being thrusted around the world at high speed, but at the same time, the pressure of having to sit down, to write, compose & arrange, produce is very difficult. Remember each album has to represent a progression in terms of the songs and also for the link back to the previous albums y’know.

Interviewer: We’re coming to more a less our final choice of music Gerry, you’ve gone from Paul Brady, to Simon & Garfunkel, to the family the Corrs, why song for Ireland?

Gerry: Song for Ireland is… Jean and I loved that song and Jean actually sang it for years and every time we had to sub sing it or remove it from our programme, someone would come and ask Jean to sing it and of course the Luke Kelly recording of it is very, very special.

Interviewer: And a final question Gerry… if there is anything you could change in your life and you had an opportunity to do so, what would you change, or would you change anything?

Gerry: well my own personal life, the obvious one would be y’know what happened to Jean had not happened, but err these things happen and you have to cope with them and move on, you don’t have any option.