Rythm Magazine

Free Web Hosting Provider - Web Hosting - E-commerce - High Speed Internet - Free Web Page

After eight years of blood, sweat and tears, The Corrs have finally seen their efforts pay off with a recent rise to fame that can only be described as meteoric.

“They’re a great bunch to work with, really nice people, down to earth, you know? And the success isn’t going to their heads, so it’s a very, very pleasant place to work.”

So says Declan Hogan, drum tech to Caroline Corr. It seems that everything you read about The Corrs these days dwells not just on their talent, but on what a pleasant and a personable bunch they are. Well, having spent an afternoon in their company, I can confirm that they really are among the friendliest people you could ever hope to meet in this business, or indeed any other. And so is the organisation that surrounds them, from security to management. Over the last few years The Corrs have probably done more interviews, meet-and-greets and photo shoots than any other band on the planet – not to mention about a million gigs – yet they still have the ability to put you at ease and make you feel that you’re chatting with old friends. In fact, Caroline positively thrives on it. Today she exudes genuine happiness, laughing constantly as she talks at lightening pace about the tour.

“We’re doing six Wembley’s, which is fantastic, we couldn’t be happier. They tour just keeps getting extended: we started before Christmas, which was all of December in the UK, and then we started back again in January in Dublin and Belfast, and then back to England. Obviously it’s a lot of work for us, but it’s our time to do it now, and if we can fill these venues, better do it now rather than never get to do it at all.”

With six sold-out nights as Wembley, not to mention a couple more at Docklands (and that’s just in London), it might seem that The Corrs are a bit of an overnight sensation. Nothing could be further from the truth: they’ve been huge in other parts of the world – most notably in Australia, Japan and Europe – for several years, with over two million sales of their debut album Forgiven, Not Forgotten. But it’s Talk On Corners, their current release, which has sent them into the stratosphere.
“This album has done so well, especially in the UK. Once we released ‘Dreams’, it kind of took off for us, so we released a few more singles and people got to know us.

Before that, it was a hard struggle. We’ve been working together as a band for eight years, so people might not realise just how long we’ve been together slogging away.”

As Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ was the song which really kick-started The Corrs rise to megastardom, I ask Caroline what it was like meeting and playing with Mick Fleetwood at the Albert Hall when The Corrs performed there on St. Patrick’s Day.

“It was brilliant,” she gushes. “He was lovely. And obviously for me, being the novice here, playing with him was a great experience.

Somebody – it might have been our manager – suggested we play together, and I was going ‘How’s this going to work? How are two drummers going to get up there and play together?’ First of all he played on ‘Dreams’ while I went up front and did the bodhran thing and sang a bit. And then for ‘Haste To The Wedding’, which is an Irish traditional piece, we both got together and it worked out great. He did all the tom-tom things while I did the straight rhythm. He’s so good, a lovely guy.”

Caroline’s description of herself as a novice seems more than a little modest when you see her perform. She looks like she’s been playing the drums all her life. Due to, it would seem, producer paranoia, Caroline doesn’t play kit on much of Talk On Corners, although her mighty bodhran is present throughout. But seeing her lives makes it very hard to understand why. She plays with a passion, feel and energy that belies her petite frame; and her groove is perfect. It’s obvious that she puts everything she has into her drumming.

“I’ve always played like that, and I think that everyone just plays naturally at the end of the day,” Caroline shrugs. “I’ve always kind of had the arms going, and people will say to me, ‘You’re using up a lot of energy’. But it’s just been very natural for me to do that. I don’t know why. Probably because I started late; I didn’t start until I was eighteen – my main instrument was originally piano. I had lessons for a little while, but not very long. It’s like I was thrown out onto the stage. People say to me it looks pretty physical, and I remember at the beginning it definitely was physically more demanding for me, but you build up a kind of stamina. I do have to keep my back in shape though. I was talking to Larry Mullen a couple of weeks ago – he came to the show in Dublin, which was great. I was really happy to see him there. I was talking to him afterwards and he was telling me to get one of those seats with the back support, because you do have to watch all that stuff, you really do.”

Confirmation of Caroline’s physical approach comes from her tech, Declan: “Cymbal breaking is a big one with Caroline; we’re constantly on the phone to Zildjian. She breaks a lot of cymbals, which just goes to show that she hits them really hard. Also, the tom skins we change quite often. Every other gig actually.”

Most of the time, Caroline plays to a click live. It’s something she’s grown very used to.

“I don’t know any different,” she says. I’ve just learned that way because we’ve always used clicks due to the nature of our music. I don’t use a click for the traditional stuff though, and that’s kind of refreshing. But I’m so used to it know, I get the balance right in my head and I find it okay. I quite like it, actually, although I didn’t always.”
Caroline is a genuine all-round musician. As she mentioned, her first instrument was piano, which she started at the age of six. During The Corrs’ live show, in addition to playing kit she comes to the front of the stage to play piano, sing a duet with sister Sharon, and perform an awesome bodhran solo. She clearly enjoys the variety of roles she plays within the band.

“I love playing the traditional stuff,” Caroline enthuses. “I love playing ‘Toss The Feathers’, which is the last song, a basic rock track. But I also like to do ‘Dreams’ because the kick and the bass come in together, which I love. It’s not just about what I’m doing, it’s what everyone else is doing too.

“I’ve only started singing on this tour,” she continues. “I used to only do the bodhran solo, and it’s just that as we extended the tour we needed to do more things. Myself and Sharon decided that we’d do a song together – ‘No Frontiers’, written by Jimmy McCarthy. It’s a nice Irish ballady thing, and it goes down great every night.”

Caroline’s switch from piano to drums was thanks to the influence of an old flame.

“I had a boyfriend from my hometown, Dundalk,” she remembers. “He was a drummer, a crazy U2 fan – Larry Mullen was his hero. We had the band going; we were just writing together, but at the time Sharon wasn’t playing violin in the band, which is really strange. It sounds so hard to believe, but we were really experimenting with our sound and instruments. Nobody knew what they were doing, we just knew we were making music – we didn’t know how the live set-up was going to work. And he was playing one day and I said, ‘I’ll have a wee go…’ So I learnt to play just a straight eight beat or whatever, and I kind of liked it, so I started to learn a little bit more. And I think the rest – Jim, Sharon and Andrea – came in and said, ‘That sounds really good. That’s what we’ll do: we’ll incorporate this into the band’. And that was it, that’s kind of how it happened – suddenly I was playing the drums. And the first time I remember playing live was on a TV show, and I was so bad – ha! It was a good few years ago and I was incredibly nervous – I remember it very well. That’s how it started.”

So the bodhran, which I naively assumed had been part of Caroline’s life since birth, actually came into the frame (no pun intended) after she’d started playing kit.

“Yeah, we did an awful lot of acoustic sessions, especially touring in the States and going into radio stations. So I needed something percussive, and I’ve always loved the bodhran. I don’t know how I go interested…I remember saying to a friend that I’d love to get one, so they bought me one and I started to learn. I learnt through a video by a guy called Stefan Hannigan. It was great for technique, and once I’d got that down I just experimented myself and played more.”

Wither her brother and sisters, Caroline spent her youth listening to the likes of Genesis, The Police and Prince (“I was a mad Prince fan when I was young”), so it’s no surprise that The Artist’s most legendary drummer was one of her first heroines.

“When I was younger, I didn’t have drum heroes because I wasn’t a drummer,” she says. “Then when I did get into it I loved looking at the girl drummers, like Sheila E, or Cindy Blackman from Lenny Kravitz’s band.”

And of course, these days she gets to meet many of her favourite players, and sometimes even play with them.

“I met Steve Gadd and Pino Paladino – the two of them were doing the Pavarotti show we did, with a load of artists and Luciano. We sang a song with them, and played ‘Dreams’, so they kind of augmented that as well. It was great. I have a signed skin from Vinnie Colaituta as well,” she confides with a laugh.

And like Steve and Vinnie, Caroline plays Yamaha drums and Zildjian cymbals. In fact she’s taken delivery of a stunning new Champagne Sparkle kit for this tour.

“Before this set I had the Maple Custom in a greeny black colour, but then I decided that we needed to get sparkly, so I asked Yamaha for the champagne one. The good thing about this kit is that it’s actually the 30th Anniversary version, so I think they’ve only made a few. It looks great and sounds great, so they’d better not take this one back off me or I’ll be very upset.”

Apart from the Yamaha tubs, one of the most characteristic elements of Caroline’s on-stage visuals are the gloves she always wears. She’s been using them for a while, but it’s only recently that she’s found the perfect pair.

“I kept trying to find some that were slim and had good grips,” she explains. “I remember on the first tour I ever did, I was using these things with thick pads in them, and the sticks just went flying ouit my hands every few minutes. I used equestrian gloves, horse-riding gloves, for a while, but they kept tearing. And then I started using golf gloves because they’re really thing, they’ve got really great grips on them and they’re not too hot. For me it’s great, it just protects my hands – I used to get quite a lot of blisters and stuff, so it’s just extra protection for me.

Whilst on the subject of looking after yourself, I ask Caroline if she has any thoughts, tips or opinions about drumming that she’d like to share with Rhythm. Her response is immediate.

“We need more girls playing – definitely! I think women are put off by it, seeing as so many men are playing. So yeah, definitely more girls.”

Amen to that! The Corrs are today one of the biggest bands in the world, taking their supremely melodic Celtic-tinged pop to an audience of millions. And they’ve got there through hard work, dedication and a shedload of talent. The looks they had already, sure, but the rest they’ve worked their socks off for, not just with constant promotion but also endless hours of individual practice to turn themselves into high class musicians capable of standing up in front of thousands of people and moving them. For Caroline, however, it’s all been more than worth the effort.

“I think it just gets better and better,” she states with characteristic enthusiasm. “After you’ve been at it for a long time, when you gain success it makes it all so worthwhile, all that work you put in. And we’re just having a great time; we’re still working as hard as ever, as usual, but it’s so worth it, and we’re having ourselves a great time with it.

What’s it like playing with The Corrs?
“Well, Caroline is definitely the best looking drummer I’ve ever played with! It’s great, the way things have gone in the last few years – it’s just sky rocketed.

How long have you been with the band?
“I’ve been with them now for three years. Myself and Anton the guitar player were the first people who played with them when they wanted to put a band together to do a tour. That was late ’95.”

So you’ve seen their rise to global dominance first hand?
“Yeah, right from the start, because when I got the call to do it, I really didn’t know who The Corrs were.”

Do you enjoy playing with Caroline in the rhythm section?
“Oh yeah, she’s great. She listens to lots of loopy type things, and she has these loop grooves that she does, so it’s great fun playing with her. And she’s got great time. And for the size of her she smacks ‘em you know? She really does. So it’s been very enjoyable, especially moving into these gigs. The thing about Caroline is that she’s the perfect drummer for gigs of this size – she works so well on the big venues because of the weight behind everything. It’s really powerful that way.”