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One of them is an ‘ice maiden’, one ‘eats everything’, and another
sucks her thumb. One of them – can you guess which? – has a solo spot.
They are the biggest band in the British Isles by a verdant country mile.
From London to Dublin to New York to Philadelphia, Andy Permberton
spends three months in the Corrs’ scary bubble only to be told “You’re
not allowed to ask that.”
It is a fresh afternoon late in February and for the next six hours
– the time between sound checking and recording Top Of The Pops – a dismal
corridor outside a TV studio in Borehamwood is the centre of the popular
entertainment universe. Waiting patiently to do their bit, Boyzone chat
amicably to the stage dancers, Ian Browne floats about in a quasi-religious
daze. Cher fiddles with her hairpiece, Whitney Houston breezes past flanked
by a squadron of high kicking dancers, and Blur get drunk. Everyone has
a mobile phone. Yet despite the glut of communications hardware, interceleb
fraternisation is minimal.
The Corrs are on stage, rehearsing a performance of Runaway, a track
from their first album, Forgiven Not Forgotten. Largely ignored upon it’s
first release in 1995, it’s the sixth best selling album of 1999 so far.
Accordingly, Runaway is expected to go higher into the chart (in the end
it was kept off the top spot by the Blur-confounding Britney Spears), so
the band record a second mimed version to be screened the following Friday.
Sharon Corr (29) self-consciously introduces the song as “a Led Zeppelin
number” and the band strike up a minimialistic, note-perfect rendition.
As Andrea Corr (24) runs through the gently provocative lyrics, she tugs
at the waistband of her black Lycra trousers exposing a square foot of
taut belly. The studio technicians suddenly find time to stop what they
are doing and watch. The band finish to enthusiastic applause.
But not everyone is impressed. A portly middle-aged gentleman dressed
in a suit sidles up to Q. He looks like a lawyer.
“I’m a lawyer,” he explains. “Who for? I’d rather not say.” He scans
the studio apparently lost in thought. Finally, he nods towards The Corrs.
“Overrated,” he harrumphs and ambles away.
“I think that was our best Top Of The Pops,” Andrea Corr opines two
days later. “I’ve watched it back and it was lovely. It was so alive.”
The Corrs think a lot of things are lovely – as well they might.
The Brit award winners (Best International Artists 1998) are the biggest
band in Britain. Once they’d cannily buffed their folk-pop harmonies to
a dance friendly sheen, their second LP Talk On Corners, outsold everyone
else in 1998: George Michael, Madonna and U2 included.
Released in October 1997, it recently turned 9 times platinum and ascended
to the number 1 spot on six different occasions, spending over 70 weeks
in the chart. (Forgiven, Not Forgotten has been there for a paltry 60).
They’ve been number 1 in Ireland, Spain, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia
and New Zealand.
Their music has flogged Lloyds Bank and Pepsi. Bono is a friend. So
are what’s left of the Kennedy clan. They’ve played for his holiness the
Pope. Although far to well brought up to use sodomy-related slang.
The Corrs are now a bona fide, globe-buggering phenomenon, their market
share encompassing everyone from wrinkly Daniel O’Donnell constituency
to the foot soldiers of pop 12-year-old Spice children.
The Corrs are the progeny of Gerry and Jean Corr. He managed the wages
department of the Irish Electricity Board and Mrs Corr looked after their
four-bedroom house, 10 minutes from the centre of the Irish boarder town
of Dundalk – heartland of the community I.R.A. They both loved music and
encouraged their four children to learn piano (drumming Caroline), violin
(Sharon), penny whistle (Andrea) and piano and guitar (Jim).
The Corrs sisters attended St Louis, the local convent school while
Jim went to The Friary before ending up at the local Christian Brothers
School. Andrea excelled, achieving honours in four out of her seven subjects
in her leaving certificate. (“I was clever,” she says shyly). Eldest sister
Sharon hated school. She didn’t fit in and couldn’t get along with the
nuns. “One said to me, ‘You’re going to be a failure all your life,’” she
recalls. “I thought it was an awful thing to say. I could have ended up
with low self-esteem and it would really hurt me.” During summer breaks
and weekends, all would work at their aunt’s Dundalk pub McManus. Students
brought friends to the local beauty spot. “We got a reputation in Dundalk
because there was all three of us behind the bar,” says Sharon. “The students
would be there ogling.” When Andrea landed a small part in the movie The
Commitments, the excited regulars got hold of a video from local army lads
back from peace keeping in the Lebanon.
They all trouped around to watch it, even though it was dubbed into
Arabic.
The Commitments transformed the Corrs from the family that played together
into the family that made money together. Jim, then a session guitarist
playing with a Dublin band The Fountainhead and a regular on the show band
circuit (“Terrible, terrible”) heard of Alan Parker’s plan to film Roddy
Doyle’s novel of muso struggle and convinced he could get all four of them
into the movie – decided to form a band with his sisters.
“I worked with a family that toured air bases in Germany and that cemented
the whole thing for me,” he says. “I used to look up to bands like Donnie
and Marie Osmond. I know it sounds corny. The relationship, the two of
them up on the screen together.”
John Hughes, a figure on the tightly knit Dublin music scene ever since
his synth pop band Minor Detail enjoyed modest US chart success in the
early 80’s, said he could arrange and audition.
“We did two songs which were probably quite shite,” explains Jim (34),
“But a woman called Roz Hubbard from the casting agency said, Corrs, you
have to let John Hughes manage you and John, you have to manage The Corrs.
We were all taken aback because the idea had never crossed our minds.”
Hughes went to see the band a few days later. “We visited a school
and met Andrea and Caroline,” he remembers. “Two girls with school bags,
green uniforms, shirts, ties, blazers appeared and suddenly I realised
they were children. It wasn’t what I expected.”
The Corrs failed the audition. “Sharon and I went in there both playing
keyboards,” laughs 26 year old Caroline. “Horrendous, we looked terrible!”
CAROLINE, ARE YOU ANOREXIC?
My God! My mother was six and a half stone when she was having her
first child. My father’s thin. That’s just the way it is. I eat everything.
NO DRUGS?
I’ve never liked drugs. Maybe I’ve never taken the good stuff, I don’t
know what’s going on. I had some with my boyfriend once and went completely
crazy. Since I’ve been on the road nobody has ever offered us drugs. I
think that’s strange. They’ve never offered me or the girls, or Jim…they
may have offered Jim. I don’t know.
ARE YOU DESPERATE FOR SUCCESS?
I wouldn’t be an artist for nothing. Success is nothing if you don’t
have something to show for it. Mozart didn’t have a penny when he died…so
talent doesn’t mean you’ll be successful. There are an awful lot of really
successful people out there who are mediocre at what they do.
Two days later, watching in the wings of BBC’s National Lottery Show
are Julie Tuner and her mother Pamela Finlay, Winners of Radio Ones Corrs
competition. Down from Burton-On-Trent for the day, they are here to meet
The Corrs, watch their Docklands Arena show and spend the night in a London
hotel. As the band perform Runaway, the pensioners in the audience twinkled
at the pleasantly turned out young people. Mrs Finlay giggles to Q: “This
is for middle-aged people sitting in on Saturday night waiting for Casualty.”
But The Corrs can’t hang about, they have a concert to play.
It’s 8pm and must be on stage at Docklands Arena by 9.15pm. Five BMW
motorbikes have been laid on to ferry the band, plus Q, across London.
Andrea and Caroline refuse to ride, pleading nerves, so Jim and Sharon
and Q weave through the Saturday night traffic alone. Outside Kings Cross
railway station we slip between a double decker and two taxis at lightening
speed and Q glances over at Sharon and Jim. They look bored.
As we scream into Docklands Arena’s backstage carport, our 8.38pm arrival
is video’d and beamed onto 20 foot screens either side of Docklands stage.
11,000 Corrs fans roar with delight as they recognise the first sister,
then a brother dismounting the huge motorcycles.
Suddenly, an eerie hush descends as the screen is filled with an unfamiliar
figure. Q waves at the camera. Inside the venue, 11,000 Corrs fans frown.
In 1989, tastes were not the same as they are today. Riverdance did
not exist, nobody in Britain drank Caffrey’s or O’Neill’s was not a familiar
pub chain, Ballykissangel had not made it on the small screen and Father
Ted had not been written. And The Corrs brand of gently rootsy pop couldn’t
get them arrested.
“I tried to get a record deal in Ireland and it failed,” explains John
Hughes. “I tried to get a deal in England and it failed just as miserably.
My failures were tremendous and consistent.”
Eventually, The Corrs performed at Whelans, a small Dublin club, and
via Hughe’s connections with Bill Whelan, musical director of Riverdance,
managed to persuade Irish Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to come alone.
“We didn’t expect her to come,” boggles Sharon. “But she invited us
to play in the JFK library in Boston and the Irish PM Albert Reynold was
there. It was all ambassadors and senators and things like that. While
we were over there we searched for a record deal.”
In New York they bagged a meeting with 12 time Grammy winner David
Foster, who was busy producing Michael Jackson’s HIStory. They performed
Forgiven, Not Forgotten around the studio piano and the next day were signed
to Atlantic Records.
Recorded in Malibu, California, with Foster at the controls, the debut
album Forgiven, Not Forgotten sold a total of a million copies across Spain,
Canada, Japan and Australia, but in Britain the home of pop cred, it didn’t
even make the top 30.
“We weren’t hip, we weren’t part of the sound,” notes Hughes dryly.
“People had to see them. We had to make a statement.”
After the October 1997 release of Talk On Corners, they booked The
Royal Albert Hall for a special one-off gig on March 17. “It’s got to be
the one day of the year where you get a shot,” notes Hughes. “We didn’t
even know if we could fill it.”
It sold out in three weeks. Mark Cooper executive producer of music
entertainment at BBC, asked if he might film it. It was a key moment in
The Corrs career.
“The truth is,” explains Cooper today, “The BBC commissioned that broadcast
because it was St Patrick’s Day, it was the Albert Hall and it was The
Corrs in that order? Probably. It was screened late and the television
standards audience wasn’t that massive. About half a million people saw
it.”
Ten days after the show the album jumped out of the mid-50’s and into
the top 20. Warner’s then-chairman, Rob Dickens, heard a remix of the bands
version of Dreams they’d recorded for a Fleetwood Mac tribute album and
insisted they put it on the album. Talk On Corners went into the top ten
boosted by further remixed hit singles What Can I Do, So Young and Runaway.
“The remixes were such a big factor for us,” admits Jim, who co-writes
all the songs with his sisters. “I loved them,” he chuckles, mirthlessly.
It is March, so it must be Philadelphia. The Corrs are supporting The
Rolling Stones on their No Security tour, and tomorrow is St Patrick’s
Day. That means The Corrs’ customary round of TV appearances plus a solo
concert at the 2,000 capacity Roseland Ballroom. For the rest of the month
the band with criss-cross America playing Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington,
Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Having successfully mauled the
UK beyond recognition they hope to do the same in America.
Their debut album shifted a middling 300,000 copies here so now they’re
undertaking a month-long charm offensive to beef up their profile and hopefully,
their sales. Sitting on the floor in the lobby of their drab Philadelphia
hotel waiting to be transported to tonight’s gig, The Corrs and their backing
band resemble a mob of Prada-clad students. As Andrea receives a back rub
from Caroline, she lets slip the only hitch in their US campaign. It’s
a secret, so whisper it softly. The Corrs loathe America.
“Does Q sell in America?” whispers Andrea, aware that any anti-American
pronouncements could hamper their progress. “Oh, I don’t care…You know,
people ask you for autographs here and it drives me mad. They do it for
collections just in case you get big. They actually have no idea who you
are. Celebrity is their monarch.”
“People switch off in the middle of sentences and turn their heads
away,” adds Caroline, bluntly. “I feel that no-one’s listening to each
other, no-one cares about each other.”
Fortunately, the van journey to tonight’s show at the First Union Arena
finds most of the sisters in a bubbly mood. The previous night’s show at
the same venue ended with a party, where Corrs and Stones mingled freely.
Andrea found Keith Richards to be a waggish cove, although she wasn’t sure
about Mick Jagger.
“Mick is Mick,” she says, “and must be avoided for one’s own safety.”
Sadly, Sharon didn’t have such a good time.
“This guy was chattin’ me up and being a real arse,” she complains.
“He goes, you’re singing is magnificent, and I said, I’m the violinist.”
In the warren of bunker-like rooms that constitute the Corrs’ dressing
room, the girls pick their way through the Versace dresses Signorina Donatella
has sent them gratis. Sharon Corr, the only smoker in the band, pulls Q
into a dressing room for a crafty puff. How is America treating home loving,
Mexican food cooking elder Corr?
“It’s kind of difficult out here,” she muses, “because we’re starting
from scratch again. We’ve been out here so many times promoting but it
didn’t get us very far. This time it’s been a lot better.”
Still, she seems a bit upset. Is it something to do with the person
who tried to chat her up last night? Pulling her feet under her, she buries
herself in a corner of the couch.
“I was waiting for the concierge in the hotel,” she says, fiddling
with the edge of her ankle length skirt, “And while I was standing in the
queue I had to talk to this bloke. He told me what he did and how much
money he made. He’s giving this idea that he’s very rich and he’s a jet-setter,
using everything he’s got to sell himself. A guy should never do that.
It really is a major turn off. He tells me I look like Christy Turlington.
I thought this guy, not nice. The next minute he’s chatting up my sister
telling her she looks like Christy Turlington.” She’s a bit angry about
this. “Well, sometimes you can be really nice and then in seconds flat
they’re treating you like a friggin’ baby. Or someone’s used rude language
or something really disrespectful, so I tend to be very much on guard.”
Is she overly suspicious? “I know people call me the ice maiden sometimes,”
she says eventually. “If I feel that people have alternative motives or
are just flattering me because they’d like to get off with me. I find it
underhand.”
“I’m more sceptical than my sisters. A lot of the time a guy comes
up and he hasn’t made his mind up which one he fancies.”
Does this happen a lot? “People might consider me pretty, so I might
as well say it, but I used to get hit on by these creeps. Old men. Just
because I was nice they’d end up saying the most disgusting things to me.
And frighten me. Sexually provocative things. And when you’re a young girl
that’s frightening. You had to realise that you had to be on guard. I don’t
think women always thing of the possibility of it. Sometimes I look at
women and thing why are you doing that? Just because you haven’t been attacked
doesn’t mean it can’t happen. That’s why I stay away until I know someone
is OK.”
Being the opening act for The Rolling Stones is no walk in the park.
For one, their audience is not above bottling off female performers who
hold up the main attraction – a lesson learned by Meredith Brooks. But
The Corrs win over the half-full stadium with a mixture of bouncy charm
and committed playing, whilst Dreams is a sure-fire Stateside crowd pleaser.
Caroline, jutting elbows and a grin, bashing the bejabbers out of her
drums (“I hit them hard. I don’t think I’ve much style.”) While Andrea
manages to coax sexual menace on the penny whistle, waggling her hips and
making half the crowd feel uncomfortable like Lolita’s Humbert Humbert
in a baseball cap. Surely The Pogues were never like this.
“Music is sexy,” says Andrea later. “Music is sensual. And an expression
of yourself and that side of you comes out sometimes. I know I can be like
that on stage but it’s innocent. I don’t do anything I just get into it,
feel it.” And then sucks her thumb.
ARE YOU RICH, ANDREA?
Hmmmmmm.
DOLORES O’RIORDAN SAID IN Q THAT YOU’D NEVER MAKE IT IN AMERICA BECAUSE
YOU’RE NOT RAW ENOUGH. IS SHE RIGHT?
Her name is pronounced ‘O’Rearden’, not ‘O’Roorden’.
SORRY
You can mispronounce it if you like. I’ve heard some things. I read
another interview where she said something very egocentric. It’s a challenge.
We won’t challenge our sound and be raw like she says. We’ll just be ourselves.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE SELF-PENNED LYRIC?
Queen of Hollywood. I saw this documentary and it really frightened
me so much. It was in New York about drugs and prostitution. People were
living in skips. You could see this prostitute and she was so drugged and
everything she did was for drugs. I was so scared of that…(Shivering) degradation.
When I have nightmares they are of degradation. Humiliation and degradation.
People can die of false and that’s what the song is about.
PENNY WHISTLE: WHY?
I was working in McManus’ and this guy was playing a traditional Irish
wooden flute. It’s a lovely sound so I wanted to learn it and the whistle
has the same fingering. But the whistle sounds better than the flute because
it’s so shrill.
HAPPY?
I think I am close to happy. There’s a side of my life that I don’t
have which I suppose is love-love that isn’t from my family – but I have
my own place now. I have a house in Dublin. I don’t have tables and chairs
yet but I have a beautiful piano.
WHEN DID YOU FIRST THING, GOD, I’M PRETTY?
Oh my God. When I got the part in The Commitments I thought I was very
pretty, which was hilarious, checking my hair and doing everything a 15
year old would. Luckily my parents were there to protect me from the people
I was drawing towards me without even knowing. I suddenly became aware
of my body and men.
ARE YOU A FLIRT?
I became flirtatious when I was about 15, but now. I naturally am if
there’s chemistry. But not in a playing games way. People don’t really
try to chat me up.
FRENCH AND SAUNDERS DID A CRUEL CORRS SKIT. ARE THEY A COUPLE OF BASTARDS?
It was brilliant. You can’t take yourself too seriously. Everything
we do is theatrical and extreme and there’s a lot of comedy in it. (Dreamily)
I’ve always loved acting…
DO YOU WANT A BOYFRIEND?
I only want him if I WANT him. I’ve had three boyfriends in my life.
My first was when I was 15 and he lived nearby and we were going out two
years and then another guy for two years. And then another for two years.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU SUCKED YOUR THUMB?
Since I was little I wasn’t breast-fed. (Sharon enters and shouts,
“I think sex is great especially with my sister!”)
ARE YOU GOING OUT WITH ROBBIE WILLIAMS?
You’re not allowed to ask that.
WHY NOT?
Because.
WHAT’S SO EMBARRASSING ABOUT IT?
Why can’t you ask the question? You can ask the question.
ROBBIE WILLIAMS THEN…
He came to see me in Dublin as a friend; I saw him as a friend and
left as a friend.
The next day is St Patrick’s Day in New York, the location for the world’s
biggest Oirish hootenanny. Described by one native New Yorker as “an excuse
for lots of drunk policemen to walk down the street annoying people”, the
snake-worrying monk is never the less deemed an important icon for the
Statue Of Liberty to be lit up green in it’s honour.
Putting ethnic pride in perspective, the famous monument was recently
illuminated blue to commemorate the day the turquoise M&M was added
to the all important M&M spectrum.
The Corrs are up at 3.45am for a day of appearances on The Today Show
(5.15am), Rosie O’Donnell (7.45am), CNN’s Worldbeat (11.30am) and then
MTV (3.30pm) before a gig at Roseland Ballroom.
By 9am, manager John Hughes is pacing the corridors of The Rosie O’Donnell
Show at NBC’s studios. He rolls back his boxer’s shoulders and he rubs
his hands with glee. Despite the early start and packed schedule, it seems
he can sense success. “I’m going to do this or I’ll die,” glints the silver-haired
48-year-old. “I feel an England coming on. I tell you, I can smell it.”
He mimes sniffing the air. “You can see it, you can’t touch it, but you
can smell it.”
The Rosie O’Donnell show is ranked third in the national ratings with
viewing figures of around 12 million. O’Donnell, a wise-ass but cuddly
Irish American, spends the bulk of her half-hour chat show taking the piss
out of her A-list celebrity guests. Alongside The Corrs in today’s St Patrick’s
Day special are tough guy actor Brian Dennehy and Sandra Bullock, who sports
a green bowler hat that, rumly she will take home with her. In keeping
with the Irish theme, ad breaks are introduced by a bagpipe hooting out
the unmistakable strains of Scotland The Brave.
“That’s Scottish!” bellows Hughes. Between ad’s O’Donnell chats to
the studio audience. “You think we look like we do because we are Irish,”
she says. “And then you see The Corrs and realise we just look shit.”
The Corrs perform What Can I Do then segue into Haste To The Wedding
and the audience goes bananas. A TV flunky throws Q out of the studio just
as O’Donnell outros the band. “The Corrs ladies and gentlemen. Genetic
perfection. We’re applauding their genes.”
O’Donnell obligingly tells everyone about their CD. Bundled into a
people carrier (perfect for large families) The Corrs are rushed across
town for an unsmiling interview with CNN followed by an appearance at MTV’s
HQ at Times Square. The host, a ruddy jock called Carson Daley, is currently
a ‘hot’ item in America medialand, yet seems strangely befuddled by the
Irish singing family. The VJ’s brief interview crescendos with a sharp
observation. “You’re all siblings, that’s kinda crazy.”
Despite being awake for 18 hours, The Corrs manage a bravura performance
at the Roseland, as usually halfway through, the band quit the stage leaving
only Jim Corr alone for his solo spot. The man described by Father Ted
writer Arthur Matthews as the only man in Europe who doesn’t fancy The
Corrs plays a poignant Irish melody on the piano. A low him of conversation
swells in the auditorium.
JIM, IS IT WEIRD BEING THE ONLY BOY CORR?
There’s two sides to the coin. Because I’m the only boy, I get a lot
of attention. There are times when the girls see something collectively
and different from how a boy would. That can cause turmoil. But we’re unified
about the right things.
HOW’S THE POPE?
Well, Bob Dylan had done it before and our Italian record company suggested
we play for him this time. It was strange. You’re expecting a kind of magical
experience. I shook his hand. It was a dry hand. It wasn’t very strong.
I mean, the guy’s pretty old.
IS IT TRUE YOU ARE SOMETHING OF A SHAG MONSTER?
(Don Juan smirk) There’s no one serious in my life right now…
John Hughes sits in a vast corner office on the 27th floor of Atlantic
Records. It’s 6pm, and behind him the sun sets on midtown Manhattan. The
Empire State and Chrysler buildings are in plain view, the cars on 5th
avenue look like ants. A man would feel like a king in an office like this.
Munching on a chocolate muffin, Hughes spreads his legal papers over the
boardroom table and fiddles with the telephone in front of him.
He hasn’t slept for two days, but who cares? This past week has seen
The Corrs New York record sales leap from three to seven thousand. It’s
a good omen. “I’m a man on a mission,” he blazes, glaring at Q. “I have
something to do and it’s gonna work. As an artist I got my ass kicked.
I had a young family I had to provide for them for years. I understand
the kind of doors that are open for The Corrs because I was there when
those doors were closed on me. I’m damn well not going to let it happen
a second time.
“You know something?” He leans forward. “I can’t do anything about
my own career, but by proxy I wear little frocks and dance around the stage
and sing my heart out.”
He gets up and walks to one of the huge windows and stares out at New
York. Quietly he says to himself, “This will be done. To whatever end.”