from=May 29th 1998
Interviewers-Karen Keating & Richard Madely
Richard: Hi, now Andrea, Sharon, Caroline and Jim are the Corrs and they are
getting Mega! they are huge, we had them on the show about a year ago, is that right?
All: yeah
Richard: We did a we chat with them and they sang a beautiful song
then...what did you sing then, do you remember?
Andrea: Runaway probably
Richard: Runaway, that's right. Now they've covered Dreams, a Fleetwood Mac
song and it's been all over the top of the charts for the last couple of weeks, and we
were just saying you've really...something happened to you, I don't know what it is.
Someone's come along and sprinkled stardust over you, I mean you're always great
but something's gone on a gear, so this is what they did for us last week on the
show, there was no time to talk to them then, they had to go off and do a soundcheck for a
concert and everybody phoned in, loads of you, thousands of you, so if you missed
them...here's why you all called....
Video replay of performance of 'Dreams' in the Studio
Richard: Well Jim was just saying, I was just saying that's so good and you said Oh
no, we're very self critical, what was wrong with that, you tell me what was wrong with
that?
Jim: I dunno I mean we look back at ourselves we see ourselves moving in a
particular way and we sortof can cringe at times, yeah honestly yeah, it's just the way
that we are...
Karen: Because you are siblings aswell do you think that you are harder on each
other than you would be if you were kindof not related in the band?
Sharon: Em...I think maybe we usta be, we're actually together as a band now about
eight years now, and I think in the beginning it was more difficult for us because all of
a sudden we were cocked together, four people on the road working like 17/18 hours a day
and I think that we usta criticise each other maybe and not take into consideration our
different personalities, our different wants and our different needs but I think now it's
gotten an awful lot easier, things seem to be happening for us now and I think things in
someway have a tendency to happen at the right time, when you are, I suppose, better
equipped to deal with it and I think now we consider each other better and we work better
and we know what we do better y'know
Karen: Also people kindof know where to put you now don't they because for ages it
was kindof the family and the Irish family and they didn't quite know what category to put
you into did they? Were you 'middle of the road', were you not, y'know
Caroline: They didn't know whether to put us in the trad' section or the pop/rock
section I think so......
Richard: What section do you want to be in then?
Andrea: We don't want to be in a section
Caroline: It's not really
Jim: We defy categorisation
Sharon: That can be an awful thing too!
Karen: Absolutely
Richard: But you had a problem with Radio One, they wouldn't play you would they?
Jim: Initially, yeah
Richard: Initially, why? What was the problem?
Jim: Em....I dunno maybe they just felt our music didn't suit or whatever, but with
Dreams, they've started to play it which was fantastic...
Andrea: I mean we're definitely able to hear the same as everybody else like the
reasons why and when it's not fitting, when you listen to that and Dreams definitely does
fit now, but we were......(PAUSE-Andrea looks blank while the others
laugh...she forgot what she was gonna say....everyone laughs)
Sharon: We just flew in from Hamburg and we were up at five
Richard: It happens to me all the time on air.....
Andrea: No it doesn't...I watch you!
Richard: Ask the viewers, I forget my lines all the time...
Sharon: Yeah we're always watching you....
Richard: Then you must have seen me say...'Oh I''ve forgotten the question
now.....' Now look, one of the key differences between you is that your a bloke and
you are three women....
Andrea: How did you know?
Karen: He's just very quick like that...
Richard: You're very nice looking but you're beautiful as Judy authorised me to
say, she sends a Finnegan hello.....
Sharon: Tell her we said 'hello'
Richard: Now what this means is that in the hard world of television that the
cameras tend to favour the sisters don't they?
Jim: Naturally yeah
Richard: Naturally, and you tend not to get as much camera time....now this is
true..
Jim: Eh...yeah..
Richard: Well today's where it changes Jim 'cos' we've got one, two, three, four,
five cameras on you and we are gonna take nothing but shots of you!! Until we get tired of
it so let's start it...
Jim: Do people really wanna see this?
Camera zooms on Jim to a drum roll - Everyone laughs
Richard: Him, nothing but him
Jim: This is embarrassing!
Again
Jim: Paparazzi!
Richard: A little bit more, let's do another one
I'm embarrassed, I'm looking at myself back in the monitor here
Richard: I think you deserve a third one, we need a third one, give him three
one more time please.....
Karen: Do you like that or?
Jim: I'm ecstatic. I'm here to make the girls look good, I don't think you realise
that
Karen: Were you very much brought up in a musical household, I mean was there
always singing and playing and all that kind of thing?
Andrea: Yeah, our parents locked us in the piano
Karen: Chained you to it until you knew how to play it
Sharon: Yeah, our parents are both musicians
Richard: Didn't you sing in the church choir?
Sharon: Dad plays an organ in the church and both our parents had a band, dad
taught us all piano from quite a young age, they were always rehearsing in the house so we
were just constantly being influenced by what they were doing...
Richard: Who's idea was it to form a band? Was it your parents or was it you?
Caroline: Not our parents...
Sharon: No, it was ours...
Karen: It was when you went along to audition for the Commitments really wasn't
that the kindof first time you got together to do something...
Caroline: Yeah, that was the first time we actually got on stage together and we
had no songs written, actually myself and Andrea were the youngest, she was sixteen, I was
seventeen so we had no idea and we got up and we did two covers, one was Quincy Jones and
the other was 'Knock on wood' and we were bad.....
Sharon: We were bad!
Karen: There must have been something there though
Andrea: Innocence perhaps
Caroline: Naivety....
Richard: Isn't it funny though how bad you can be, I mean when I was in my teens, I
was in a band myself and first gig we ever did was when we were fifteen there were three
of us, three of us that night and then there were two, 'cos the third guy he played the
violin and he said he was practising, he was gonna do a really jazzy, funky violin break,
but we never, we didn't even bother rehearsing isn't that stupid? So we just played
alone in our own bedrooms and then arrived at the concert...we were the worst, worst
band I've ever heard, and the guy couldn't play the violin and it was just....it's so
....isn't it? where do you go? I mean I stopped doing it then...so how did you get
over your bad start?
Andrea: We didn't realise that we were so bad
(Everyone laughs)
Jim: It's only in retrospect you realise how bad you actually were y'know.....
Sharon: I think though there's a fast way to learn, if you keep throwing
yourself in at the deep end like we've done throughout our career, I think the first TV
show we did was live with like a hundred piece orchestra, and we were dying, we were just
trembling so badly and physically sick at stages and everything, really but if you throw
yourself in the deep end you kindof learn on a very rapid rate...
Jim: It's accelerated learning, definitely
Karen: And you've been touring a lot which always helps aswell
Caroline: Yeah
Richard: You get very tired don't you......well we'll put some viewers questions to
you in a second but I just wanna say something but I've been doing this show ten years now
and you know when bands are doing that, we saw it with the Spice Girls about 18 months ago
when they just had their number one, and we thought then, their ambition probably at that
point was to be as big as 'Take That', maybe the girl answer to 'Take That' but look at
how much bigger they are and I have to tell you honestly, I mean you're very big now but I
think you are gonna be mega, I really do I think you are gonna be a very big band, you
don't need to hear that from me, who cares what I think but I really do think that, you're
giving off a very good buzz
All: Thankyou
Karen: And the phones have gone mad with people wanting to talk to you, so we've
got Nicholas first of all from Wrexham, Hi Nicholas
Nicholas: Hello Hiya
Karen: Great well you're through to the Corrs, you can ask them whatever you like
Richard: Sounds very excited
Karen: What would you like to ask them?
Nicholas: OK, I'd like to ask them what were their favourite artists when they were
growing up and how did they influence them?
Richard: Good question. We'll take it left to right...
Caroline: Em, growing up y'know actually we were big, this is weird, we were big
Prince fans when we were younger, we usta listen to old Prince records and I don't know if
he directly influenced us but that's what we were listening to at the time..I was anyway
Richard: Yeah
Sharon: Em...I've always been a very big Crowded House fan
Richard: Right, so that is in the back of you head sometimes?
Sharon: Yeah, I think definitely it is yeah...
Richard: What about you?
Andrea: Prince, Prince was my man
Richard: Is he still your man?
Andrea: Oh God no!
They all laugh
Andrea: He's a great musician...
Richard: What about you Jim?
Jim: I suppose if there's any one band that would stand out for me, it would have
to be The Police. Absolutely love it, 'Message in a bottle' wow! Just Shivers down the
spine
Karen: My brother loved the Police and I could always tell when Sting had had his
hair cut 'cos Paul would have got it exactly the same way.... it was really sad
Richard: You can still play a police album now and it sounds so fresh doesn't it,
still sounds like it was done yesterday.....there's your answer Nick. Siobhan's next from
Essex, Hi Siobhan...
Siobhan: Hi
Richard: Hello, you're thirteen tomorrow?
Siobhan: Yeah, I am, that's just for by the by, Happy Birthday
All: Happy Birthday
Richard: Welcome to the world of teenagehood and all that...what do you wanna ask
the Corrs?
Siobhan: I just wondered why did they decide to record Fleetwood
Mac's Dreams?
Richard: 'Cos it's a great song
Andrea: That's probably true, the record company pt it, I mean the whole tribute
album was being made and various artists were being asked to do it and our record company
put us forward to do it, and we were just very fortunate to do it, it's one of these
y'know unplanned things, you never think that that's gonna be your ticket to success in
some places....
Richard: Did you know the song before you recorded it?
All: Yeah
Richard: Were you pleased to do it, did you think, yes, that's us?
Sharon: We were delighted, it's one of our favourites
Andrea: Love that song
Karen: So then you just decided to stick it on the album
Richard: Cool, there you go Siobhan, one of these things, just sortof happened,
anything else you wanna ask Siobhan?
Siobhan: Em, no that's it thanks
Richard: Do you like them
Siobhan: Yeah, they're my favourite band, I heard them in France
last year
Andrea: Did you?
Richard: Where about's in France?
Siobhan: Pardon
Richard: Where about's in France?
Siobhan: In Brittany
Sharon: Oh in the Laurel festival
Richard: Are you big in France?
Sharon: We're quite big in France, yeah
Richard: Where are you biggest?
Sharon: Biggest, em..Australia..no actually Australia was our biggest, I think
Spain and England and then Germany Ireland of course...
Andrea: It's all relative to the size of the places....
Jim: Denmark, Canada and now England
Richard: Gonna get to America?
All: Yeah
Karen: OK, Alison now in Yorkshire...
Alison: Hi
Karen: What would you like to ask the Corrs?
Alison: Em, why did you choose to play the instruments that you play?
Richard: Well who plays what? You do guitar and keyboards
Jim: I play Guitar and Keyboards yeah
Richard: And why?
Jim: Eh...I dunno, I was just lucky to grow up with a piano in my bedroom and I was
always playing as soon as I could reach the keys. Guitar I was taught by em, a next
door neighbour of mine
Andrea: I suppose tin-whistle if I say it, we all play the piano but tin-whistle is
a good instrument for me to play because I lose everything and it's very inexpensive
All Laugh
Richard: When I was at school I was taught Clarinet and obviously I was allowed to
take it home to practice and stuff and I was always leaving it on the train, every time
Andrea: there's whistles all over the world!
Sharon: Em, I play the violin and the reason I ended up playing the violin is
because actually em...there was this new violin method came in and it was to send three
year olds to violin y'know. So Caroline was three at the time so she was sent to the
local violin teacher and she was only interested in the size of his ears and why he had no
hair so then I got the violin lessons instead so here I am
Richard: And you're the drummer
Caroline: So after I missed out on the violin lessons...I had originally been the
piano player in the band actually and then em, an old boyfriend of mine had a drumkit next
door and I started playing away and everybody heard me and said y'know this is a good
thing, let's incorporate this into the band, and we did, so I became the drummer
Richard: So have you had any kindof drum lessons since then?
Caroline: No
Richard: You've just practised
Caroline: Yeah, just practised
Richard: Read a book about it or?
Caroline: Well originally I had a few lessons in my hometown from a teacher but
then I was on the road, so I had no time to actually do it
Richard: Does it make your arms strong?
Caroline: Em, it does yeah, it definitely does, it's nice and painful around the
back....
Richard: Alright, and Helen is last, Helens' from Hampshire, hello Helen
Helen: Hi
Richard: You're 15?
Helen: 16
Richard: Oh, it say's 15 here, have you had a birthday in the last few minutes?
When are you 16?
Helen: In November
Richard: Oh, well we did get that wrong, what would you like to ask the Corrs? this
is the last question....
Helen: I'd like to know if they have any advice on how to get into the music
business?
Andrea: Don't
Richard: Don't say that
Andrea: It was a joke
Jim: I think that you oughta be very aware of your limitations first of all and
that you gotta have a helluva amount of perseverance and you know just try and overcome
every obstacle that comes your way and I guarantee you there will be a lot of them.....
Richard: And it's like any profession isn't it...you've just gotta kick at the door
'knock knock knock'
Sharon: You have to consider every obstacle to be an opportunity y'know....
Andrea: And if you love it you'll do it, that's just it, it's about love
Richard: OK, one more question for you all....where do you get your looks from?
Is it from your mother or your father or both? Are your parents both
startlingly attractive?
Andrea: They're both gorgeous
Sharon: They're gonna love this
Caroline: If we say they're both gorgeous they love that
Richard: I mean do gorgeous genes run in your family, does it go back? I mean
y'know back generations? Are the Corrs known as a hot family?
Caroline: No, I don't think so, no
Sharon: I don't know, I think no, definitely not, not the whole family, no
Karen: But your parents
Sharon: But quite a few, Mum & Dad yes
Karen: Well it's lovely to see you all, and continued success
All: Thankyou
Richard: Are you gonna perform for us, I've forgotten are they?
Karen: Not today, another day
Richard: But it's great to see you, thanks a lot for coming in