The Corrs are Back

Feted by U2, riding high with Breathless, they were the Irish sensations who simply vanished. Now they've emerged from ten years in the wilderness, with tales of burn-out, bickering and blowing millions... 



Ten years ago, The Corrs had it all. Their irresistible blend of Celtic folk and radio-friendly rock had catapulted the band of three beautiful sisters and their big brother from the back-street bars of Dublin into the stratosphere of the pop world.

With five platinum albums and 40 million sales, hugely lucrative world tours and the biggest-selling album of 1997, Talk On Corners, they notched up hit after hit with songs such as Breathless, What Can I Do and Only When I Sleep.

The patron saint of Irish bands, U2's Bono, adored and feted them, joining the group on stage as they conquered America and even dashing back to Dublin for the day mid-tour to attend the lead singer's wedding. 

Their undeniable musicianship (they all played their own instruments, a heady Irish stew of fiddles, tin whistles, drums and guitars) was hardly hampered by the fact that they had uncommon beauty on their side.

Andrea - the youngest - was named The Most Beautiful Girl In The World by American Vogue in 1998 and was romantically linked to Robbie Williams, Simon Fuller and, yes, Bono.

'And the rest,' she says today with a wry smile. 'Often people I'd never met.'

And yet in 2005, after ten years at the top, they walked away from it all.

But now they're back, with a rousing new album and a cautionary tale of band bust-ups, anxiety attacks, financial meltdowns and family tragedies.

'It was burnout,' Andrea, now 41, reveals. 'It happens to bands. You don't stop working, you don't stop touring. 

'I found the whole celebrity thing difficult to handle. I felt exposed by it all - I was very self-critical.'

Behind the folky image of flowing skirts and floating melodies, however, fiery arguments were frequent. 

'We are passionate', says Sharon. 'We have Spanish blood running through the Irish in our veins. 

'We would have rows; there would be lots of shouting and screaming. Some families don't survive working together. Look at The Kinks, look at Oasis.

'It's hard enough working with the same group of people day in day out, travelling together, performing together, let alone being a family in that situation. 

'Our most remarkable success was ending after ten years and being in a place where we were all still speaking to each other. That was actually a triumph.'

They're as close-knit again today as a finely woven Aran sweater, but the band's comeback from the pop wilderness is framed by tragedy. 

Earlier this year, within three months of returning to the studio, the siblings were on a plane to be at their father Gerry's bedside. He died, aged 82, in hospital in Dublin. Six months on it is visibly painful for them to talk about.

'I think we all have great faith we'll see him and my mother again one day - and we feel them in our hearts,' says Jim, the eldest sibling.

In 1999 their mother, Jean, died while waiting for a lung transplant. The band dedicated Home, their last album, to her in 2005.

And so it's fitting that their new album, White Light, is for their father. Sharon fails to hold back tears as she talks about his death. 

'My parents were so proud of the music we made and when we lost my mother, my father had us and he had the music. 

'I think he wanted us to get back together and he was thrilled when we did it. He wasn't ill, none of us expected him to go.'

She adds: 'They loved each other, they loved music and they loved us. It's still so raw - we still go from laughing one minute to gut-wrenching tears.'

Jim nods and picks up the story. 'Dad was the reason we began singing', he says. 

'My mother was the more sensible one telling us to finish our education. 

'My dad just told us to go for it, do what you love. It's a great thing they both lived to see us do so well and that Dad heard us play together again before he passed.'

The Corrs are Irish music royalty: their parents were musicians, playing in a band called The Sound Affair in the Seventies, and Andrea was just 16 when the fledgling group started performing in Dublin's bars and pubs. 

Their career moved up a gear when they auditioned for a part - as musicians - in the movie The Commitments in 1991. Andrea was given a few speaking lines.

In 1994, they were asked by the U.S. ambassador to Ireland to play at the World Cup in Boston. 

The following year they signed a deal and toured the U.S. with Celine Dion, sending them to the top of the U.S. charts.

The four siblings (Andrea, 41, vocals and tin whistle, Sharon, 45, violin and vocals, Caroline, 42, drums and vocals, and Jim, 51, guitar, keyboards and vocals) conquered America and in an era of Britney, Christina, Madonna and The Spice Girls helped counter the image of female singers as mere sex objects. 

Today they roll their eyes when the issue of sexuality in pop is raised. 

'I just don't want to see any more a** shots or women twerking into cameras,' says Sharon.

'I love Taylor Swift, I love Adele because they are all about the music. We were never selling sex, we were selling our songs.

'We are women, we are musicians. We knew people would look at us but we wanted to make them listen to the music. 

'Right now we have the Suffragette movie out, telling us about how women fought for rights, but in our industry we seem to have gone right back.'

Like their looks, the new songs pick up where they left off in 2005. Today the women seem untouched by time; even Jim appears uncannily unchanged. He laughs. 

'Now how would anyone know that? No one ever looked at me. I have three incredibly attractive sisters. The more people look at them and the fewer look at me the happier I am.'

When Sharon was put in front of artists for a Portrait Of The Year competition last year, several painters complained that she was a poor subject because she was 'frankly too beautiful'. 

'I pretended to be offended but secretly I was thrilled,' she says.

Up close it is clear no surgeon's knives have been allowed anywhere near these glorious faces. 

'Eleanor Rigby', says Andrea cryptically when asked to explain her timelessness.

'I keep my face in a jar. I use good products and a lot of how I look is down to very good make-up. '

Caroline chimes in: 'I think we all look after ourselves. We all eat very well. No junk.

'People think of us all as being so clean and pristine and maybe we were. I was offered drugs as a teenager but I was never offered drugs in the band. We were three girls with their big brother...'

Despite their butter-wouldn't-melt image, The Corrs were immediately accepted by the rock legends of their heyday. 

'There were so many moments we couldn't believe we were part of,' Jim recalls.

'One of the most incredible times was being asked by Nelson Mandela to play his 46664 concert in 2003. 

'Afterwards we got in a tiny plane with Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel and Brian May to go to a safari ranch. 

'We left the ranch in the night to go for a midnight safari and later ended up on the roofs of our Land Rovers staring at the sky with Brian May pointing out all the stars and constellations to us [the Queen guitarist has a PhD in astrophysics].'

Is it partly to recapture some of these memories that they've decided to have another crack at the big time? 

'We just felt the time was right', says Jim. 'There isn't anyone else out there like us. We want to be bigger than before.' 

Even bigger than their mates U2? He laughs: 'There's always room at the top.'

In the decade after they disbanded in 2005, Jim learned to fly helicopters, raised his eight-year-old son, Brandon, and lost a fortune on the Irish property market. 

He is a vocal critic of the EU and believes much of the Irish financial crash was due to a decision by financiers to deliberately burst the property bubble.

'A lot of lies and corruption has been pedalled to our country,' he says. 'People say the economy is getting better but on the ground you can't see it. 

'More and more soup kitchens are opening up and suicide in Ireland is at an all-time high.'

He will not specify how much money he lost. 'Shedload covers it,' he says. 

'I'm lucky enough to be in a position that it hasn't ruined me but many people's lives have been wrecked.'

For his sisters, the band break-up was an opportunity to reclaim a life. 

'We are three women and one man,' says Sharon. 'Caroline had babies, she wanted to be a mum, do the school run, bake cakes. 

'I was married, I wanted to have children [she now has Cathal, nine and seven-year-old Flori]. I wanted reality and I also wanted to face my own fears and do my own music.'

She put out two solo albums. 

'I loved it but I also missed my family. I threw myself at a lot of things. I did The Voice in Ireland, I toured. 

'I suffered anxiety attacks because I was so sleep-deprived trying to do everything. But I pushed myself and I grew in confidence.'

Sharon has moved to France, Caroline to Somerset and Andrea to London, where she is married to Brett Desmond, the son of Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond. 

The couple have two children - Jean, three, and two-year-old Brett Jr. When The Corrs ended, Andrea was single, although inundated with offers. 

She smiles: 'I always wanted to get married and I'm glad I didn't marry someone I loved but knew wasn't the one forever. 

'I met Brett when The Corrs were over. I waited and found the man for life.'

Andrea produced two solo albums but the poor reception made her turn her back on the industry and spend years as an actress working in theatre. 

She appeared as Christina in Dancing At Lughnasa at The Old Vic in 2009 and as Jane Eyre at The Gate in Dublin the following year. Both roles required her to look plain and dowdy. 

'That was the bit I loved most,' she says. 'To remove every trace of vanity.'

She decided she wouldn't sing again. 

'I loved the solo albums but they weren't albums the record company wanted. I was deflated. It knocks it out of you. You lose the will to sing.

'But when we all stood in the studio it was like coming home. We all felt the magic. We felt we were making something special.' 

'White Light' is out Nov 27 on East West. The band will tour the UK in January