The Corrs

“Most musicians meet other band members in school or college or a rehearsal room,” says Andrea Corr. “I met mine around the breakfast table and in the queue for the bathroom.”

The Corrs are Ireland’s first family of music, a multi-million selling sibling quartet who have conquered the world with a seamless blend of sleek pop rock, lush harmonies and Celtic folk trimmings. Comprising Andrea (lead vocals, piano, tin whistle), Sharon (violin, piano, vocals), Caroline (drums, piano, vocals) and Jim (guitar, keyboards, vocals), The Corrs have sold over 40 million albums since their debut Forgiven Not Forgotten in 1995, spawning a dozen classic hit singles.

Off the back of a magical return to the stage touring Southeast Asia & Australia with sold out shows in November 2023, the band have continued to tour worldwide celebrating their back catalogue of hits and are now committed to writing new music.

The Corrs formed as a band in 1990 in the first roar of the Celtic tiger. They grew up in Dundalk, County Louth in the Republic of Ireland. Their parents, Gerry and Jean, sang semi-professionally as a duo, and all four children learned piano. Their aunt owned a pub, where they would join in sessions of traditional songs.

They write songs individually and together, in various combinations. The Celtic element came gradually and naturally as they weaved traditional instrumentation into their pop songcraft. “There’s an Irish heartbeat to the Corrs,” says Sharon. “Irish is not something that you have just because you’re at home, you bring it with you, it’s in your heart, your soul, it’s part of your DNA. If there’s an Irish lick in a pop song it’s because it feels right, not because we hammer them in.”

They got their big break on a trip to New York in 1994, when they gate-crashed a Michael Jackson recording session at the Hit Factory to meet producer and arranger David Foster. “It was because of that day, when we just walked in and asked him to listen to our demos, that we were signed,” says Andrea. “He was amazing, and very generous, and gave Jim a co-production credit cos he recognised all the work we had already done.”

Their follow up 1997 album, Talk On Corners, was a slow growing success, debuting in the UK at number 7 and finally peaking at number one in June, 1998, it’s 35th week on the charts. Once established, The Corrs became a chart fixture.

Breathless - a single The Corrs wrote and recorded with Mutt Lange - gave them their first number one in 2000. “Breathless was just kind of an assault in a way, you could not escape it.” Accompanying album, In Blue, went straight to number one in 17 countries, and platinum in America.