exclusive interview
Q&A Caroline Corr
THE CORRS RETURN TO THE POP MUSIC SCENE WITH THE BITTERSWEET BORROWED HEAVEN. KRISTINE FONACIER GETS ON THE PHONE WITH THE FAST TALKING CAROLINE CORR (WHO KNOWS A LOT ABOUT DRUMMING BUT NOT ENOUGH ABOUT POETRY)
There isn't a more attractive family act around than the Corrs. Charming, talented, and extremely good-looking, siblings Jim, Sharon, Caroline and Andrea Corr have churned out seven hit albums, making them one of Britain's biggest pop acts over the past 12 years. With their seventh album Borrowed Heaven, just out this month, the Corrs put out another strong release, more solid than ever, and still tinged with the traditional Irish music that they've grown up loving. Drummer Caroline Corr takes time out before hitting the road again to talk about the new album.
MTV INK: Hi, Caroline. How are you?
CAROLINE CORR: Very good, very good.
MTV INK: Tell us about the new album.
CC: The name of the record is Borrowed Heaven. It's a bit of departure from the sort of things that we did for quite a while.
MTV INK: How do you think it's a departure? Was it a conscious decision that you wanted to do something different?
CC: No, I think it was quite natural for us to write what we wrote, but, we don't consciously just say, oh God, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. That's just what happened, and it ends up being a little bit different from the one that came before.
MTV INK: Was there a theme to the album?
CC: It's quite a bittersweet record. You know, you have songs where someone sounds very happy, but yet they've got sort of a bitter lyric to it...not exactly happy lyrics, quite dark lyrics. But I think the title is all having stolen moments.
MTV INK: There's a theme of losing what's beautiful.
CC: Yeah. Exactly. I think so. I think that's the way to describe it. Yeah.
MTV INK: I listened to your new album with other journalists today. Everybody noticed that everybody in the band had gotten stronger. Andrea's voice had matured, and the instruments are starting to come out more.
CC: You know, that's good. It's praise for us to hear that, because we're working on it for so long, and we wanted to make this record really great, and so we worked really, really hard. I definitely think, because we've been together 12 years or more, you know the band has matured. Maybe, this record is a sign for us maturing a lot more.
MTV INK: What song's your favorite in the album?
CC: My favorite song at the actually moment is "Baby be Brave" but that'll probably change. I normally change on what I like but "Baby be Brave" is always one of my favorites.
MTV INK: I think I like "Long Night".
CC: Do you?
MTV INK: Yeah. Was that an E. E. Cummings poem at the beginning of it?
CC: Was it what?
MTV INK: I think there was a poem at the beginning of it.
CC: That was a sample from [a reading] that the producer put in, actually -- we did not put that in.
MTV INK: The poem, was it by E. E. Cummings?
CC: I'm not sure. I don't know, actually, I should find time, but I'm not that sure.
MTV INK: You guys have constantly been touring when you're not writing songs, and you all have individual projects. How did you find time to collaborate for the album?
CC: We really don't have individual projects. Well, Andrea's done a little bit of acting in between, but the rest don't really have any projects going on. We just have home life, I suppose. Sharon's married, and I'm married and I have a child now as well. I have a baby boy. Well, he's not much of a baby anymore, he's 13 months.
We have that kind of going on.
We've been working, even though it looks like we've not been working together, we've been working quite a lot -- doing the record as we visit places here and here.
MTV INK: Okay, so you haven't been doing any individual projects because you've been concentrating on your home life?
CC: Yeah, not really concentrating on it -- I mean, in between work, we're always trying to have some sense of normality within, you know, being in this business. But sometimes you get to go when you're working, but we thought of a bit more time to sort of relax, as well as doing the record because we needed more play. We've had a bit more time to kind of feel it and have a bit of home life. But that's gonna change because we're coming back to the road now.
MTV INK: Are you going back to Asia anytime soon?
CC: We hope to come back to Asia, but we still can't. But we would hope to definitely get back at some stage.
MTV INK: Do you remember your concert in the Philippines?
CC: Oh, yeah! It was fantastic! I love the audience. They were fantastic. We love being in the Philippines. The people were just so nice. It was brilliant.
MTV INK: How do you guys keep it up without getting into one another's hair?
CC: You know, we still have a great love of music and that's what keeps us together. And we really, really appreciate our success, and I think if you really appreciate what you're doing and that success will just keep going regardless of any troubles that you have. And yeah, we've had our problems, and we had our arguments and things like that, but at the end of the day, we all wanna keep doing this, so that's the important thing.
MTV INK: You have another instrumental on the album, and there's always that very strong Irish influence in all of your music.
CC: We've always loved Irish music, and it's part of our sound, and it's always been part of our records. we don't want to lose that. We love traditional music, and we love mixing it with pop and rock music. If we could mix it in, we always try to do that because we jus love it, so we love playing it.
MTV INK: You're also very grounded in modern pop and rock. What were you listening to while producing this album?
CC: We listen to lots of things. I listen to Nelly Furtado, I listen to old records a lot as well. Norah Jones, I like her as well. God, I can't remember now. There are so many things, so many things I listen to.
MTV INK: What new things do you want to try out?
CC: I don't know. I mean, I would love to do a completely traditional album, I would love to do that, I would love for this to be a success. Well, I just wanna keep making good music. That's all I wanna do.