Jim Corr: my drink crisis led me to AA
After ten years out of the spotlight, in this incredible interview Jim Corr reveals: I’ve been sober for 15 months after drink crisis I stopped conspiracy theories for my sisters I had to sell helicopter and Ferrari to pay my debts We were able to tel
I want to be there fully for my son and for other people
PERHAPS somewhere in the Corrs’ hometown of Dundalk there is a framed picture of their 20-year-old debut album sleeve Forgiven Not Forgotten being kept in an attic that is ageing instead of them. It seems like the only plausible explanation because — just like the protagonist in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey — the four siblings look like they’ve barely aged in the intervening years.
Laughing at this observation, Jim Corr tells me that they’ve been fortunate to have inherited their parents’ youthful looks, adding that it’s also down to clean living, ‘because if you maintain a certain unhealthy lifestyle you’ll be wearing your lifestyle on your face’.
Although the 51-year-old confesses that he’s lucky that his own face isn’t telling a different story right now. ‘I’ll be honest, I’m not unique in that I found myself on a slippery slope with alcohol,’ he unexpectedly reveals in this exclusive interview.
Now in his 15th month of sobriety, Jim had started drinking to help deal with the immense financial pressure he was under to repay outstanding debts on property deals that turned sour after the recession hit. He eventually settled with ACC Bank after a High Court case to the tune of €1.4million in 2013.
‘I would go on benders during that period,’ he says. ‘Those benders temporarily blocked out the stress I was under at the time only for it to come back and hit me like a sledgehammer the next day.
‘I’m the type of person who is able to give up practically everything when I’ve a project to focus on. But when I found myself under a lot of pressure from different angles, I noticed my drinking increase.’
Jim eventually faced up to the fact that his drinking was ‘spiralling out of control’ and attended his first AA meeting in September 2014.
‘You come to a point were you’re at a T-junction and it’s like, okay, do I continue this destructive behaviour, this escapism, because I don’t see this getting any better, or will I recognise there’s an issue here and deal with it?
‘So a friend of mine, Rob, who had years ago given up alcohol himself said, “Why don’t you come along to this meeting with me?” and he took me to an AA meeting where I sat in as an observer.
‘A couple of things were said in that meeting that made me think, well, I recognise this in me and I recognise that. What struck me was when it was said that it becomes an illness and it’s progressive. It doesn’t get better, it gets worse — potentially a hell of a lot worse.
‘It was a turning point when I went to that meeting and realised the progressive nature of the developing illness. I want to be there fully for my son, I want to be there for other people.
‘I noticed that other areas of my life were spiralling out of control and it was all circling around this one issue really because when I made the decision finally to completely knock alcohol on the head my life dramatically turned around. It’s been great, I wish I’d done it years ago.’ Does he still attend AA meetings? ‘No, I don’t, but that’s not to say I won’t again. I did go to a few. I respect anybody who wants to and I think it’s great for people who need that support.
‘I personally don’t feel that I need to. I just choose not to drink, that’s the decision I’ve made.
‘The wonderful people who run those meetings are extremely helpful, discreet and supportive to anybody who wishes to go and I recommend attending if you think you may have alcohol-related issues.
‘I listened to some harrowing stories from amazing people at some meetings. I met some absolutely wonderful people that laid their hearts bare for the benefit of the other people in the room, and told harrowing stories of how alcohol had devastated their lives.
‘I was lucky that I didn’t have to descend to that degree, to so-called rock bottom — but rock bottom will be different depending on the person. I was able to recognise that I needed to make changes and I did. It was one of the best life decisions that I could’ve made.’
Jim explains that he can’t go into specific details about these financial dealings because there are still ongoing legal issues.
‘I’m not out of the woods by any means yet. But, in my head, I’m in a better place.’
The Corrs might have sold a phenomenal 40 million records, but Jim insists that these bad business deals could have potentially seen him having to declare bankruptcy.
‘The financial situation I found myself in had the potential to put my lights out. I was feeling what happened was unfair and other individuals that got me involved in a particular situation seemed to be getting off scot-free. It’s not nice to have to deal with that.
‘But there are many other people in Ireland who are in worse situations and my heart goes out to them. I’m not complaining and I don’t want to be singled out, because when you see what’s happening out there, you don’t see signs of a recovery on the ground. Homelessness is up dramatically, with more soup kitchens having to open, and with the increased amount of suicides happening in Ireland, it’s unspeakably sad.’
In order to settle his debts Jim had to sell off the prized possessions of the clichéd popstar lifestyle.
‘Do you know, in a strange way it was actually good for me what happened — I mean on a spiritual level, that I was put into a situation where I had to, out of necessity, get rid of all the big boy toys: the helicopter, various cars, including a Ferrari, etc,’ says Jim, who studied to be a pilot during the band’s decadelong sabbatical.
‘It’s so easy to fall into the “more” trap and to desire things we don’t need. I reduced the clutter and pared myself down to living a much simpler and a more enjoyable life.
‘What do we need at the end of the day? We need decent food, we need clean water, we need shelter and warmth. Those basics we can survive with — anything else above that is a luxury. So, I think, overall from that perspective, it’s actually been a positive experience for me.’
Does he think that his financial downfall was a case of being too greedy? ‘I don’t know if it’s greed.
I don’t believe we’re being told the truth all the time It’s good therapy to channel your grief into something
You earn money through hard graft and it’s like, what do you do with it? And it’s suggested you put it into property. Are you going to stick it under your mattress or do you try make it work for you? You think that the best thing to do is to try and make it work and invest it — this is where mistakes are made.’ He pauses and shakes his head. ‘I made mistakes and hopefully I won’t make them again. I’m to blame to a certain extent, but basically I did trust other individuals whom I allowed steer the ship. I just thought that, well, there has to be a large element of trust here, so I suppose I do feel a tad let down.
‘I took my eye off the ball and reacted too late. You make mistakes, which you try to learn from and hopefully not repeat.
‘But one lives and learns and I put it down to experience.’
As a welcome distraction from his own woes, it was perfect timing when his sister Caroline called him up and suggested that The Corrs should get back into the studio and record their new album, White Lights, which was released last week.
The band took a sabbatical in order for them all to raise their young families, while Caroline and Sharon also pursued solo careers.
‘We didn’t anticipate, to be honest, that we would take as long a break. But we did and it gave us all a chance to get our lives back and to do a lot of normal things — and to do some maybe not so normal things!’ he quips.
Perhaps Jim is referring to his decision to go public with his controversial views on conspiracy theories. He provocatively stated in the past that he believed the ‘intelligence services along with rogue elements of the neocon Bush administration orchestrated 9/11 in order to rally support for illegal wars and invasions of countries within the Middle East so as to dominate their resources’. He also claimed that ‘we were being herded unwittingly towards a One World Government under a scientific dictatorship controlled by unelected elites’. Despite critics describing his pronouncements as being offthe-wall, Jim insists that he has no regrets about going public with his views.
‘I am a truth seeker. It’s not easy speaking out on controversial topics and I was a little upset with the misrepresentation of my views.
‘My delivery could’ve been better, sure. I wasn’t schooled the way politicians are and it did feel like I was jumping out of a plane without a parachute. When I came out of the first interview, I felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I was sharing views that I believe are now held by many people.
‘Like, were there actually weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? We know now that there weren’t. Look at the devastation and chaos that resulted from that untruth.
‘I don’t believe we’re being told the truth all the time, so it’s important to seek out what is truthful and what isn’t.’
Jim has now decided to step down from publicly sharing his views.
‘There was a number of reasons why I stopped. I felt because of misrepresentation that I had gone as far as I could. I hope I woke some people up and helped them on a path of critical thinking and analysis.
‘Also, I felt it wasn’t fair on the girls. Andrea and Sharon were out promoting their solo albums and they’re getting asked about the “crazy brother”,’ he laughs.
‘Some people say, “I think you’re mad!” And I say, I am mad — I’m mad about Ireland, I’m mad about the Irish, I’m mad about humanity and that’s why I spoke out publicly and put myself in the firing line.’
Did he ever think about running for the Dáil?
‘I did think about it, but at the moment, where I’m at in myself, I just want to try and uplift people through music and do what I do best.’
After an 11-year hiatus, it was meant to be a joyous occasion going back into the studio. But sadly, no sooner were the siblings back working on new songs in London when word reached them last April that their father Gerry had been rushed to hospital with chest pains. The doctors discovered an undetected aneurysm and he then suffered a severe heart attack.
‘Dad wasn’t able to speak at all when we arrived,’ recalls Jim. ‘But the next day he came back to full consciousness so we were able to tell him how much we loved him and what a brilliant dad he was. And he was nodding to us and was able to weakly tell us that he loved us. We were very lucky that he momentarily came back to full consciousness.
‘But over the next day or two — even though he was being supported by machines — his kidneys wouldn’t start functioning again and there were other problems as well, as a result of the heart attack, and his breathing just got so laboured that we were basically told that there was no hope.
‘It had come to the point where machines were just keeping him alive. We wanted to allow him to sail off as peacefully as we possibly could. Once we knew there was no hope, we made the decision to let him go. It was very peaceful the way that he went and we’re grateful for that — he didn’t suffer in the end.’
Was it difficult to keep working on the album after his death?
‘It certainly was. We were all over the place, but at the same time, it helped us being in the studio because we had something to focus on. We weren’t sitting around doing nothing.
‘People deal with grief in various different ways but we had the distraction of the music at the time. And, of course, we were together as a four-piece and siblings again, so we were a great support for each other during that time.’
Jim also found solace in his belief in an afterlife.
‘I wouldn’t say I’m religious. I’m a very spiritual person. I very much believe in life after death. I have great faith that I will fully experience the presence of my dad again but in a spiritual form once we depart this earthly existence.’
There are several songs on the new album that were written in memory of their father, a musician himself who had taught his children to play the piano.
‘Stay and Bring On The Night are basically about our dad, but Bring On The Night also relates to a friend of ours who died, the DJ Tony Fenton. It’s good therapy to try and channel your grief into something and this is what we did with some of the songs.
‘We also dedicated a reel that we wrote to dad, called Gerry’s Reel. So, yes, those songs were written around the time when we lost our dad. It was quite emotional. There are a lot of different emotions captured on the album, that’s for sure.’
The recording of the album was also different from their young, free and single days because their children ‘were in and out’ of the studio.
‘It does cause a little bit of disruption, as you can imagine. It’s great to show them the creative process and how songs are written. It’s a great experience for them.’
Don’t be surprised if we see a new generation of the Corr family on the music scene in the future — as Jim’s own nine-year-old son Brandon says he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps.
‘My son’s actually starting Grade 3 on the piano. He says he’s going to be a musician himself. And he’s doing guitar, too. He loves music. So, it was great for him to see the band on stage and realise this is what Dad actually does for a living.’
Perhaps we won’t have to wait another decade for the next album by members of the Corr clan...