U.K. fan creates first podcast dedicated to Dundalk band The Corrs

One of Dundalk’s greatest exports, The Corrs, now have their very own dedicated podcast thanks to Norwich superfan Simon Wilkie, creator of the CorrsCast Podcast Series.

In lockdown 2020, he took it upon himself to create the first Podcast show focused on The Corrs to bring fans together and to help celebrate the story of their success and development of the band’s first album.

In his eleven episodes so far, Simon, who says he’s seen the band play dozens of times, has interviewed those who worked alongside the band in the studio and beyond back in the early 90’s.

Many of these have since progressed into Grammy and Emmy award winning work and are celebrated as pillars of the music industry today.

The interviews give an insight into what it was like to work with the band in developing and recording their now iconic sound.

Simon told the Democrat that his love of the Dundalk group started when he saw them play a St Patrick’s Day gig at the Royal

Albert hall in 1998 that was broadcast on BBC 1.

“I remember sitting and watching that with my father and just thinking, wow this is really raw, this is a fantastic sound that I’ve never really encountered before.

“It was my first encounter with anything that had an Irish music flavour to it.”

The Corrs sound is very unique in many ways, the blend of that Irish traditional and pop rock I think hadn’t been seen globally.

It had been seen in Ireland of course, but not elsewhere before The Corrs kicked off with their first album.

The idea for the podcast came when, like many of us, Simon found himself at a loose end during Covid lockdown in 2020.

“I’d listened to a lot of music commentary podcasts when we went into lockdown here in the UK. We couldn’t do anything and, like everyone else, I was just sitting at home.

“I just thought, I’ve been a fan of this band for years, I’ve a lot of content that I’ve amassed over the years that no other fans really have, and there’s no Corrs related podcast out there, there’s just nothing.

“I was very inspired by these other musical podcasts and decided to try to do something similar, at the very least I knew I’d enjoy trying to talk to these people to understand more of the story of the history of the band and their development.

“Because it was lockdown, I just reached out on a limb, with no prior experience of making a podcast or anything, to the people who worked with them in the studio and because they also were doing nothing within their industries; they all said yes.

“It was partly because everyone else had nothing to do and we could all use zoom, but also, they were very fond of the time when they worked with the band and were happy that someone was interested in telling that story.

“They were more than willing to discuss what went on and how appreciative they were of their work at that time.”

The podcast has had a huge fan response with 1000s of listeners from a huge variety of countries and growing.

“It just kind of blossomed and now thousands of fans are listening from all over the world and in the last couple of months it’s gotten to no.2 and no.3 in the Irish music podcast charts for commentary.

“So it’s growing at a phenomenal rate and it’s lovely to be able to naturally see this story unfold, not from me trying to force a narrative or a record company spin on anything.

“It’s all literally from the horse’s mouth from those who were in the studio, laying the tracks down, making the demo, the session musicians, etc.

“It’s a lovely journey that I hope to continue. Season one is focused on the first album and the demos that lead to it. I have no intention of stopping. In the future, I might move on to the second album and beyond.”

With so many varied contributors Simon says it’s hard to pick a favourite but says the fan response to music industry executive Jason Flom was hugely positive.

“[He was] the A&R guy who originally said yes to them and allowed them to be signed to Atlantic Records which then got them in touch with David Foster to produce the album.

“It was nice to hear about such a pivotal part of their success directly from that person and how he describes having the band come into his office in America and play a demo tape, and about how he knew on the spot that he had to sign the band.”

Such is Simon’s fascination with the Dundalk quartet, he has even visited Dundalk four or five times to have a pint in McManus to see where it all began.

“You have different levels of fandom and when you have an appreciation for a group you get curious for where this all came from and I think a huge part of their nature is that hometown feel that comes from a place [Dundalk] that is very different from anywhere in England.”

Simon is currently half way through season 1 of the podcast with 11 episodes produced to date alongside special episodes such as a round table discussion with those who attended the band’s recent triumphant return to the stage in their ‘One Night Only’ gig in Australia.

The CorrsCast Podcast is available on Spotify, iTunes and YouTube, among other places.