Aslan after Christy Dignam: Rock band talk grief, rebirth and an upcoming Cork gig

A year after the death of Christy Dignam, Aslan are back. Ahead of Joy in the Park, they talk new beginnings with Noel Baker

Sat, 06 Jul, 2024 - 02:00

Noel Baker

Billy McGuinness laughs as he says it, but there’s no doubt he believes it. “When the nuclear bomb goes off, there’ll only be cockroaches and Aslan left,” he laughs.

When it comes to Aslan, one of the country’s most beloved rock bands, nobody can say they’ve done it the easy way.

With the first anniversary of the passing of singer Christy Dignam just over, the band is a testament to the power of survival and, just maybe, a type of rebirth.

Dignam — who died on June 13 last year after a long battle with illness — was a vast part of Aslan’s appeal, and not just through his inimitable voice.

As he struggled with addiction and ill health, his struggles seemed to act as a cipher for the parallel struggles of the rest of us; when he recovered, when he turned on that stage presence, it was the same — a redoubtable character, bashing through the hardships and coming out the other side.

Now, as the other members prepare for what is likely to be their biggest gig since Christy’s death, with new singer Lee Tomkins at the mic and ahead of plans for new material and further touring, it’s a new journey — both for them and their fans.

Joe Jewell, Alan Downey, Lee Tompkins and Billy McGuinness of Aslan at the announcement of their concert at Joy in the Park on July 21st at Fitzgerald's Park, Cork. Picture: David Creedon

It all started in the months following Dignam’s departure to the great stage in the sky.

Sitting alongside guitarist and chief songwriter Joe Jewell, drummer Alan Downey, and Lee in a Cork city hotel — top floor, views so expansive you wonder if they wouldn’t just emulate the Beatles and do a roof top show— Billy outlines how the process began which led to Lee coming on board.

“The hardest part was taking the first step to actually get in touch with Joe and Alan and making that call,” Billy says.

“When Christy passed, we were like headless chickens. We didn’t know what we were going to do, so when we reached out to each other that was the first part of something positive actually happening for us.

“We just rang each other and we said: ‘Look, it’s been a couple of months since Christy’s passing, do you want to go up, take the instruments out and see what happens?’”

Billy says that, at that point, the group weren’t thinking about recruiting a singer, never mind gigging or recording.

Indeed, he says: “We were fucking struggling, big time.”

However, the simple act of playing together — something they have done for more than 40 years — meant that it clicked. Billy’s instant thought was “we ain’t giving up, we are going to keep doing this”.

According to Joe: “The thing about it is, we’re not doing anything that any other band in the history of rock and roll [hasn’t done], we’re not changing anything. Somebody passes, the band gets on, nobody is bigger than the music. Obviously, once the grieving is done. If a family member dies, you’re back at work fucking two days later, in fairness.”

It’s the type of candour you’d expect from a group that has seen the music industry from virtually every angle, and which in doing so has become an Irish institution.

Lee has previously described Aslan as a religion —“that’s what it’s like in Finglas,” he says —but in some ways they might be more like a football team, one that acquires followers who just stick with them, through everything.

According to Billy, Lee simply happened to know Alan’s brother and offered to add a voice to the music.

“And we said it can do no harm, let’s just see what happens.”

Lee, who had toured extensively in the past with his old band, DC Tempest, is from Glasnevin, so all the lads were able to relate to each other despite having never met before.

“At the start playing, rehearsing, you could feel the chemistry in the room,” he says. And that was that.

Except there’s more to it than that.

For one thing, how do you go about “replacing” Christy Dignam? Well, you don’t.

“It is a new journey we’re on, it’s a new chapter,” Billy says. “The band sounds different, heavier. Lee is on electric guitar and acoustic guitar, so there is a fuller sound to Aslan, but obviously you’re doing the songs that people want to hear as well. People were still singing along to ‘Crazy World’ and ‘This Is’, and to see that happening it was great. They are accepting that Christy is gone but they are there for the music.”

According to Lee: “Christy is remembered at every gig that we do because he is always in the songs. When I look into the crowd you see people doing his movements and all, they have it down to a tee, it’s amazing.”

The band are now planning to spend two months writing new material before embarking on a tour of Australia and, later in the autumn, the UK.

According to Lee: “It’ll be different because it will be our own [songs]. I am singing their songs at the moment, but when the new songs come out it’ll be our songs. It’ll be great to see how the fans react.”

Organiser of the Joy in the Park event, Linda Plover at the announcement of Aslan topping the bill at the event in Fitzgerald's Park, Cork on the 21st July. Picture: David Creedon

But first there is the not so small gig at Fitzgerald’s Park in Cork on July 21.

The free event began three years ago following the tragic passing in 2021 of Joy, stepdaughter of event organiser Linda Plover.

Joy, who lived in Birmingham, was a regular visitor to Linda’s Cork base and the last festival they attended together was Mitchelstown’s Indiependence back in 2019.

Linda wanted something that would act as a legacy, particularly arising out of the pandemic, during which people felt a greater sense of isolation and a lack of connection.

Linda says the communal aspect of the free event is integral to its success, referring to the huge number of mental health organisations present on the day and the various activities which put mental wellbeing and support front and centre.

“Picking up the phone can be difficult for some people,” she says of helplines.

“With this, it makes it easy to just sidle up and you have these friendly faces. It’s a community event and it is for community,” she says.

In its first year, some 9,500 attended across the afternoon — with last year’s event attracting a larger crowd of 12,000.

Linda says asking Aslan to play seemed logical, given the upcoming anniversary of Christy’s death and the journey the remaining bandmates have been on since.

“The band has lost someone very important to them,” she says. “Joy is not with us any more, but by putting Joy in the Park on she is with us, and with Aslan, the music is still there and Christy is still there.”

According to Billy: “When the call was made, we went bang, we have to do this.”

While the reception from fans to recent gigs has been overwhelmingly positive, reconstituting the band has maybe left a few bruises.

Billy says Aslan has been coming to Cork since 1986, and the Lark by the Lee, so “now it’s come full circle”.

“It made sense to us because the past couple of years that we’ve had, and even what we have been through getting belittled on social media by dickheads who set up false profiles, we have been through that.”

For Lee, those behind the attacks are “missing something” in their own lives and, according to Billy, “we can handle it, but there are people out there who can’t handle it”.

“It’s water off a duck’s back to us at this stage.”

Overall, however, it’s a minor kink in what is a continuing story. The lads say that what might happen with the band if Christy passed was never raised by any of them when he was alive — including by Christy himself.

It was typically no nonsense, in keeping with Joe’s short shrift for bands that can’t tough it out.

“We had no expectations what it was going to be like to be a lawyer or a farmer or a professional working somewhere else, because you have fucking nothing, you know?

“When you see a lot of people, and this is with the greatest of respect, when bands meet in art school in Trinity College, and as soon as somebody farted they split up, you know? They just couldn’t handle the whole thing. Musical differences? Come on. ‘I like Celine Dion so let’s split up’? I think that’s what kept us together, because we knew no better.”

As Joe says: “You just deal with it personally and get on with your life. I don’t know if that sounds all arty and all, but that’s what it fucking is at the end of the day. It’s a different vibe.”

Bring on your nuclear bombs, Aslan will survive.