Aslan in Midleton interview 6th Sept 2010.
This week Billy McGuiness guitarist and spokesperson for one of Irelands leading bands with the tag Irelands hardest working band “Aslan” spoke with Shane Supple on Community Radio Youghal before there upcoming gig in Wallis Bar in Midleton on 12th Sept.
For those that don’t know who Billy McGuiness is or for that matter Aslan, he is the guitar player that’s always standing on the left of the singer Christy Dignam. Aslan are on the road since 1982, U2 formed in 1979 so they have lasted longer but there are not too many bands who can say they have been together as long as Aslan who will be celebrating 28 years on the road this year, and are still doing what they enjoy doing and with no great change since the 80′s. They are writing, recording and touring around the world.
As Billy says himself when Aslan was formed, they didn’t think that they would last 1 year never mind 28. The first big song the band released in 1988 was the track “This is” and its one song that is constantly in the Irish top 10 rock songs of all time, it’s a song that gets lots of radio play and for some reason seems timeless. Following up on that song they released another great song, Crazy World, which further enhanced their reputation as one of Irelands leading bands and songwriters. No matter where you go in the world, there are Irish bars all over the globe, if there is a jukebox in the bar you can be sure that either one or both of these songs will be on that Jukebox.
Billy recounts a time when himself and Christy were on a fishing trip in Gran Canaria before a gig in Playa De Ingles, where the captain of the boat was listening to a local Spanish station, the song Crazy World came on and Billy looked over at Christy saying ” Christy does it get any better then this. Were fishing off a boat in Gran Canaria, in the sun relaxing and they are playing our music.”
We still get a buzz when we release a record and hear it on the radio for the first time. I can’t explain it, but the excitement of hearing a song that you have spent time writing and recording on a radio just makes it seem worthwhile, it’s something you never lose.
When it was pointed out that Aslan have a name for being one of the hardest working bands, Billy explained a typical working week for the band. We would normally gig Thur, Fri, Sat take Sun and Mon off and on Tue morning head into the studio and spend Tue, Wed and Thur morning in the studio writing. People don’t realise how hard we work live in concert we give it 100% every time, we seem to work better live, we are constantly being surprised by our audiences, I will give you an example. Two years ago we won a Meteor award for Best Irish band, now we all know there are great bands out there but it was a text vote and everyone voted for us, we were surprised and in complete shock, we didn’t think we had a chance so there was only Alan Downey our drummer and myself at the awards Christy, Tony McGuiness our bass player and Joe Jewell the lead guitarist stayed working on some stuff in the studio because we didn’t think we were going to win. So it’s just nice to get surprise in this industry, but I think it has something to do with the fact we will go to small venues around the country and play to small crowds or we will play the bigger arenas and play just as well there. A lot of bands won’t do that. The people who come to hear us appreciate that so they support us when it comes to the bigger venues.
When Shane asked, has it been easy maintaining that commitment and level of excitement over the years, the answer was quite simple, You have to love it, the Irish audiences are not easily fooled by anything other then our commitment, they know that we will give as much to 10 people as we would to 2,000 people in the Olympia, People can see that we are real, we work hard to entertain and we love what we do.
When asked what is Aslan’s formula for song writing. Billy says that Aslan will not release a song unless they are completely happy with it, if you heard the first version of Crazy World and compare it to the version released its almost two different songs, one criteria we have is, that the song has to be able to be played on an acoustic guitar. You have to be able to pick up a guitar and play it. Joe would be the main lyricist, he comes up with most of the ideas and then we sit down as a group all five of us and work them over until we come up with a finished song. Only when we are all happy with it do we take it to the next stage and record it. We try to write a song that anyone can play and sing and other bands can record it.
So after Wallis in Midleton the lads are heading to Australia for a tour taking in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra. From there they come home for a short rest before heading to Germany for another short tour before returning to Ireland to start their Irish tour which will finish in Vickers Street on the 27th Dec, then next year sees them releasing a new album and finishing work on a documentary the story of Aslan from the beginning to the present day.
Photo Aslan from Aslan website on www.aslan.ie
As Billy says himself when Aslan was formed, they didn’t think that they would last 1 year never mind 28. The first big song the band released in 1988 was the track “This is” and its one song that is constantly in the Irish top 10 rock songs of all time, it’s a song that gets lots of radio play and for some reason seems timeless. Following up on that song they released another great song, Crazy World, which further enhanced their reputation as one of Irelands leading bands and songwriters. No matter where you go in the world, there are Irish bars all over the globe, if there is a jukebox in the bar you can be sure that either one or both of these songs will be on that Jukebox.
Billy recounts a time when himself and Christy were on a fishing trip in Gran Canaria before a gig in Playa De Ingles, where the captain of the boat was listening to a local Spanish station, the song Crazy World came on and Billy looked over at Christy saying ” Christy does it get any better then this. Were fishing off a boat in Gran Canaria, in the sun relaxing and they are playing our music.”
We still get a buzz when we release a record and hear it on the radio for the first time. I can’t explain it, but the excitement of hearing a song that you have spent time writing and recording on a radio just makes it seem worthwhile, it’s something you never lose.
When it was pointed out that Aslan have a name for being one of the hardest working bands, Billy explained a typical working week for the band. We would normally gig Thur, Fri, Sat take Sun and Mon off and on Tue morning head into the studio and spend Tue, Wed and Thur morning in the studio writing. People don’t realise how hard we work live in concert we give it 100% every time, we seem to work better live, we are constantly being surprised by our audiences, I will give you an example. Two years ago we won a Meteor award for Best Irish band, now we all know there are great bands out there but it was a text vote and everyone voted for us, we were surprised and in complete shock, we didn’t think we had a chance so there was only Alan Downey our drummer and myself at the awards Christy, Tony McGuiness our bass player and Joe Jewell the lead guitarist stayed working on some stuff in the studio because we didn’t think we were going to win. So it’s just nice to get surprise in this industry, but I think it has something to do with the fact we will go to small venues around the country and play to small crowds or we will play the bigger arenas and play just as well there. A lot of bands won’t do that. The people who come to hear us appreciate that so they support us when it comes to the bigger venues.
When Shane asked, has it been easy maintaining that commitment and level of excitement over the years, the answer was quite simple, You have to love it, the Irish audiences are not easily fooled by anything other then our commitment, they know that we will give as much to 10 people as we would to 2,000 people in the Olympia, People can see that we are real, we work hard to entertain and we love what we do.
When asked what is Aslan’s formula for song writing. Billy says that Aslan will not release a song unless they are completely happy with it, if you heard the first version of Crazy World and compare it to the version released its almost two different songs, one criteria we have is, that the song has to be able to be played on an acoustic guitar. You have to be able to pick up a guitar and play it. Joe would be the main lyricist, he comes up with most of the ideas and then we sit down as a group all five of us and work them over until we come up with a finished song. Only when we are all happy with it do we take it to the next stage and record it. We try to write a song that anyone can play and sing and other bands can record it.
So after Wallis in Midleton the lads are heading to Australia for a tour taking in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra. From there they come home for a short rest before heading to Germany for another short tour before returning to Ireland to start their Irish tour which will finish in Vickers Street on the 27th Dec, then next year sees them releasing a new album and finishing work on a documentary the story of Aslan from the beginning to the present day.
Photo Aslan from Aslan website on www.aslan.ie
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