Ray D'Arcy chats to Aslan's Billy McGuinness, Joe Jewell & Alan Downey about Christy Dignam's legacy and the release of the band's final recording with Christy Dignam, The Fields of Athenry - listen back above.
Christy Dignam had a deep love of Irish ballads and as chance would have it, his last ever studio recording with Aslan was The Fields of Athenry. The cover was recorded around 18 months before Christy's death and it has just been released on all platforms.
Billy McGuinness, Alan Downey and Joe Jewell of Aslan joined Ray D'Arcy to talk about how the song came to be recorded, Christy’s deep love of ballads and Aslan’s plans for the future.
Since Christy’s passing, the bandmates have been meeting up to play together. They tell Ray they're not even close to adjusting to the loss of their great friend and frontman of 41 years. Billy says they wanted to do something together as a tribute to Christy and as a thank you to their loyal fans.
Then Joe Jewell came across the band’s final recording with Christy, which happened in Jealoustown Studios in County Meath:
"Joe actually went searching and found out that our last recording was done in Jealoustown Studios and it was 'Fields of Athenry’, believe it or not, which came as a complete shock."
Ironically, the band had forgotten the session ever happened, as they were straight back to rehearsing and touring once the song was recorded. The original idea of an Aslan cover of The Fields of Athenry came from Paul O’Reilly of Dolphin Records and Christy was "mad up for that," Billy says.
The Aslan frontman had always wanted to release an album of Irish ballads, which sadly never happened. The band even considered a name change at one point, to reflect Christy’s passion for Irish music:
"I was only thinking about this this morning, I remember 9 or 10 years ago and Christy was going on about ballads and when we were messing one day, we were going to call the band 'Celtic Christy and the Irish Boys’. He was always messing around with them."
For Aslan, releasing The Fields of Athenry is a way of completing Christy’s lifelong dream, as well as marking his passing. Joe Jewell produced the track and he says Christy put his own stamp on it:
"If you listen to the vocal, there’s something very haunting about it."
Billy says he thinks it’s one of the best things Christy has ever done:
"I think it’s one of the best vocals he’s ever done – is that because he’s not here – and I’m listening to it with emotional ears?"
For Billy, Joe and Alan, the loss of their great friend and bandmate is still raw. Christy had survived bouts of illness so many times over the past decade that it almost seemed like he would live forever, Billy says:
"I thought he was invincible, Ray. Like, this is the thing, you said it. He’d get sick, but then, a couple of months down the line, we’d be back gigging and ready to do a gig."
The last time they all played together was in Ballykeefe Amphitheatre in Kilkenny in August 2022. The lads say they never once spoke with the man himself about what life would be like without Christy:
"We never had that conversation, never ever. It never came up like, ‘Like, lads, what are you going to do when I die?’"
Billy, Joe and Alan have decided to continue playing together as Aslan. They're not ready to think about auditioning lead vocalists to sing with them yet. They aren’t looking to replace Christy – an impossible task, they say. At the moment, they are focussing on the release of The Fields of Athenry and on rehearsing together, which Billy says is therapeutic:
"We’re not there yet. We’re not even thinking about that. We’re just going up to rehearsal, we’re having the stories amongst ourselves, we’re running through the songs. This is something that we can put our energy into, The Fields of Athenry, we can put our energy into that and then we’ll worry about it."
One way or the other, Billy says he hopes Christy would have been happy with their decision:
"I hope he supports our decision to keep going, because the way we look at it, Ray, is when we’re performing them songs, at least Christy will be remembered in the gigs, in the venue."
The band have been moved by musical tributes to Christy Dignam which flooded in after his death from big names in Irish music, but Billy says the tributes that Christy himself would have valued most are those that came from local performers in small venues up and down the country:
"I was being sent videos of where these singers, in these small pubs down the country were doing their tribute to Aslan and Christy… Christy would have loved that, that it was the grassroots level."
Listen to more from The Ray D'Arcy Show here.
