They were originally named after a Leon Uris novel. Their rehearsal room was an actual pig sty. And Bono turned them down for a record deal. TONY CLAYTON-LEAhas the facts on the Dublin band.
1 Before they were called Aslan, they were known as Meelah XVIII (derived from Leon Uris’s second World War novel Mila 18). The name change to Aslan came about through the influence of the spiritually-driven children’s book series The Chronicles of Narnia by Northern Irish writer CS Lewis. In the books, Aslan is a Christ figure in the form of a lion – aka the King of Beasts – that comes back from the dead to save the fictional land of Narnia. The downside? The band have been on the receiving end of headlines that include the word “roar” more times than they care to remember.
2 In 1986, the band’s rehearsal space was a building close to Dublin Airport; the building was a disused pig sty to which they would transport their equipment in shopping trolleys. It was in this building that the band wrote their debut album, Feel No Shame, which contained their first hit single, This Is.
3 The demo of This Is was shopped around a number of record labels, including the then U2-owned Mother Records. In the mid-1980s, at a meeting in the Docker’s Pub – close to U2’s offices on Dublin’s quays – band members Christy Dignam and Joe Jewell met up with Bono, only to be told by the U2 singer that he didn’t think the song was good enough. Bono offered Aslan the loan of a four-track recording machine to help them with their songwriting, but the band declined.
4 Aslan have played some unusual gigs in their 30 years. These include performing in Kosovo for the Irish troops, performing for the Irish soccer team (under Brian Kerr’s stewardship), and playing in both Mountjoy and Wheatfield prisons. Rumours that the band was mistaken for a bunch of inmates are unfounded.
5 Back in the day, the band used to suffer from offensive critical snobbery. Here’s an interesting 1994 quote from Dignam about it: “The media think we’re five guys who, in between robbing cars and living in slums, make records that are fairly good. No one ever questioned where Hothouse Flowers came from, but it was always an issue with us. That was partially our own fault in that we wanted to celebrate the joys of working-class Ireland. But that was turned into what’s just been mentioned – we’re the scumbags who make music. Just because you’re working class doesn’t mean that you’re a person who was reared in a place where there wasn’t a lot of money or jobs around.”
Aslan’s latest album, Nudie Books and Frenchies, is on release through EMI. The band play Dublin’s Olympia Theatre, August 10th and 11th as part of their 30th-anniversary celebrations
