LONGSTANDING NORTH DUBLIN band Aslan will play the first of two gigs this Friday in the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin.

The band is marking 30 years since the release of their iconic first album Feel No Shame.

Ahead of the gig, Aslan’s frontman Christy Dignam sat down with TheJournal.ie to discuss their music, the highs and lows of the band throughout the years, contemporary pop music, the upcoming gigs, and his own struggles with his health over the years.

While talking, Dignam used some strong language to lay into contemporary Irish society and how it treats addiction, the ongoing homelessness crisis and the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

“I’ve a thing about the whole addiction thing,” said Dignam.

“If we put a quarter of the money into treating addiction that we put into fighting addiction and putting people in prisons and stuff like that.

If we put a quarter of that money into treating addiction we wouldn’t need to be filling our prisons with people that aren’t criminals, that just have some sort of… they have mental illness you know? Treat it as such.

Dignam also took issue with the Welfare Cheats campaign which ran last year while then-Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar was in office.

“For example, Leo Varadkar came out a while ago talking about people on welfare and all ruining the… bleeding the country dry,” he said.

“This country is not bankrupt cos some bloke is claiming a hundred euros or two hundred euro a week.

This country is bankrupt cos the bankers fucking bankrupted us. But they won’t say that, so what they do is they blame this girl who’s claiming unmarried mothers when she’s really living with her fella, they blame her and our attention goes to her.

“And we’re all fighting among ourselves down here while the bankers are still up here making millions.”

And then… we’ve 4000 kids living on the street and in hotel accommodation. It’s outrageous.

You can read and watch our full interview with Christy tomorrow evening on TheJournal.ie.

Aslan play the Iveagh Gardens this Friday 13 July and next Saturday 21 July. Tickets for Saturday’s show are sold out but tickets remain for this Friday’s gig.