Kiera Dignam, whose father was Christy Dignam the late singer of Aslan who passed away last year, spoke to David Hennessy ahead of this weekend’s Páirc Festival about carrying on her father’s legacy and what her singing meant to Christy.
It was in June last year that Christy Dignam passed away.
There was an outpouring of grief for the well known singer of Aslan who passed away at the age of 63.
A tough personal year for the family, it was also last year that Kiera released her debut album Nepo Baby.
While work on the album had been shelved due to her father’s illness, she resolved to finish it after his passing knowing how much he would have wanted her to.
Kiera has already released the singles What if You Got it Wrong? and Just For Me.
This weekend Kiera comes to Birmingham’s Páirc Festival where the line up also includes Bob Geldof, Riverdance, Nathan Carter, Boyzlife, The Whistlin’ Donkeys and many more.
Are you looking forward to coming over to Birmingham? “Yeah, really looking forward to it. It will be my first time in Birmingham.
“Anytime I’ve played in England, it’s gone pretty well. It’s gotten a great response.
“And I know there is a big Irish community over there so I’m really looking forward to it.”
Would you have done a lot of gigging over here? “Bits and pieces, more so since I started my own music.
“I was kind of doing cover bands and wedding bands and stuff for years, kind of wanting to do my own music, but caught up in that.
“It was actually Covid that kind of gave me the little break I needed because I was forced to not gig and that gave me the opportunity to get my album recorded.
“Then I just said, ‘Oh look, I’m not going back to the weddings and corporate stuff. I’m going to just do my own stuff’.”
You’ve been gigging since you were 12 so you started very young but then it was probably in your blood, was it?
“Yeah, that’s it.
“It was just in me.
“I never wanted to do anything else.
“I’ve never known anything else.
“And it wasn’t the case that I lived with Joe Jackson (father of numerous child stars such as Michael and Janet Jackson) at all.
“When I went to my dad and said I wanted to sing, he was a little bit apprehensive about it because he knew how hard the industry is.
“I would have been a very shy and kind of timid child.
“He knew that there’s kind of a target on you when you’re getting into something like this, you have to have a thick skin which I’m still working on.
“As a kid, I would have been bullied a lot and stuff like that because I was very quiet.
“You are kind of a bit of a target when you’re that type of child.
“You might get slagged or something.
“Kids can be cruel but they’re kids, that’s what happens.
“But I always would be very quiet and when somebody would say something, I’d sit back and say nothing about it.
“But I kind of just wanted to gig from as long as I can remember.”
You mention about being timid there but did you gain confidence from singing?
“Yeah, definitely.
“I’m a little bit better now because you kind of have to grow up sometime.
“But I wouldn’t be very outgoing.
“I wouldn’t be the first person in a room to start a conversation.
“Once I get into a conversation and I’m comfortable- You’ll find over the next few minutes- It’s hard to shut me up.
“I would have been very, very quiet as a child and I still would be a little bit so singing gave me almost an alter ego.
“Even Beyonce spoke about that, and Bowie.
“People like that spoke about having an alter ego and you can kind of put this persona out there when you’re on stage and almost a false confidence type of thing.
“But I always found that I’m really comfortable on stage.”
I heard you tell a funny story about doing one gig in a pub toilets (sort of). This came after doing one show in the venue for no one but the barman who then realised you were good, told a few people and got you back only for there to be such a crowd that the only place to put your stool was almost in the way of the door for the facilities.
You were learning your trade with even experiences like that..
“Absolutely.
“You do get the ‘nepotism’ thing.
“I actually called my first album Nepo Baby for that reason.
“It was a kind of tongue in cheek. They’re gonna say it so I might as well be in on the joke type of thing.
“But I can always smile about it, I never take that hard because I know how hard I’ve worked.
“As you said, I’ve gigged since I was 12 and literally in toilets.
“That never bothered me because as long as people were listening to me, I didn’t care.
“Once I was out there singing and I was doing what I loved to do, I didn’t care.
“I’ve worked really, really hard and I continue to do so, and it was never off anybody’s coat strings.
“I always wanted to just kind of make my own name.
“Now that my dad’s gone, I do get a lot of requests to do a little tribute to him and stuff like that. I’m happy to do that because it’s a little nod to him.
“I am who I am as a person and as a musician because of him, but I still like to kind of keep who I am as, ‘I’m not just Christy Dignam’s daughter, I’m Kiera Dignam’.”
You speak about singing in tribute to your father and you have sung Crazy World at Dalymount Park as well as other places. Are you likely to sing it in his memory at Páirc?
“I think so, yeah.
“Crazy World just seems to be an anthem for Irish people.
“Any gigs my dad was doing, he could never avoid doing Crazy World.
“It’s the same with me.
“If I’m asked to do a tribute to him, it’s just a given.
“You have to bring a bit of Crazy World.
“Before my dad died he said, ‘I’d like you to sing some of my songs’.
“And that was something that I never really used to do in my gigs but I kind of feel now like that’s a legacy he asked me to carry on and that’s something that I have to respect.
“I have to kind of, as I said, give a nod to him and it’s something that means a lot to me now to be able to do that, and I absolutely will.”
There was such an outpouring of grief when your father passed, was that a comfort to your family at that hard time?
“Yeah, it was amazing.
“It was a really, really tough time obviously, and there’s no kind of textbook way of grieving and getting through these things.
“And then on top of that- I’m very conscious of how I say this because I never want to take away from anybody else’s grief. My grief is no more important because my dad was in the public eye, I don’t mean it in that way- We did have the extra thing (of it being so public).
“You’re grieving and you’re lost and you’ve no idea what just happened.
“Even though he was sick for a long time when it happens, you’re still kind of shell shocked and not knowing what just went on.
“But we also have the public aspect of we can’t just grieve in private.
“It was a very, very public thing.
“You don’t get that opportunity to kind of sit back and really process what’s going on.
“We were obviously in kind of bubble of autopilot getting through the funeral and stuff.
“The outpouring that we got from people was amazing.
“It was a support that we didn’t realise we needed and we didn’t realise would help so much.”
It was a tough year for you. It was also the year you completed and released your debut album. Was there a sense of doing it for your father?
“Absolutely.
“I’d been recording the album.
“Then when he got sick and came home, he was in palliative care, I’m an only child so it was just myself, my mam and my husband kind of looking after him at home, the album was kind of just put back again.
“Obviously we had other things to worry about.
“He kept saying, ‘Have you got any of the songs back?’ wanting to listen to them.
“I knew it meant a lot for him, and that would have been a perfect opportunity when he did pass for me to say, ‘Oh, do you know what? I’ll just leave it. I won’t finish it’ and putting it off again.
“But I know that that’s not what he would want from me, and that’s not what I wanted.
“My music and just singing in general is like a therapy for me.
“It definitely gave me a positive focus that I really, really needed.”
Your father was sadly not with us when the album was finished but he did get to hear at least some of the tracks ‘in progress’.
“Yeah, he did and he’d have his little critiques.
“He would never criticise me.
“Anything he ever gave me negative would be always constructive.
“He’d always cry.
“Every single time I sang, he’d cry and I used to be saying to him, ‘Are they good tears or bad tears?’
“He’s just like, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just every time I hear you…’
“It meant a lot to him.
“I think it did touch him when I sang.
“I know how much music means to me, I can only imagine for him what it was like to see me kind of singing and doing well.
“It’s a nod to him.
“Although he never took credit for me in that sense, he was happy for me to kind of get out and work myself.
“I’m sure it’s a very special feeling to see your child coming forward and loving something as much as you do.”
Christy meant a great deal to people because he was accessible and people thought they knew him.
Did they? Was he very much as we saw him on television etc?
“In a sense, yeah.
“I think his appeal was very much that he had no filter.
“I think anybody who’s heard him being interviewed or seen interviews know that my dad had no filter whatsoever which was sometimes an issue because you’d be like, ‘Sssh, stop talking’.
“He would have been very much an open book and I think definitely that was his appeal with people as well.
“He was open about his problems with addiction and things like that.
“I think people felt that he was relatable and he was a real person.
“There was no airs and graces.
“Was he what people thought?
“Absolutely. If you watch an interview, that’s him 100% but the side people wouldn’t have seen would have been when he was at home.
“Once he was at home, on a sofa, he didn’t care about anything else.
“I think that’s the side of things people didn’t see.
“He was so out there on stage, people probably thought he was a really out there person but, like I said with myself, he would have been a very shy person.
“He wasn’t very outgoing. It was a persona on stage definitely.”
You have gone from gigging in toilets to playing big venues like the INEC and sharing stages with people like Damien Dempsey and Imelda May.
What has been a highlight of the live stuff you have got to do so far?
“To be honest I think every gig and every situation I’m lucky enough to find myself in, I don’t take for granted. I do appreciate every one of them.
“It was actually this day last year I sang with Imelda May in the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin.
“Imelda has been such an amazing support to me since my dad died.
“We kind of got acquainted before he passed away.
“She sang on his album and we got chatting but after he died, she sent me a lot of messages of support.
“She’s been absolutely amazing.
“She asked me to go and sing Crazy World with her last year in the Iveagh Gardens, and that was an amazing thing to do.
“It was about a month after my dad died so I was in a really vulnerable kind of mental situation at the time.
“But, as I said, it was like a therapy for me.
“It was amazing but even for me to go and sing in front of 20 people is a highlight for me.
“Once people are listening to me and taking their time to hear me, I appreciate every single gig I do.
“I really genuinely do.
“It’s not a case of trying to sound cheesy saying every moment is kind of a golden moment. I don’t mean it in that way but as long as people are listening and I’m getting the opportunity to sing for people, I’m happy.”
Kiera Dignam plays Páirc Festival which takes place this Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 August.
For more information, click here.
For more information about Kiera, click here.
