At home with...Billy McGuinness

The thick accent and his band’s background would fool you, but Billy McGuinness, Aslan’s keyboardist, guitarist and harmonica player isn’t in fact a Dubliner. Not now anyway – the place he calls home is Bettystown, Co Meath, which contains a beach, a small hotel that houses the local pub and a quaint, quiet cul-de-sac, in which you’ll find Billy, his wife Adreena, and sons Jake (seven) and Liam (two).

“It’s the best move I ever made,” he says. “There’s a real community atmosphere and it’s great to bring up kids here because it’s so safe. Jake comes home from school, finishes his homework, and then he’s straight out on the green which is something that I wouldn’t let him do if I was living in town. But here, he has his independence.”
The family have lived in the village for four years, after residing in nearby Rush for nine. And it’s fair to say that Billy loves the local area. Though he agrees it’s much quieter than Dublin’s northside where he grew up, it doesn’t stop visitors from dropping in.
“We were gigging in Drogheda last weekend,” he begins, “afterwards we went to a nightclub and Tony McGuinness (Aslan’s bassist and Billy’s brother) stayed over. In the morning we went to a new restaurant in Drogheda called The Brew and then we ended up in the village hotel where both Tony and I got up to do karaoke. And we’re talking about a Sunday afternoon – the place was full of kids, but it’s just a great laugh.”
It’s strange for a musician who went triple platinum with his band’s last album, but karaoke is one of Billy’s favourite pastimes. When he’s not singing ‘Mustang Sally’ down his local, he’s got his own karaoke machine with which to entertain himself. He explains exactly how he acquired the piece of Anti-Music:
“We always have sing-songs back at the hotel after a show, and a while back, to make it a little different, we thought we’d get a karaoke machine to bring with us on the road. It lasted one gig,” he laughs. “It was just the hassle of setting it up and changing the discs all the time which meant that it never got used, so I got to keep it!”
All the more surprising is that it’s the only piece of musical equipment in the house. “I completely turn off when I’m at home,” says Billy. “I know other musicians might find it weird, but when I’m at home the last thing I want to do is pick up a guitar.”
Family time is indeed something he relishes, and 24 years of Aslan has earned the members time a reliable routine, with most Sundays and Mondays free for his wife and children. And how do they spend their quality time?
“Bettystown has probably one of the nicest beaches in the area, so we spend Sundays there with the kids, going for something to eat. Nine times out of 10, we’d end up in our local which is the village hotel where there’s just a nice vibe.”
But don’t be fooled by this description of the idyllic family life – Billy’s as tempted by guilty pleasures as the rest of us. The kids are locked out of his games room, where he keeps a pool table and where the walls are adorned with framed gold discs and Aslan’s three Hot Press covers (“They’re great things to have. Not every band gets covers from Hot Press. It’s just an honour”). His downtime is spent watching soaps on TV, an indulgence which will only be aided by the arrival of Sky just minutes before Hot Press came a-knocking.
“We got a new, huge TV but there was no point in having it without great reception, so we had to get Sky,” he feebly justifies.
The leisure room is also where Billy accesses the weird world of the web, though he admits: “I can get emails, send emails and go to our website, but if you asked me to do anything else on a computer – forget about it. I’m no good with technology.”
The man tells the truth. As evidence, he recalls the one time he did bring his work home.
“A while back I asked Tony to borrow a drum machine that we bought for the band. It had a load of songs programmed onto it for the gig we had the week after, but I managed to erase absolutely everything from it. Tony was shocked, he said: “how could you possibly you do that? It asks you: ‘do you want to erase them’ and even after that: ‘are you sure?’” From that point I was banned from doing anything technical again.”
Another activity which is off limits for Billy is DIY. “People laugh when they see my toolbox because it still looks brand new,” he says, smiling. This particular ban dates back to the time he attempted to unblock the toilet and ended up flooding the bathroom. But that was just the start of the troubles: “I couldn’t find where to turn off the water so I went down to the kitchen and I saw that the ceiling was starting to cave in. I had to put a hole through it otherwise it would have just collapsed under the weight of the water, even though I then flooded the kitchen. It cost me a fortune to get the plumber out. So I’ve been banned from doing anymore DIY.”
Result!
Photos by Cathal Dawson