Ah, but there are some good examples: Brian Johnson following Bon Scott with AC/DC, Bruce Dickinson with Iron Maiden. So how the hell does Paul McLoone follow Feargal Sharkey with The Undertones?

Sharkey left the Derry band in 1983 after sales started to decline upon a new wave of music. New Romanticism, Cureheads, The Smiths, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Punk was, em, dead. Pop punk, as we call it now, may have been started by The Ramones but in Ireland we had The Undertones. It wouldn't be until the 1990s before bands like Weezer made it cool again. And whither The Undertones? Well, Sharkey was singing the Maria McKee (yes, the 'Show Me Heaven' Maria) penned 'A Good Heart' and he subsequently went further into the industry doing A&R. He now works with the British government in an administrative body promoting the music industry. The rest of the band, Michael Bradley, Billy Doherty and brothers John and Damian O'Neill never wanted to turn the band into a punk nostalgia band.

It all began around John Peel's 50th birthday. Peel wanted them to play. It never happened after John and Damian's father died but the idea had been rekindled.

An unlikely kingmaker came in the form of Davy Carton of the Saw Doctors. Billy used to play as a guest with the Galway band and in 1998 they managed to convince the rest of the band to do a set with them.

There are conflicting stories as to how the band got together.

Some reckon they asked Sharkey and he said no. "Mickey maintains that they didn't bother asking him and I prefer to go with Mickey's version of events, " says McLoone.

Sharkey, it seems, was just not interested. McLoone, bizarrely enough, has never met Sharkey. Is Sharkey still in contact with the band? "There is contact but there isn't a relationship as such . . . but it's all cordial. There's no rancour. I don't know how direct it is."

When McLoone started to play with The Undertones he had to rationalise. "Feargal was never integral to the songwriting. He just sang the songs. He just turned up and sang them and that's exactly what I did. So it's not like Paul Rodgers with Queen or, with no offence to them, but the guys in the Jam at the minute. . . I have heard a certain reported sniffiness with Feargal about things as well but that's fair enough. I think it's legitimate.

If John wasn't up for this it wouldn't be happening."

Dig Yourself Deep is the second record the band recorded with McLoone and there's no escaping the fact that, perceptions being what they are, they run the risk of sounding like a bunch of old guys trying to do a young person's gig.

It just ain't fair. The songs are fast and funny. One describes an existential moment of angst when one finds oneself in a B&Q hardware store on a Sunday morning wondering is this what life is all about? It is unquestionably harder to give a band like The Undertones a fair listen, simply because of their past. "My guess would be that a lot of kids would be very dismissive of it but another bunch of kids might think it's cool to like us. More aware kids might be more accepting because of the lineage. Going back to the Ramones and the Stooges and us being, however small, a part of that kind of lineage and seeing it as quite a cool thing to check out what we are doing today."

Success or not, it doesn't really matter. "It's got to the point where the punks are all in their 50s and that's just the reality and you can't begrudge them doing what they have always wanted to do."

At least McLoone now feels a part of the band. "I still felt I was standing in the shadows on the first record but I got that out of the system. It's a proprietorial issue. It's a much more confident record. I hope people hear that."