The Icons were a three-piece Omagh band formed in the early eighties comprising Derek ‘Doe’ Lynn, bass and vocals, Tony Moynihan, guitar and vocals and Charlie Fisher on drums.  Tony Moynihan “I managed to get some money together and bought a guitar for £25 and an amplifier the size of a beer can and not forgetting the obligatory distortion box. When I had finished, I realised that the cost of the distortion box equaled that of both the amplifier and the guitar. Priorities eh!” The band continued to rehearse and play live and had put together a set of original compositions, supplemented with the odd cover version. Self penned titles such as ‘Mindless’ / ‘Saving Up To Die’ / ‘Create To Destroy’ / ‘Killing Time’ / ‘Critics’ / ‘Panorama’ and ‘I’m No Frankenstein’.  They played regularly in Omagh at venues such as the Town Hall, and the Royal Arms Hotel and later travelled to Spuds in Portstewart, and The Manhattan Club in Belfast. The Icons also played the Remembrance Day For The Living concert at the Mandela hall in Belfast on 24th November 1984. Here they shared the stage with bands such as Uproar, the Iconoclasts, Political Asylum, Sterile Vision and Stalag 17. 

Around 1981/82 the Icons, entered a recording studio for the first and last time. In less than 48 hours they produced a 2-track demo featuring two new tracks called “Follow The Crowd” and “Odds Against Tomorrow”. The band were pleased with the sound on the recordings, Moyni again “I think a lot of credit should go to the producer, Damien Given, who, after asking us what sort of sound we wanted, was told by Doe that he wanted an “ignorant sound”. Although he was a lot older than us, he understood what we were about and gave us a sound, which we loved. Looking back today, the tracks still stand up. On the strength of the demo, we were offered gigs in Belfast, Portstewart and Armagh” ‘Follow The Crowd’, the latter track, was also the title of a fanzine produced by Doe and Tony on a semi-regular basis.  A video was also made for Odss Against Tomorrow, shot by local producer Eddie McCaffrey.The latter track can be heard below. In 2013, Spit Records unearthed the only surviving recordings of these tracks and issued them on our Shellshock Rockers Vol. 2 compilation album, (See Odds Against Tomorrow below).

Today Tony Moynihan lives in London and plays in a punk band called The Phobics, Charlie Fisher lives and works in Belfast. Sadly, Derek ‘Doe’ Lynn passed away from cancer on 14th January 2013.

Moyni explains the band’s punk philosophy at the time “ The band had also developed a serious liking for Strongbow Cider and our gigs had became more like a cabaret show with various band members falling over on stage or all playing different songs at the same time. There were frequent arguments and we were as unprofessional as you could possibly be. One of our big gigs at the time came at a Battle of the Bands gig at the Royal Arms Hotel in Omagh. It was a big event and Hot Press had been invited to attend. We made a conscious decision to remain sober for the gig in order to do ourselves justice. Everything was going to plan too until we were just about to do our sound check when one of our ‘so called mates’ came up, knowing that we were not exactly people with iron constitutions especially when it came to drink, and said “are we getting the wine in now?” That was it. All thoughts of playing well went straight out the window and when we returned a couple of hours later we were told that we had to go on stage right away. Ever the utmost professionals we struggled on stage, guitars not tuned and promptly crashed into the first number which ended halfway through when our drummer fell off his stool and then off the stage! (We did get a mention in Hot Press though)”.

On 29th March 2022 Spit Records released Shellshock Rockers Vol. 3, a compilation CD of previously unreleased tracks, all salvaged from old cassette tapes. This included the track 'Saving Up To Die', which can be heard below.