Bloc Party Guitarist Russell Lissack Welcome to Be New Ash Member

Ash have revealed they will take touring guitar player Russell Lissack on full-time if his band Bloc Party don't get back together.

Bloc Party have been on a break since October 2009, and since then frontman Kele Okereke has decided to pursue his solo career.

Okereke has remained non-committal over whether he will ever re-join his bandmates -- and Ash tell Spinner that Russell will be more than welcome to become an official member if Bloc Party split permanently.

Talking to Spinner, drummer Rick McMurray [pictured, right] says, "If Bloc Party don't get back together, then yes, why not? Russell already knew half the material before he joined anyway as he was such a big fan and the other half he's picked up, just because he's great."

Bassist Mark Hamilton adds, "Before he joined, we had a bunch of new songs we hadn't actually played live together, we'd just done in the studio, and Russell had the MP3s of them and had worked them all out.

"But we hadn't played them for months, so he actually ended up teaching us how to play our own songs."

Lissack, who previously played in an Ash covers band, has been touring with the Irish rockers since the start of their UK tour in April this year.

He's the first musician to swell the band's ranks since the departure of Charlotte Hatherley in 2006.

Ash meanwhile release the next and final compilation of their recent 'A-Z' singles released over the past year.

'A-Z Volume II' comes out on October 11.