And The Band Played On

by Steve Lowe

When Noel Gallagher first heard Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs play, he told them ‘your tunes are shit’. But he and his brother joined their band anyway, giving them a piggyback ride to fame and fortune. Now Guigsy and Bonehead have walked out and Oasis will never be quite the same again.

"Me and Bonehead had this band," said Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan in 1997, reminiscing about the early days of Oasis. "It was just three geezers and a drum machine, trying to do something. We didn't find our feet for a long time. Noel came down to the rehearsal one time and said, "Your tunes are shit. I’ll show you some tunes."'

Noel may have had the tunes, but the two figures with the initial vision did not have Gallagher as a surname. They were, in fact, the same two who have both recently left the band - rhythm guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and bassist Paul 'Guigsy" McGuigan. With first Bonehead and now Guigsy taking off for their mansions in the hills, something important has undoubtedly died. For a start, it means that, of the five-piece seen lounging in that elegant front room (which was Bonehead's, incidentally) on the cover of their classic debut Definitely Maybe, only Noel and Liam remain as members of Oasis.

Drummer and hapless whipping boy Tony McCarroll was, after all, booted out long ago. All this is significant, despite the non-Gallaghers' seemingly replaceable status, because when Oasis emerged to conquer the nation in 1994, they were the rock'n'roll gang in excelsis. There was a clear pecking order of course, but just like their Manchester precursors the Smiths, the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays, they came across as a fighting unit, possessing that "us against the world" spirit that all new bands try to adopt but few pull off with conviction. They were mates and, during the Britpop-sanctioned rise of lad culture, that was important.

Of course, you could tell just by looking that the non-Gallagher members could hardly even begin to cut it musically. Indeed, on a 1995 Radio 1 interview, Guigsy declared: "When I first started I just played up and down the top string of the bass. Come to think of it, that's what I still do now." That, though, was partly thepoint. They weren't like, say, the Smiths - nimble, spry musicians to a man. You could do what they did.

Probably better, in fact. But this only helped Oasis establish those everyman credentials that made them the first group to span those generational/class/hipness divides since yes - the Beatles.

What the back three played, heard alone, would be laughable; indeed, pre-Noel demos prove beyond doubt that their spiritual home was the south Mancunian youth club rather than Wembley arena. But underpinning Noel's herculean songs and Liam's aggro angel vocals, they did sound authentically powerful. For the kind of music they were dealing in - guitarpop that rarely felt the need to do anything other than what it did in the loudest and proudest of ways - they were perfect.

Chris Hutton, the singer they sacked to make way for Liam and a man who used to cover Wild Thing with the line: 'Wild thing, you smoke a draw', went on to write a book about how badly he'd been treated by his mates. His mates, however, knew which side their bread was buttered on, taking a shine to local Burnage boy Liam - who, despite not yet having worked out his trademark style, still had the looks and swagger for the job of superstar, and, what's more, knew it. Liam had another asset: an older brother with links, through his job as a roadie for the Inspiral Carpets, to strange things such as studios and decent equipment. Wantonly bringing the Gallaghers into your life is, however, a risky business. Certainly, Bonehead and Guigsy were two of the luckiest people in pop history - taking a proportion of the fortune (an estimated £5m each) and leaving the troublesome business of being inordinately famous to Liam and Noel. But it also meant they had to spend a lot of time with the brothers, living with their strange moods, wild pronouncements, threats (from Noel), tantrums (from Liam) and fevered ambition (both). On seeing the new look Oasis in rehearsal, Hutton was astonished at the meek manner in which Guigsy took Noel's dictatorial pronouncements. Former road manager Ian Robertson said of Guigsy how, "more than anybody, Liam’s venom poisons and surrounds him."

Noel himself, at the press conference yesterday, admitted that there has not been a rush of applicants for the new position, "because us two have got ourselves something of a reputation". On tour, Bonehead would take to alcohol and Guigsy to massive amounts of dope to insulate themselves, but de rigeur rock’n'rolling was taking its toll. During the tour to support (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, Guigsy left the band, complaining of something very like a nervous breakdown. Of this episode, he said: "There was talk of it all stopping 'cos I wasn't there, but it's bigger than that. It was down to me to get me head together."

For a gentle, withdrawn figure, being a member of Oasis was, undoubtedly, a hard role to fulfil for any extended period of time. His temporary replacement, Scott MacLeod, lasted a couple of months, absconding midway through a US tour and taking his place in obscurity.

Whether the remaining three now equip themselves with session musicians (no, they said - that's where the Stone Roses went really awry) or more sympathetic mates of mates (like replacement drummer Alan White), it will be impossible to think of Oasis in the same way. Oasis were all about the contrast between the star players' ruthlessness and edgy attitude and their supporting cast's essential ordinary blokeishness.

Perhaps it's the fate of Manchester's musical gangs to end this way when fame overly complicates friendships. The Smiths' legacy has been tainted by a court case that se the captains against the lieutenants The Stone Roses ended in pathetic disgrace for those who didn't h the sense to leave, and the Happy Mondays - until the mixed thrills of their recent reunion - simply ended up hating each other.

Oasis may once again make more startling new music (although the haven’t succeeded in doing that since 1995), but Noel and Liam at yesterday's press conference - the odd joke aside - looked as if the stuffing had been knocked out of them. And Oasis without the swagger and unbridle confidence is just not Oasis.

It Was All Over By 1997"

by NicK Kent

The defections from Oasis, first of guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and now of bass-player Paul McGuigan - two of the group's stout-hearted if instrumentally limited original players - will not be taken well by the fans. But will it deter them from buying future Oasis CDs in frenzied droves? I doubt it.

McGuigan and Arthurs will be missed, certainly, but perhaps Noel Gallagher has more important things to concern himself with than endlessly placating old musical cohorts unwilling to stretch out and explore new musical styles for the new millenium.

Neither does it signal the end of the great Oasis phenomenon. That happened in the autumn of 1997 when their third album Be Here Now was released to glowing reviews. Then, people took it home, played it and quickly came to the conclusion that a) it sounded too loud and b) it was too long, weighed down with too many uninspired songs.

I made a TV documentary of Oasis for Canal Plus while the group were promoting the album and had listened to Liam Gallagher calmly inform me: "That's the thing people got to get together - Oasis are the most important band in the world. U2 - they're the biggest but they're not the most important. And they don't have the singer with the most important eyebrows!"

However, by the end of 1997, the group had been eclipsed in global importance, class and kudos by Radiohead whose third album, OK Computer, ultimately ran away with all the awards. The latter was adventurous-sounding and looked to the future, whereas Oasis sounded like they were stuck in some time-warp 70s pub, strumming guitars while trying to learn the chords to Mott The Hoople songs.

In the documentary, Creation record boss Alan McGee is seen bragging that Be Here Now would sell 20 million copies. In the end, it barely did half that business. More crucially, the group's live shows that year had started sounding a bit lackadaisacal; the members played like tired old men dreaming of being back in the old comfy chair with a pint at hand and a game of football on the telly.

There had always been a fiercely arrogant side to the Gallaghers; it was part of what made them so attractive. But once that arrogance got mixed up with too much success, cocaine and alcohol, it turned into a kind of sneering contempt.

The forthcoming fourth album finds them paired with a new producer, Mark "Spike" Stent, best known for his work with the Spice Girls. An MTV reporter cornered Liam at a club during his stay there and the singer informed him that the new record is Oasis's "Dark Side Of The Moon".

This, of course, could mean anything, but Noel's new songs are almost certainly expected to be more "cerebral" with the arrangements often involving sounds pilfered from dance culture.

The music industry is increasingly aware that the old guitars-and-drums formula is old hat. It has become almost compulsory to at least dip a toe into the ocean of the new technology. Noel Gallagher has worked with The Chemical Brothers and Cornershop and heis an intelligent man who is looking to have a long, highly successful career. He needs to deliver a masterpiece.

If he does, Oasis go back to being the darlings they were before Be Here Now. And if he doesn't, Oasis could end up being remembered as England's answer to the deeply unpleasant retro-rockers Guns'n'Roses. McGuigan and Arthurs, meanwhile, are probably somewhere nice having a drink and watching a football video. Their dreams have all come true.

• The Guardian & The Observer Interview Articles - index

c 1999 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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