"Next Single Revelations"

Oasis' next single will feature a guest appearance from an unlikely collaborator - Windy Miller, a puppet from Sixties children's TV series 'Camberwick Green'!

Noel Gallagher revealed the news of the collaboration in a recent interview. Asked what the demo for the as-yet-untitled single sounded like, Noel said: "It starts with a drum loop and you'll go, 'That's not Oasis.' It's really short and catchy and it hasn't got a guitar solo or backing vocals."

"You know like in 'Live Forever' there isn't actually a chorus, just a little refrain? It's like that, and there's a sort of hole in the song where everything goes swirly and mental, [with] backwards stuff from 'Camberwick Green', Windy Miller dialogue. Then there's like a false key shift which kicks the song into a totally different gear."

Asked how those who'd heard the track had reacted, Noel revealed: "Alan McGee told this guy at Sony, 'They've got it back'." Noel then confirmed that he'd given up drugs in April, and enthused about the benefits of his new lifestyle. He said that he "...didn't go into rehab like all me mates did - f*****g lightweights! I just wasn't gonna do it any more. It wasn't doing my health any good, and I couldn't focus on anything.

2by the end of April, I thought, 'If this carries on I'll be dead by Christmas.' So I packed it in, and about six weeks later I started writing songs. So I've written 13 since June, all pretty much f*****g straight...And y'know, I've found I've started writing about things now, rather than abstract f*****g shit. I've enjoyed it to tell you the truth."

Noel returned to the them of drugs in another interview, this time with The Big Issue magazine. He said: "Me and the wife, we'd just had enough. It got boring...I don't wanna be a sanctimonious twat who's given up smoking and goes around coughing all the time, but I feel a lot better."

He also expressed disappointment with Tony Blair's government, saying: "I'd rather have Blair and day than the Tories. But then you see how's he giving money to the NHS and schools with one hand and taking it away from single parents with the other, and you think, 'Hang on, what's going on here?'"

Asked if we could expect a jungle direction on the next Oasis album, Noel joked: "Unless I visit a jungle, I don't think so. I think it'd be hard to get Liam to sing like a Rastafarian! I like electronic music - I'm not against it and I'm not a disciple. I'm very proud of some of the stuff I've done with The Chemical Brothers."

• Melody Maker News Articles - index

c 1998 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

This page hosted byGet your ownFree Home Page