OASIS Faq
Q
"Put It Next To The Other Three"
by Adrian Deevoy
January 1998
- The band with Q Award are on the front cover; inside are pictures of Liam in leather jacket, Lacoste shades and macrame hat and Noel in Ralph Lauren Jeans jacket with the Award; Liam in shades and hat; Liam and Noel at the Awards ceremony with Award; Alan, Guigs and Bonehead; Noel in shades and jacket; the band without Award.
- The pictures are by Ian Rankin, taken at Daylight Studios in Paris on November 4 1997.
- What a shoddy old year it’s been for Oasis. Only six million copies of 'Be Here Now' "shifted". Only voted The Best Act In The World Today by Q readers for the second year running. Woe and shame. Adrian Deevoy interrogates the most successful failures of 1997.
- Upon receiving the news that Oasis have once again been voted The Best Act In The World Today by Q’s readers, Liam Gallagher gets straight on the fax. "I personly," he writes, employing the Old English spelling of the word, "feel like flying a kite and going to the pub." Can we gather from this - you wonder by return of fax - that all is well in Liamland. "Yes." And how does the frontman feel when he reflects upon last year’s cocaine-trousered, post-Q Awards brush with the law? "I turn my head round and face the north," he replies. Well, it’s a thought...
- A week prior to this exchange, Noel Gallagher turns up at his management’s offices at the crack of lunchtime. His objective: to make sense of Oasis’s last 12 months, a period punctuated by despair, disappointment and dishonour yet sprinkled with the fairy dust of fame, fortune and farting in the general direction of doubters.
- Kitted out in casual-but-costly clobber and glugging a mug of tea, Noel immediately makes it plain that he isn’t here to deliver an air-brushed version of events. "To be honest with you," he says, "it’s losing it’s magic. Every tour we used to do would be five times as big as the last one, but once you get to Knebworth, what do you do? You can’t go touring places that size all the time so you’ve got to step down. It’s like, We’re playing Earl’s Court for three nights. Again. Great. It’s a shitty thing to say but there you go. It’s a situation that’s forced upon you by becoming as big as you do." He exhales hard. "I don’t know what you do about it. You fucking tell me."
- But it isn’t long before the Noel of old returns, cracking his scrunch-eyed crocodile smile, rambling like a chat show regulare, springing up to act out another daft scene, slipping into characters and scenes with Davro-like deftness. And, all the time, attempting to understand the madness he has created and the little monster who is both his lead singer and baby brother.
"We’ve got a rule - never get arrested in a country that doesn’t use your own alphabet."
- What has this last year taught you?
- Don’t get drunk before you go on the radio. God, we were fuck-faced for that Radio One interview. Good though, wasn’t it? I’ve also learnt not to take any advice from anybody else. Just stick to what you think you know best. It’s not for me to say if my instincts are good or bad but it’s my instincts that run it all, so fuck everybody else. It’s my instincts that count. I’m in charge.
- Do you feel it was a mistake going to meet Tony Blair at Downing Street?
- I didn’t. It was just that everyone gave me a hard time about it. People seemed to have this very sinister image of it but I went there because my wife said, Come on, let’s go for a laugh. I thought, F*** it, why not. I’ve never considered myself to be a rock’n’roll rebel. I wasn’t there representing guitar music, I wasn’t there representing the indie community or some twat in a bedsit. I wasn’t even representing the band. I was there because the Prime Minister invited me to his house for a beer. You’ve got to go, haven’t you?
- What did you make of Blair as a bloke?
- Hard to say, isn’t it? I’d like to say that he’d be a great leader for this country but someting tells me that the Labour Party will probably contrive a way to f*** it up for themselves. If things don’t change then they don’t, but at least it’s not the Tories lying to you.
- You’re worth £40 million. True?
- So they say. But it’s not true. Every time this is in the press, Noel Gallagher’s got forty million quid, we get a phone call off the fucking Inland Revenue going, Can we see your books again. I don’t reckon I’ve got twenty million quid. I’ve not got ten million quid, to be honest with you. I got a shitload of money from my last publishing deal but everyone seems to think that I take all the money in this band, which is another perception that’s grown over the years. Everything is split five ways apart from my publishing advances. And I get that because I write the songs. I’m the cunt sitting in a flat in the pissing rain with a pen and a piece of paper trying to make sense of the ideas i’ve got.
- Has your perspective on money changed?
- You lose the value of things. I’ve no value for money any more. I don’t know what it means. It’s nice because you could go out and buy a Rolls Royce on the credit cards you’re carrying with you, and that in itself might be a laugh, but it doesn’t mean anything. The worst thing about having money is getting pissed and having a load of credit cards on you. You’re off your tits and you’re going, Have it. Just have it. On me. You want it? Have it. And you wake up the next day thinking, Mmm. What was I up to last night? Oh no, I’ve given me car away. Again. Then it’s, Hello, it’s Noel here. You know what I was saying last night about the house? Well I’ve just seen these suitcases on the doorstep and... look, I was pissed.
- Are you a big spender?
- I’ve always believed that if you make a bit of money you should spend it then go and earn some more. I’m just having trouble spending it at the moment cos there’s a lot of it. But I’m 30, I left school at 15, so it’s taken me 15 years to get to this position. And that was 15 years hard graft. There were a few years when it wasn’t hard work because there wasn’t any work to be had and we were on the dole. So i’m not going to apologise for it. But people treat you differently now. The people who sell The Big Issue follow you down the street going, Come on, mate, give us forty quid for the lot and I’ll be off home. I’m like, What am I going to do with sixty Big Issues?
- For all your mouthing off you don’t seem like an especially arrogant bloke. Are you?
- Not really, no. Sometimes I look at Liam and I really don’t know what his problem is.
- But isn’t it an age thing? You can’t imagine Liam behaving in the same way when he’s 35.
- You said it mate. I hope somebody tells him that. Actually, Liam’s worn a lot of the fight out of me. Some of the things he says and does now I can’t be bothered about. Two or three years ago he might have got a mic stand across his head for some of the stuff he’s done in the studio but I just can’t be f***ing arsed with it anymore. I just look at him and go, Whatever, get on with it. I’ll be down the pub when you’ve finished.
- Does he ever embarrass you?
- Never, no. I’m proud of him. He’s my kid brother. He gave me a job. (Laughs)
- Does he ever interpret your lyrics and bring something to it that you didn’t know was there?
- He can get extra attitude out of some of the lyrics. I don’t think he’d sing it with any more feeling than I would. We’re just two completely different singers. He’s got a f***ing loud, loud, loud voice and he sings the loud songs better than I do. Then I sing the soft ones better than he does. But I’m happy singing the Magic Pies and the Don’t Look Back In Angers. That’ll do me.
- "Tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon." What’s that all about?
- "Tomorrow doesn’t know what it doesn’t know too soon..." Well, Hmm, I haven’t got a fucking clue, to be honest. I’m sure at the time I probably jumped up and went, Yes! And I probably explained exactly what it meant to someone, but sitting here today... no, not the faintest fucking idea.
- "Damn my education/I can’t find the words to say." Do you ever feel thick?
- If I could turn the clock back I would have studied English a bit more at school because I’ve since become a writer. But saying that, if I ws highly educated I wouldn’t be where I am. But i’d like to be able to communicate more, in a way more people could understand. A lot of the time I know what I mean but I couldn’t explain it to you and that can be frustrating.
- Is Be Here Now as good as the first two albums?
- I think so, yeah. Every album has its stand-out tracks. On the first it was Supersonic, Live Forever, Slide Away, Rock’n’Roll Star. On the album after that there was Some Might Say, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Cast No Shadow, Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova. And on this album there’s Stand By Me, Do You Know What I Mean, Fade In/Out, All Around The World, It’s Getting Better Man.
- But are those songs better? Do you sense that people are disappointed by Be Here Now?
- I’m sensing now that people might be. I had my manager come in earlier with a big long face because the album’s been out two months and it’s only sold six million copies. Fucking hell, what a bitch, eh? We might as well pack it in. I just said, Go and tell that to Echobelly. I don’t know what everyone’s moaning about.
- But the songs are too long.
- So fucking what? I like an intro and an outro and a middle eight. Morning Glory was a moment in popular music because that was the album that everyone in the world was going to go out and buy. It was like, Who are these ruffians from the North of England? And, Ooh, what’s this beautiful ballad Wonderwall doing on here when it’s made by these fucking thugs from Manchester. Allegedly. It was a moment in pop that the world latched onto. When it comes to pass, this album will have sold about as many as Definitely Maybe so we’ll be back to the hardcore fanbase.
- Are you personally happy with Be Here Now?
- I’m always happy finishing an album with the band intact, to tell you the truth. I’ve listened to this album more than the other two but I listened to Definitely Maybe the other day and I’d forgotten how good that was. There aren’t many great albums knocking about. I don’t acually tink anyone’s made a great album since Definitely Maybe. That was the sound of a garage band having it large and that wsa great, but you can’t go on doing that. Every album has reflected that mental state of the band at the time.
- So what now?
- I can’t record another big rock’n’roll album. It’d bore that tits off you and it would bore the tits off me. I want to write something that is Oasis and somehow isn’t. And if I can ditch a few of these little kids that stand outside my house twenty-four hours a day that’d be nice too.
- There’s something about your songwriting that makes it almost subliminally familiar. You know what’s going to happen.
- Yeah, they’re very Trad. Arr. It’s traditional rock’n’roll and i’ve not stepped out of that frame of mind because i’ve been in a rock’n’roll band. With the lyrics, they probably sound familiar because I just go for the most obvious thing.
- Are you going to put your hands up and admit culpability for nicking the All The Young Dudes riff in Stand By Me?
- Absolutely. Course. I’ve had two songs out of that now - Don’t Look Back In Anger and Stand By Me. I’ll see if I can get anothe one out of it. If I can get another one out of it i’ll be f***ing laughing. And he’s still not sued me yet.
- If you were to try to write a hit song now, which song would you plunder?
- There’s a very good riff in Nobody Told Me by John Lennon. But if you want to write a good rock song, go back to those old ‘60s Nuggets albums. And the geezers are all bound to be dead or mad or sold their publishing for two bob to some bloke with a pieve of straw in his mouth. I’ve got a load of them records at my house and I’m sampling them all up. Let’s do it, you and me, man, a fucking triple album. Call it something bizarre and we’d be away.
- You are as romantic as a big girl’s blouse. Discuss.
- You don’t write a song like Wonderwall if you’re not romantic. I am. I’m a dreamer and a romantic. Liam is too.
- Do you understand Liam’s appeal?
- If I was a teenage girl I’d think, Fuck me, he’s really good looking. If I was a teenage boy I’d think, If that cunt can do it, then there’s hope for us all. But I don’t understand why he appeals to me. Because he pisses me off.
- Do you think he’s sexy?
- I do, yeah. It’s the swagger isn’t it? It’s that, I don’t give a fuck, mate. Which he doesn’t. He appeals to young people. He’s a child himself. His whole psyche is built out of being a child, which is cool because it keeps everything exciting. I’m five years older than him but I’ve been 30 for five years. I’ve always been quite grown up which is a pisser but I do have my moments. Believe me.
- What’s your day to day intercourse with Liam?
- We don’t have any. We tried but the more time we spend together the more the relationship deteriorates. As soon as we get off the road we can’t get far enough away from each other. Having said that, the other day we spent all day in the pub together. We were still up from the night before and we were pissed as arseholes. I rang my wife from the pub and said, Are you coming out for a beer or what? And she said, Who are you with? I said, I’m with our kid. And she’s like, I’m having me nails done. And she told me why yesterday. She said, Because when you and your brother have been up for two days and you’re down the pub and you’re getting on, then you know that some monumental f*** up is about to occur and I’m not going to be within 20 miles of the place.
- What’s your relationship with drugs these days?
- Every time I do an interview now the subject comes up and I take a deep breath and try to explain the situation. They might as well hand me a gun so I can go (pretends to blow both feet off). I use drugs for rectreational purposes.
- When did you last take drugs?
- Oh, I can’t get into that. The American Embassy with be reading this. I don’t use them as much as I used to. I’m bored with them. Ive been bored with drugs since I was 20 years of age. And drinking. But what else is there to do? Drugs stimulate converstaion. And absolute bollocks conversation at that. Nobody knows this but... what the f***, I’ll tell you anyway. I’ve started leaving Dictaphones on around our house when I have people over. I want to release an album of spoken work called Noel and His Mates Talking Bollocks Round At Supernova Heights. I’m going to get all the clearances for it. Imagine that. And we’d tour it too. The curtain will go ip a the Albert Hall and there’ll be ten of us going, Did you see that game of football last night? And, another thing about Muhammed Ali, right, I heard... Wouldn’t you pay fifty pounds to hear Shaun Ryder, Goldie, me, Paul Weller and our kid off our heads drinking beer round at my place talking about whether there’s life on other planets. Weller’d be going (gruff cockney), There’s fucking mods on other planets, maet. Too right, I’ve seen an Unidentified Flying Vespa. UFV’s mate.
- Why is it so difficult to imagine Paul Weller having a laugh?
- I’ll tell you, he makes me laugh so much, that man. I reckon, seriously, that he’d make a great stand-up comedian.
Can you paint character portraits of the other members of Oasis?
Bonehead - he’s bald, he’s funny, he’s a father, he’s dependable except when he’s drunk. When he’s drunk we call him The Man With The Spinning Head because he loses all control of his neck muscles and he grunts. Pain in the arse when he’s drunk. Whitey - top drummer, pretty quiet, keeps himself to himself; Guigs - Jah Rastafari, I think he’s spoken to me, and htis is no word of a lie, since I was about 17 - 13 years - for a total of about an hour. All he says is "sweet as" and "alright". That’s all. Typical bass player, isn’t he? I say to him, Bass player, sit down, shut it. Top man though, he’s just had a baby boy. Called him Pat McGuigan. I said, That’s really bad ‘cos he sounds like a navvy already.
- Has travel broadened your mind?
- We’ve got this rule in the band: no matter what trouble you’re going to get into, never get arrested in a country that doesn’t use your own alphabet. Get arrested anywhere that uses your alphabet and you’re basically alright. But if you get affested in a country that uses a squiggle or a box or a line instead of proper letters, you’re fucked meat, you’re never coming home.
- Do you understand American yet?
- They still think they’re pilgirms. (Sincere American) Do you believe in God? (Bolshy Burnager) Are you taking the piss or what? And they consider themselves to be the discoverers of the New World. Isn’t it funny that all these weird cults always spring up there. That’s the reason aliens ahve never shown themselves on this planet because where do they always land first? F***ing desert in America. The land and the first human they see goes (southern redneck) Got any barbers where you come from, boy? If you were an alien you’d be Fuck this, back in the old spaceship and off. But if he landed in Burnage, cultural epicentre of the world, it’d be, Alright alien, mate, come and have a spliff and listen to some Jimi Hendrix. It’d be cool. You’d have f***ing millions of aliens living in Burnage. All the mod aliens, the lot.
- Have you, in the past year, abused your position as a rock star?
- No, but my wife does. Trying to get into restaurants when I’m on tour. She’s giving it all that, Excuse me, I’m Mrs Gallagher. I wouldn’t mind but she hasn’t changed her name yet. I think other people abuse your position on your behalf. I went to see a band a little while ago at Brixton Academy and I was on the guest list so I got out of the car and stood at the back of the guest list queue, like you do. You don’t want to charge to the front of the queue going, Hello, the rock star’s here. So I’m standing there minding my own business, having a fag and this security guy recognises me and goes, What are you doing? Get up the front of the queue! nd he drags me to the front, shouting double loud, Make way! Band member! Embarassing, man. But you’ve got to see the funny side. You have to enjoy it because if you sat down and dissected everything that’s sick about being a rock star, you’d be there forever.
- Is this what you thought being a rock star would be like?
- In a funny way. But if anyone wants to know what it’s really like to be in a rock band, go and watch Spinal Tap. That just about says it fucking all.
- At which point a management representative appears in the doorway to cripsly announce a "one-minute warning". Noel’s face creases up, "Perfect Spinal Tap moment," he grins. "You have one minute to finish this interview. What bollocks. I tell you, this is absolute Spinal Tap, man, pure Tap."
- And with a "See ya, chief" he joins his wife to examine the contents of three large boxes marked Gucci. They contain plates, glassware and vases all bound for Supernova Heights. A note attached explains that the cushion covers they’ve ordered will be ready just as soon as they can be made up in the required fabric.
- You feel a fleeting pang of sympahty for these items destined, as they are in their new life, to be dropped by Liam, subjected to Paul Weller’s comedy monologues or placed beneath Shaun Ryder’s over-heating buttocks. But do such nest-building niceties suggest a spell of down time for Oasis? "Well we don’t know, do we?" their leader says. "That’s the beauty of it. I might not write another song before 1999. But then I could go and write an album on acoustic guitar tomorrow afternoon. I just don’t know if I want to."
- Or, as the man said, "Tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon."
- "Thanks to the alphabet!"
- In 1996, Best Act Oasis made the Q awards bash swing like a skipful of Watney’s. Liam flicked cigarette ash on Mick Jagger’s head. Liam pretended to take a polaroid of Neil Tennant and smashed the camera instead. Liam was arrested afterwards for possession of cocaine. Liam added another word to the dictionary when he called a policeman "cuntybollocks". And we invited him back!
- Poo-pooing the recent slack talk that had Oasis all washed up in 1997, you the Q readers rewarded them again with the blue riband award, wht Q podium-warmer Danny Kelly putting it rather poetically when he declared them "so universally appealing, so utterly admired, so ubiquitously ubiquitous, they are simply unassailable." Touring commitments meant that, sadly, they couldn’t attend. Never mind. For their videoscreen personae turned out to be nearly as entertaining as their fleshy selved...
- Noel: "We got this last year and we thought we deserved it last year. And just to say between the pair of us, we think we deserve it again this year."
- Liam: (coughts phlegmily)
- Noel: "Thanks for all the readers for voting, ‘cos you’re what keeps it rocking for us. If it wasn’t for you lot then we wouldn’t be here or anything like that..."
- Liam: "And thanks to the alphabet."
Noel: "Yeah, thanks to the alphabet."
- Liam: "For giving us your Q."
- Noel: "And for giving me loads of shit lyrics. And I hope you have a top day, and that you all go and get arrested like he did."
- How was it for you?
- Mr McGuigan
- Q’s readers have once again voted you The Greatest Band In The World Today. How does that feel?
- Nice
- Is there an Oasis song that can move you to tears?
- Yes.
- What’s the greatest bassline ever written?
- Exodus, Baby You’re A Rich Man
- Tell us something that would genuinely surprise people about you (keen antiques collector, Boyzone fanclub member etc)
- No
- If Oasis were a football team, who’d play in which position and which player, historically speaking, would they be?
- Me, Noel, Whitey, Bone - midfield. Liam - striker or in the pub.
- How are you finding fatherhood?
- Alright, sweet as...
- Noel claims you have only said the words "alright" and "sweet as" to him in the last 13 years. Why the conversational reticence?
- Shut it.
- What does the line, "Tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon," mean to you?
- Nish
- Tell us your best joke.
- No
- Mr White
- Q’s readers have once again voted you The Greatest Band In The World Today. How does that feel?
- As old as the last women I felt!
- Give us one snapshot image that sums up the last year for you.
- Good man!
- Have you ever consciouly nicked a drum fill?
- Shit loads
- Who could drum you under the table, pal?
- Bonehead
- What, to your mind, is Noel’s best song?
- Strangers In The Night
- Describe Liam using a series of rhyming couplets.
- Likes a drink
- What does the line, "Tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon," mean to you?
- Fuck knows
- Tell us your best joke
- Arsed
- As the man at the back, how would you describe the ever-changing arses of your fellow band members?
- Getting bigger man!
- Mr Arthurs
- Q’s readers have once again voted you The Greatest Band In The World Today. How does that feel?
- Ask Guigs
- Where is Bonehead’s head at?
- Paris
- Has the success of the band been difficult to handle personally?
- Ask Guigs
- Which member of hte band has put on most weight?
- Guigs
- Are you really a demon when drunk?
- Ask Guigs
- What constitutes great rhythm guitar playing?
- Guigs
- What does Liam Gallagher smell like?
- Turnips
- To blow your own trumpet for a moment, what is your greatest recorded moment with Oasis?
- Ask Guigs
- What does the line, "Tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon," mean to you?
- Ask Guigs
- Tell us your best joke
- Guigs.
c 1998 Andrew Turner
aturner@interalpha.co.uk
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