Noel Gallagher has seen the future - no drugs, no Creation, no porcine feedback epics - and it looks pretty good to him. So what else is on his mind? Poetry, his nose, driving lessons, the "shit" songs on his new album and the little matter of Anais Gallagher, aged 0. 'I'm really, really excited," he tells Danny Eccleston.

On the cover in colour Noel in black t-shirt and silver chain and cross; inside in white T-shirt with words 'I shall never forget that silence when I finished the last time', in black T-shirt with word 'Plagiarist' sitting cross-legged alongside a guitar, in brown jacket and jeans standing, in white jacket and jeans crouching and looking pensively, and various pictures of him and the band during recording and other occasions

Pictures by Rankin taken Metro Studios, London EC1 December 22, 1999

It's a dewy November morning and this is Wheeler End studio, Buckinghamshire - the property, until very recently, of Alvin Lee from Ten Years After's ex-wife. From the outside it might be any old yuppy farm conversion, but the interior - cables and pedals, a battered Mellotron, baby grand piano, racks of '60s-centric electric guitars - could have oozed out of Paul Weller's dreams. At the back, computer screens flicker, while on vivid red and blue walls, posh posters tug a forelock to The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, and quaintly warn of the dangers of smoking "reefer".

Driven, on the bladder's whim, into the unpromising lavatory, the visitor discovers quality toilet roll and yellowing photographs of Elvis Presley's personal Boeing 707, including one of the King's own gargantuan in-flight throne. If you needed a reminder of fame's rewards and - perhaps its spiritual costs, you could do worse than hop off the M40 and have a dump here.

The studio's most remarkable treasure, however, is a collection of miniature figurines. Astonishingly, they are The Beatles in full-on Rishikesh retreat garb, 1968. Cross-legged in front of the begarlanded band sits a tiny Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. "No Mia Farrow, though," winks Wheeler End tenant Noel Gallagher, swishing by with tea.

Gallagher is dressed rehearsal casual. Slim, bootcut indigo jeans cling to a barely existent arse, whilst on top a casually expensive, untucked powder blue shirt fights a losing battle with sprouting chest hair. He is markedly slimmer than at this stage in Oasis's last album campaign, when 'Be Here Now' emerged to its blistering fanfare of martial trumpets and subsequent chorus of crest fallen raspberries.

Less than five miles thataway, at home in Chalfont St. Giles, sits wife Meg, still two months away from giving birth to their first child.

Is she craving soil sandwiches yet?

"She's not even had morning sickness," relates Gallagher, puffing on a Benson & Hedges Special Filter. "All my mates who've had kids were going, Oooh, after about three months they start going weird. And I was waiting for this weirdness onslaught. But she's not gone weird. She's not started eating coal. She's not biting lumps out of any ofthe chairs. I was dreading the morning sickness, patting her on the back as she threw up in the sink. That'd be a bit of a role reversal. I've had morning sickness since she's fucking known me."

And you'll be at the birth?

"Oh yes. I got a massive bollocking for suggesting I wasn't. So I'll be there, with me little green mask on, saying, Push!"

Today, Noel Gallagher has another gestation on his mind. The new Oasis album, 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants', is finished. He is rehearsing a new band, containing Gem Archer from Heavy Stereo on guitar and Andy Bell, once of Ride and Hurricane #1 and very nearly of Gay Dad. Tomorrow, Alan McGee will announce that he's to leave Creation Records, setting in motion a sequence of events that will result in the label's dissolution by the end of January 2000.

Gallagher looks relaxed. Even his hair - mid '99's over-sculpted Badfinger "do" having mercifully grown out - looks relaxed. You're struck that even if 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants' were to bomb ("and I do expect it to get panned," he shrugs) Noel Gallagher would remain what he has become: a proper rock star.

When was the last time you met someone who didn't know who you are?

The General Election, 1997. Me and Meg were trying to get polling cards, 'cos we'd just moved and they hadn't been sent. Anyway, the woman in the office was going, You can't prove who you are. And I'm like, You know who I am! What sort of stone have you been hiding under for the last years? I've got my passport but they're asking for another form of ID and I'm going, (cocks eyebrow) Do you want me to sing you a fucking song? My guess is she knew who I was, she just hated me.

Maybe she was a Blur fan.

(Grinning) Probably. Most people have an idea who I am. Sometimes you meet people who on purpose forget who you are. They always seem to be friends of friends of friends. (Adopts robotic social banter tone) "What's your name?" "Noel." "What's your name?" "Dave" "Alright Dave" "What do you do?" "I work for Tesco, actually." "No you don't" (Angry) "So why'd you fuckin' ask me for? You know what I do and you know what my name is" I'm not arsed whether people know me or not, but that sort of bullshit.

Do people stop you in the street?

Not as much as you'd think. I could walk up Oxford Street this afternoon and by the time people realise who they just saw I'm thirty yards down the road. And they're going, I'm sure that was him...I'm sure that was (comedy pause) Ian Brown. The best is being recognised in record shops. You sell ten Oasis albums in a minute. Then they buy what you just bought: What's he got there - Captain Beefheart? And then they'll get it home and think, What the fucking hell is this rubbish? Or they'll go, for them, so that's where he stole it from.

You handle the paparazzi far better than Liam...How does that affect Liam?

It comes with the territory. Liam will rant himself into an early grave about this. He takes his kid out the other day for a walk in the park and then has a kick-off at a photographer for taking a picture. I'm going, Have you lost your fucking mind? You make a decision. Either you say, I'm not a person, I can't take my kids out for a walk. Or you take your kids out for a walk and you accept that you get photographed. I've never had any trouble with them. I give them their two minutes and they leave me alone. I've never had a camera stuck in my face and I've never been followed.

So Liam brings it on himself?

If you're going around chinning cameramen every two minutes they're gonna be really up for it. They're gonna create a shit-storm for Liam. Every time he gets nicked there's a photographer on the spot, and that's suspicious. I mean, I've been in some scrapes, fallen out of nightclubs out of my brains at four in the morning, but they don't want me. The paparazzi've got it in for Liam 'cos he's got it in for them, and now it's a battle of wills.

How does that affect Liam?

The really sad thing is it gets him down. You know, he makes the best entrances of all time. I'll be sitting here when you're gone and that door will come flying open with a big fucking boot and in he'll come. "Alright?" "No I'm not fucking alright. Some fucker stuck a camera in my face when I was out walking my kid so I fucking chinned him so now I'm up in court next week on tucking GBH." And I'm going (affects playground "thicko" voice) Durrr!

How's Liam's restricted alcohol regime working?

Well, he only drinks twice a week now, which is Monday-to-Thursday and Friday-to-Sunday. The thing is, if he's trying to convince the nation, or his mates, that he's given up drink then that's fine, but when he's trying to convince himself, then fucking that's a bit sad.

How much of Liam's last Q interview (Q160) was the Liam you recognise?

When I went out and bought it and started reading it I was thinking, It's a pity that the guy who done the interview isn't the guy who's in the band. 'Cos the man that done that interview isn't the person that I work with. All that stuff about God, I thought it was hilarious to be honest...

What's your all-time favourite Liam story?

The funniest thing Liam ever did was at that Sony showcase in 1993. All those suits, no-one knew who the fuck we were but Liam just didn't give a shit. Anyway, we go to the bogs, and who's there having a slash but Jamiro-fucking-quai. Liam goes to have a waz in the urinal to the left of him, me to the right. Suddenly, in mid-slash he leans over, and right in Jamiroquai's ear, he goes (emulating Jay Kay "scat" at deafening volume): "Diddi-dit-dit-de-deee-dit-di-deee!" I laughed so hard I pissed all over my trousers.

Aah, those were the days. From their explosive arrival in 1993 until the summer of 1997 it seemed Oasis could do no wrong. Even as 'Be Here Now' neared release, record business pundits were heard to discuss the "Oasis Effect": how the record-buying public (already tiring, it seemed, of the Britpop party) would be dragged back into record shops by the lure of Oasis and cough up for all those unbought CDs by Cast and Sleeper.

The need for what Oasis offered was so great that 'Be Here Now' - regardless of its musical merits and demerits - became the fastest-selling UK album ever, clearing 750,000 units in the first three days of release. The band's power - buoyed by'(What's The Story) Morning Glory?'s 12 million sales and the Knebworth/Loch Lomond effect - was such that humiliating contracts were forced on journalists before they were allowed to even hear the record.

"The way the record company set that album up was immoral," tutted Gallagher to Q at the end of 1998. "I was waiting for them to put a contract in front of me at one point. I remember someone holding up the record on the telly and putting his hand over the cover 'cos he wasn't allowed to show it. It was so embarrassing.

As it transpired, Oasis and Creation had written a credibility cheque even six million copies of 'Be Here Now' couldn't cash, and nothing would be the same again. Over nine months, the Be Here Now tour, preposterous stage set in tow, lumbered on, Bonehead and Liam frequently "out of control" and Noel Gallagher - according to Paolo Hewitt's on-the-road biog, Forever The People - harbouring paranoid Colonel Kurtz delusions and insisting he be addressed as "The Chief" ("That was bullshit," insists Gallagher today. "I've been called The Chief since I was little").

In March 1998, Noel returned to Supernova Heights completely bereft of songs. But the party didn't stop. The booze and powders flowed on through spring and kept going until the middle of June. Most days, Noel would awake at three in the afternoon to find another unknown set of friends of friends of friends reviving in the kitchen.

"It was, Hello, who the fuck are you?" fumes Gallagher. "That wanker DJ, Sasha, said the scene round my house was 'seedy'. Well, I didn't see him complaining at the time."

Finally, the drugs got the better of him. And then, having resolved to give them up, the giving up got the better of him, too.

"I'd wake up in the middle of the night sweating, feeling like I couldn't breathe and that I was going to die. It was a dark time for me I because I'd just started writing a record but I was not feeling a hundred per cent about myself. All the people around me were still doing loads of drugs and it was quite hard for a while, I'd start having a panic attack even if I had a drink. But I thought, I don't want to go to the doctor, 'cos he's just going to put me on Prozac and I don't want to be like that. I just had this 'vision of Robbie Williams in me head.I was thinking, Fucking never, I'd rather fucking die.

"So it was at that point I said to the wife, Get your gear. Put it in the fucking car. We're leaving. The bar's shut. Meg at first was like, You lightweight. And I was like, I've got to do this because the way we're living is fucking me up. I'm just not happy. "So I moved out of London, moved up to the country permanently. Stopped doing all the fuckin' drugs and that and then I thought, Right, well, I'd better start writing an album."

Will you never take drugs again?

My motto is just Say No For The Foreseeable Future. I've been lucky; I had the best years of my life doing it and I'm having a great time not doing it. I'm proud that I could stand up and say, Fuck this, I'm not doing it any more, 'cos I'd been caning it since I was 14. But now it's just the odd Guinness, and I fall over after three.

Were you tempted by the Priory Clinic dry-out?

It was nice to do it without going there and hanging out with a bunch of twats for six months. I know a lot of people who've been there, and I've seen 'em come out of there looking worse than when they went in.

What do you do with your days now?

I get up, have something to cat, take my dogs for a walk and sit around and...talk, basically. I'm getting to know my wife again. I met her five, six years ago and I was whacked out of my head on drugs. So it's like reacquainting yourself with...yourself and your missus as well. It's actually quite nice. I've got back to the point when I was on the dole, where drugs wasn't a major part of my life - because I couldn't afford them - and getting the band off the ground was my obsession. So it's come full circle now. I can't stop writing. I'm writing for fun. No lyrics yet, but melodies, arrangements. I'm really, really excited.

When was the last time you were in Manchester?

Last time I played there, unfortunately. We used to make a point of going back to see me mam up there, but it got to the point that we'd get on a plane at Heathrow airport and before you know it someone would have rung through - "The Gallagher brothers are coming home!" - and the Manchester Evening News would be waiting there and it would be a fucking "symbolic visit". It's like, Oh fuck off, I'm just here to have a cup of tea with me mam. To be honest, if I hadn't married Meg, I'd have probably moved back up there by now. I was certainly getting sick of London, six years down there is enough. But there's no way Meg's moving up north. Fuck that! Not enough Gucci shops up north.

Appropriately, nine months after snorting his last line of cocaine Noel Gallagher - abetted by long time Oasis aides Mark Coyle (computers, sitar, funny fags) and Paul Stacey (guitars, strangeness, being an ex-Lemon Tree) - had shaped the bulk of a new Oasis record. Songs about loving life and kicking drugs, songs written in London, Bucks and Thailand during the summer and autumn of 1998 and demoed at Supernova Heights and Wheeler End, were taken to Chateau De La Colle Noire, Montaroux, in the spring of 1999 to be properly recorded. Which is where the other trouble started.

"The thing about Liam," reports Noel, "is that when he gets drunk he's got a nasty side to him and he's just not nice to be around. So when we were getting ready to go to France we had a meeting and said, Let's give up drinking. Which we all did...except for Bonehead."

Beverage-related differences were only the half of it. Owen Morris, producer of '(What's The Story) Morning Glory?', 'Be Here Now' and The Verve's 'A Northern Soul', had been replaced by Mark "Spike" Stent - renowned for his engineering and mixing work for, among others, U2 and The Spice Girls. The new addition to the team had a surprisingly irreverent approach.

"Owen would take sides in the studio. He'd be like, It's a band thing and you've all got to do your bit. But Spike was like, Look, I don't give a shit who plays what, I just want to make a great record. Because he wasn't a mate of ours he didn't mind upsetting anybody."

Was that what drove out Guigsy and Bonehead?

"Personally," frowns Gallagher, "I think that the statements they put out, I think they're just cover stories. If they wanted to spend more time with their families - well, I don't think you come to a decision like that over a two-week period after you've finished a record. So I think the way this record was made did have a lot to do with their dissatisfaction, but until they say any different I don't know for sure. Maybe it is the family thing...Or maybe they were worried that they wouldn't have been able to do it live."

Either way, when Noel returned to Wheeler End in summer 1999 with the tapes of 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants', he was unhappy with what he had. The airy, humble ambience he'd sought was there in essence and the drums were fine, but the rest sounded "too posh". Then Guigsy and Bonehead bade their shock farewells and the French tracks were quickly jettisoned - drums aside - for vibey demo recordings and new guitar and bass tracks.

"Fuck it," sighs Gallagher, "what they played wasn't really much cop anyway...so...now they're not in the band I don't mind about putting some noses out of joint. Guigs didn't play anything on the album. I think Bonehead might be on it - not that you'd hear him, though. After Guigs left, we started again with the bass, redone it all. I played bass on six tracks and Strange Boy (Paul Stacey) played four."

Go to Part 2

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c 2000 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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