"Titanic!"

by Paul Lester

March 2000

by Tom Sheehan
Oasis, if you hadn't noticed, have just resurfaced. But will they sink or swim? After the druggy excesses of 'Be Here Now'. Following the departure of two members, and with British rock in a sorry state, the Biggest Band Since The Beatles have a lot to prove. Which is why, on the eve of the release of 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants' - their darkest collection of songs to date - Noel Gallagher has chosen this moment to give the frankest, not to mention longest, interview of his career.
This must be the worst time in history to be a celebrity. Stalkers, kidnap plots, and now the near-fatal wounding, by a former heroin-addicted, knife-wielding maniac, of ex-Beatle George Harrison. It is early December, 1999, and Oasis' record company - or rather, their erstwhile record company, as would become evident within 24 hours of Uncut's meeting with Noel Gallagher - are taking no chances: until our cab's arrival at its destination, the precise location of the interview will remain a secret.
Turns out it's Wheeler End, a farmhouse-cum-studio about a half-hour's ride west of London where much of the recording of the band's long-awaited fourth album, 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants', took place. Arriving late-morning, we - the journalist and Creation press officer Johnny Hopkins - make our way through the kitchen to the studio at the back of the house where no less than 20 electric guitars lean against the wall in a row. Here, we await the most widely celebrated British rock songwriter of the last two decades.
We don't have to wait long. You can hear Noel loud and clear from several rooms away. Any minute now, you think, he's going to launch into a chant of "Manchest-uh! In the are-uh!"
Instead, minus fanfare or fuss, he enters the studio, clocks yours truly, puts a CD of new Swedish MC5-alikes Hellacopter on the urban commando-style ghetto blaster sitting by the window, then cranks up the volume, throwing Uncut a glance that says, 'Good, eh?'
The first thing you notice about Noel Gallagher is how much he looks like Noel Gallagher. As though he's just stepped out of an oasis photo, only with moving parts. The mod-ish threads jeans, light green T-shirt, Crombie-style dark blue overcoat, plus gold chain - that he's wearing today are very Noel G, as are those TV marionette eyebrows, way up there now in rock's pantheon of iconic physiognomy with Iggy's pecs and Jagger's lips. Shorter than you might imagine, the purposeful i stride, unwavering eye contact and firm handshake more than compensate. Besides, who needs height when you've got a track record like his?
Before the interview proper begins, and as Hopkins sets his own tape machine in motion (for recording Uncut's conversation with Gallagher, Creation really aren't taking any chances), Noel talks enthusiastically about an album by an American "power pop" band he discovered through the pages of Uncut last year - 'Kontiki' by Cotton Mather - which, in his estimation, is the best LP since 'Definitely Maybe', and this despite brother Liam's initial reservations ("They're a Yank band!" "Yeah, but the singer sounds like John Lennon." "Oh, all right, then"). just weeks away from first-time parenthood and a possible shift of domicile from Supernova Heights to Ibiza, and following a period of upheaval in Camp Oasis rumours of drug overload; the break with Creation following label boss Alan McGee's departure for cyberspace; the replacement of Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs (guitar) and Paul "Guigs" McGuigan (bass) with Andy Bell (ex-Ride and Hurricane #1) and Gem Archer (ex-Heavy Stereo) - Noel is no less forthright than anticipated, answering each question with the sort of candour that must give his management sleepless nights. What is surprising is how upbeat he is; surprising because 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants' - successor to, respectively, the fastest-selling debut of recent times, the best-selling UK rock LP of the Nineties (14 million and counting) and a controversial third album ("we blew it down the coke dealers") that "merely" went multi-platinum - has the vague air of defeat about it; as though Oasis no longer want to compete. And this at a time when homegrown guitar bands have never had it so bad. More than ever - for British music, for themselves - oasis need to do the business. Trouble is, they've chosen to do so with the least easily digestible material of their career.
And yet, no matter how troubled or depressed some of the new songs may sound, there would appear to be no downer corrosion on this gobshite's muse: he's emerged from a particularly dark night of the soul relatively unscathed. In fact, he's already looking forward to recording the fifth oasis album.
A positive Noel Gallagher? What did you expect? This is, after all, the man who, more than any other contemporary songwriter, although he may not have galvanised consumers into forming a committed rock community, did at least show that we can be more than just a nation of atomised individuals, that we do share hopes and fears; the man who, time and again, has proved Nabokov's dictum that nothing is more exhilarating than Philistine vulgarity. He may not be a generational leader as such, but as soon as his songs hit the airwaves, sung by brother Liam - according to Alan McGee, the Elvis Presley of his era - they give you a thrill all too rare these days: the feeling of ecstatic commonality. Perhaps the new ones will do the same.
Noel is the consummate interviewee, all own-ups and anecdotes. He's also a considerate host: coffee is made as soon as he's through the door. He makes sure his chair is near Uncut's microphone; he will even, unusually for a musician, stop mid-flight at the end of each side while the writer flips over the tape.
So here it is: the longest interview The Chief has ever done, or is ever likely to do. From Burnage to the Balearics, via Downing Street and Knebworth, and all points in between. For the liberties with syntax and liberal use of slang, the sensitivity and sly northern wit, the self-aggrandisement and self-effacement, for the facility with a wide range of subjects, the following 20,000 words recall nothing so much as Lennon Remembers - a series of conversations between the late Beatle and America's Rolling Stone, from 1970. He may be more artisan than artist, his constituency smaller and his influence less pervasive than St John's; nevertheless, 30 years down the line, Noel Gallagher is tuned into the mindset of his all-time hero.
Which is as much of an achievement as it sounds.
Good to be back?
Er, yeah. Mm, I means, s'pose so.
Was it too long a lay-off?
In the sense that we've not had any records out for a while, it probably is a bit of a stretch. But in the year that we had off, I was writing anyway. We just had a year not hanging out as a band. But it is a long time since we had a record out - it's going to be three years by the time it comes out.
Are the songs still coming thick and fast?
F***ing, I tell you what, man, at the end of the last record ['Be Here Now'], I had no songs left and the tour was a f***ing nightmare - I wasn't really into how big it had all got. And coming out the other side at Knebworth, it was a bit disheartening, really. It was like, 'If this is going to go on forever, then I might pack it in.' I had no songs left and it was, 'Right, let's have a year off.' And then I wrote twenty songs for the album and that was cool. Lately, ever since about, I don't know, about two months ago, I just can't stop f***ing writing.
Is this a different way of working?
Yeah, because I'm straight now. It's f***ing brilliant, man. I'll be farting about with something before I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning I can actually remember it.
Would the first three albums have been different if you had adopted that technique from the off?
The first one I was too broke to take drugs. This album was written more in the spirit of the first one. The middle two are a bit of a haze - I can't remember much about them. The first one I had a lot of time to write it and a lot of time to throw stuff away, where the middle two were like, 'We need a record out because this thing is happening and we might as well capitalise.'
In hindsight, we should have probably taken a year off before the last record. We came back off that American tour and went straight in the studio, which we shouldn't have done. But it helped me get a lot of shit out of the way. All the songs I was writing at the time I thought were OK; then as the record progressed it was like, 'Oh, f***ing hell.' And then when it came out 'Be Here Now' got some pretty good reviews…
It got some amazing reviews!
I thought that the praise that was heaped on it at first was a bit over the top and then I thought the criticism afterwards was a bit over the top as well. It didn't deserve 8 out of 10 in any of the papers and it certainly didn't deserve the slagging it got since. I don't think it was a good record but I certainly don't think it was as bad as people made out.
Are people reluctant to criticise Oasis: a) because you're so massive, and b) because you've got a kind of aura of menace about you?
I don't know what it is, because I remember when 'Morning Glory' came out people were f***ing…
That one did get slagged!
They panned it, then people changed their minds when the public went out an bought skip loads. And then this one ['Be Here Now'] was praised to the heavens, but when people didn't buy it, people changed their minds. People were trying to second guess what the public were going to feel about it.
Do people criticise you to your face, or are you surrounded by sycophants?
If you've just sold 20 million albums and you go and write a bunch of songs, people aren't going to go, 'I don't like that, it isn't good enough.' I mean, they probably did. When we invited people down to the studio everyone was going, 'It's brilliant.' But I would imagine in the taxi home, they were going, 'F***ing hell.'
Whose opinion do you trust?
Mine, really. We used to tend to get carried away with everything in the studio, we never had an objective view on anything. We never sat back and went, 'Is it any good or could it do with some more work?' It was just bollocks: 'It's brilliant because it's us,' you know? And when you are at the level we were at it's like, 'F***ing hell, man, we must be doing something right.'
'Be Here Now' took basically two or three weeks to write, whereas this one took a year. I'd come here [Wheeler End] and do the demos. Before, I'd write a song on the guitar and before I'd record it I'd play it to people and sing it, so everyone would form their opinion on it straight away. Whereas this time I wouldn't play it to anyone for about six months; it was like, 'I'm not going to play it to anyone until I'm happy with it.'
I was determined to make the songs a lot shorter. Last time it was like there was f***ing two months of f***ing feedback before the song started, which is great when you're off your tits in the studio, but when you're listening to it in the back of the car on the way to work it must be f***ing excruciating.
Is this the first Noel Gallagher solo album, then?
No, not really. This is the first one…I'm happy…well, you know, it's not perfect because there's a couple of songs where the lyrics could have been…I could have worked on the lyrics a bit more.
Which ones?
"Put Yer Money Where Yer Mouth Is" and "I Can See A Liar" - I was just messing about with riffs in the studio. But they sort of stuck. "I Can See A Liar" I personally wouldn't have put on the album. But Liam was, like, 'It's the f***ing Sex Pistols; we've got to have some fast ones on there because it's a bit medium-paced,' and it was, like, 'fair enough.'
There's a couple of songs that got shunted off onto B-sides of singles which should have gone on the album, but it's either the singer sulking or, you know, have some semblance of f***ing normality in the studio - you've got to weigh up which one's better than the other and it's better not to have a singer sulking.
So there is compromise involved in the recording process, even for a band as big as Oasis?
I think all records are like that. We were working with a different producer this time as well [Mark 'Spike' Stent], who was brilliant for us, because Owen [Morris, erstwhile producer] would never say to anyone in the studio, like to Bonehead or Guigs, 'It's not really working what you're playing, so let Noel play it.' And we'd never say that to each other because we might get the f***ing needle, whereas Spike would just say, 'It's just not happening, man; it's obvious you can't do it so why don't you do it?' and I'd be like, 'Oh, right, well, I'll do it.
There'd be a bit of that going on, but it was all for the record at the end of the day, because it's a pretty crucial time for us now.
Do you feel less unassailable than you did, say, between Knebworth and 'Be Here Now'? Like you've got something to prove again?
Yeah, I think so. If only musically.
Does the fate of British rock rest on your shoulders?
I don't feel that we should be this big symbolic British rock band that has to go and conquer the world. Even though that's the way it's always portrayed. 'Oh, if the Oasis album doesn't do well in America then that's British music finished,' that sort of thing. I always sit there and think, 'F***ing thanks for that, because that's what I really need. The British music industry's finished if our album doesn't do well.' You don't really need that when you're eating your f***ing Cornflakes.
It does feel like that, though, especially after 12 months of terrible under-performance on the part of Britpop's finest.
Yeah, it does. I understand it in a way, because we are the biggest British band there is. There isn't anyone else who has even got a chance of making headway around the world. I can't think of another rock'n'roll band that sells records in America, on the level that we do.
Is "bigness" your essence?
That's what we set out to do. There was a six month period leading up to Knebworth where we were the biggest band on the planet because we were selling the most records and playing to the most people and writing the best songs, I feel.
I think if anyone had the bottle we would have come offstage at Knebworth and said, 'Do you know what, it's been a f***ing top scream, let's just kick it in the head now.' But, of course, it was, you know; 'Let's have one last f***ing trawl around America; let's bleed the life out of the album.' And that almost broke us in a way. But when you're on a roll, nobody wants to say, 'Let's just pack it in and be like The Jam and go out and be cool,' Everyone's like, 'F*** it, man, the bar's still open,' you know what I mean? It's not last orders yet.
You could do what The Beatles did after '66 and just be a studio band.
Yeah. I'm only now thinking, 'Do I really want to go on the road for nine months again?' Nine months is a big enough stretch as it is, but then when you've got a kid on the way…it's not a wrench to go away, because you've got a responsibility to the people who buy the records as well, but I think there'll come a point in the very near future where…I'm not looking forward to going on the road for the simple reason that the gigs we're going to play, we've played them a thousand times over, and you've been to the same cities and you've stayed in the same hotels, and there's only so many tour bus moments that you can have in your life until it becomes an absolute nightmare. The rest of the guys, they love doing it.
The ideal situation for me would be like Brian Wilson [after his 1964 nervous breakdown], to just make the records and send the boys off: 'I'm not into it any more, so have the best time you can, go and promote the record, come back and I'll have finished another one for us to work on.' But they'd be like, 'If you're not going, I'm not going.' Then, if I don't go, the band don't go, and then if the band don't go, the record company are going to go, 'You can forget us trying to promote your records, you cheeky c***s.' So you end up in a vicious circle.
Does it annoy you that, no matter how big you get, you still have to do certain things?
Yeah, because it's a major, major operation. It would be nice if we could get into the back of a transit van and turn up at The Borderline and say, 'Can we play a gig tonight?' But you almost feel like got the f***ing people from The X Files' following you with a million monitor things. I suppose they've got to protect the band, you know what I mean?
Would you like to scale it down so you had more control?
Well, that's why we're playing Wembley, because we don't like playing big places [laughs]
Somewhere discreet, like Wembley Stadium.
That's come about because it was offered to us. We were going to be the last band to play there: it was a symbolic thing. But we're going to do major outdoor shows and then, after that, 'round about Christmas 2000, we're going to do some really, really small venues, sort of like two or three thousand, after we've got all the fans in that could possibly see us. Then they can't moan and say, 'Oh, I couldn't get a ticket.' But, yeah, I'd like to break it down and start again.
With the departure of Guigs and Bonehead, has the band lost some of its Last Gang In Town invincibility because you've brought in two new members "artificially"?
Yeah, but all the time it's real. It wasn't brought around by our decision, it was something that was forced upon us, and I wouldn't like to give anyone the satisfaction of saying, 'They couldn't so without me.' You know what I mean? So we were like, 'F*** that -we've all got kids on the way and stuff.' But you've got a responsibility to the people who buy the records because that's what Oasis has always been about: buying the records then going to see the band to sing along to the songs with your mates in the audience.
Would it have been a different album had it been recorded with Gem and Andy instead of Guigs and Bonehead?
Well, it would have been a different album, because with all the greatest respect in the world to the two guys that have left, Gem and Andy are better musicians, so the musicianship would have been of a higher level. But the songs would have still been there. I don't think Liam would have sung it any differently. It might - it would - have been a little bit different, because they would have brought their own feel to it, I suppose, but not in a creative sense."
You seem very up at the moment. And yet the new LP sounds quite down.
There's only so many up things you can write, you know what I mean?
Have you got all the euphoria out of your system?
Well, I think it's just a case of growing up. It's like, I'm not mad for it anymore - can I officially state that?"
Mad For It, R.I.P.
Yeah, well, I'm just not mad for it. on the other hand, Liam's mad for it. He's madder than mad for it. But you can only write so many "Some Might Say"'s. I mean, when I listen to some of the lyrics of "Stand By Me", for instance, they're just f***ing stupid. They're just rhyming; it's just mucking around; it just doesn't mean anything to me. When I listen to it on the radio I think,' What was i f***ing thinking?'
Does the same go for "Slowly walking down the hall, Faster than a cannonball'?
Every time we sing I just think, 'What the f*** was all that about?' It's just using the vocal as a musical instrument more than anything."
Now has your approach to lyric-writing changed for this album?
I think the words are going hand in hand with the songs now But it's not the finished article yet. I'm only getting a third of the way to where I want to be with the sounds and the style of the writing. Over the next couple of albums, there's a lot to be explored. I'm not experimenting [spits out word], going in the studio and shaking f***ing crisp packets with six-inch nails in them for the sake of art - we leave that to all the other no-marks in this country. I'm into making big f***ing f***-off rock'n'roll pop records, you know? But there's a side of it that still needs working on - the words are not amazing enough yet for me. But I'll get there. Slowly but surely my head's coming out of a blizzard of drug abuse, from the past 14 years almost. I'm slowly getting my shit together.
"Oasis are not a heroin band," Alan McGee told me recently. On the other hand, he said of the group's wild years: "No snow, no show." Have you ever tallied up how much you've actually blown on drugs?
Oh, yeah. I reckon it would have been…it would have been a few grand a month. It would have been quite a lot; you could have run a small record label off it, I would imagine."
Do you, a keen fan of rock history, ever compare and contrast your drug intake with the all-time giants of narcotic excess, such as Keef or Iggy?
I'm an absolute f***ing ultimate lightweight compared to them. I mean, f***ing Keith Richards, man, he's like, he does his share and everybody else's, don't he? And he's still doing it to this day. Allegedly.
Any close scrapes over the years?
Yeah. I mean, the reason why I packed it in was I was starting to get panic attacks and all that stuff - you know, waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweats and thinking that the world was going to f***ing end.'
What period would that have been?
It would have been, umm, we finished the tour last March - or was it the March before? - whenever it was, we finished it in March and then, you know, we had been pretty much flat-out for five years so during March and April the house where I live in the country was just f***ing chaos. The boys were back in town and f***ing, 'Aren't you going to know about it?' lt got to about June, when the World Cup started, and it was just f***ing horrible. I felt like I was going to die. Not psychologically, it just got too much. I don't know what it was; it was all to do with no sleep, not eating enough or eating too much at some points. Just general lack of looking after yourself.
There came a point where I had a doctor out one night. He didn't who he was coming to see. I was lying in bed, looking like death warmed up, and as he walked in, he's got these little half-rimmed glasses, and someone's going, 'He's upstairs, he's having a bit of a hard time.' So he walks in and says, 'Ah, good evening, Mr...' And he looks at his thing [clipboard] Gallagher.' And he looked up at me and this big grin come across his face, and he shuts his book and says, 'I don't have to even diagnose what's wrong with you, sir.' He says, 'You do take drugs, I take it?' And I was like, 'Well, yeah,' and he says, 'So does all this come about when you're taking drugs?' and I say, 'Yes, well, you know.' And he says, just stop it.' And I went, 'So you're not going to give me anything?' And he went, 'No, there's nothing to give you, sir, just stop.' And I went, 'Right.' And that was it. He just got into his car and f***ed off. And I was going, 'F***ing waste of £250 that was. I could have told myself that.' And then the next day it was like, 'Do I want to go on like this for the rest of my life? -
I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't taken drugs. So I thought, 'Well, if it's only for six months it will be a f***ing laugh anyway.' You know, laughing at everybody else. And there's a time when, actually, I started feeling pretty good. And I started eating properly, and then I started looking five years younger, and it was like, 'F***ing hell, this isn't too bad.' And then, after about eight months, it was like, 'I'm not going to do anymore.' And I officially gave up. And I've done it for two, nearly two, it will be two years next June I haven't done anything - it's f***ing brilliant. I still drink and smoke fags, though.
Dope?
No, the last time I smoked dope I made a right twat of myself, I went to see The Black Crowes at Shepherd's Bush Empire and I'd been on the Guinness all day. We were upstairs in the bar afterwards and someone says, 'Hey, do ya wanna come and meet the band?' So it was like, 'F***ing right.' And as we got there with my engineer who was working on the album, we went in the dressing room and I was pissed as a c**t. And we was talking to the singer [Chris Robinson] who has this f***ing huge spliff like a baseball bat, and he's smoking away and we're going on about rock'n'roll and that, and he passed us this joint. And so not to be seen to be a lightweight, I had a couple of drags on it, passed it him back, grabbed hold of the wall, then f***ing abseiled down the wall into the toilet, going green, puke every f***ing where. So I locked myself in the toilet and my mate was - it felt like about five minutes later - banging on the door, going, 'Are you in there?' And I was like, 'Yeah,' and he says, 'Come on, we've got to go, man, the building's empty, it's two in the morning, they've got to lock up.' And I couldn't find the door in the cubicle. So he's got to climb over, open the door, and carry me down the stairs. And as we get outside the Shepherd's Bush Empire, we open the door and there's a load of horrible kids with cameras. And as the flashes went off I just puked up every f***ing where. Of course, everyone thought it was marvellous rock'n'roll behaviour. But it was f***ing horrible."
This new record sounds like a real stoners album.
When I first started playing the demos to people round at the house - people would come up on a Sunday to visit us - they'd go, 'Are you sure you're not on drugs?' And I'm like, 'I'm telling you,' and they're going, 'Because it's proper psychedelic, man.'
Even at the early stages it was quite psychedelic. I wouldn't call it a psychedelic record but some of the songs are. Even McGee was going, 'You wouldn't have thought you'd given up f***ing powder, man.' But when I'm in the studio I'm better off when I'm clear-headed and not drunk and I can concentrate more on what I want to do.
Spike was brilliant, because he doesn't take drugs and he rarely drinks; doesn't join in when the party's going off, he's proper on the f***ing case. Whereas Owen, if we were getting pissed, would be getting pissed as well and it would end up this loud f***ing din in the studio and you couldn't really make head nor tail of anything because the guitars would be double loud. Spike was brilliant because he'd just say, 'You just all go off to the pub and I'll sort this out.
Go to Part 2

Uncut Articles & Interviews - index

c 2000 Andrew Turner
aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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