Latest Oasis, Liam & Noel Gallagher News

Were you an Oasis fan before you joined?
I was a fan and a hanger-on! I saw them 20 times. First time was at the Powerhaus, end of 1993, about 30 people there. I got introduced to Liam, and said: "You guys are amazing, you should come out and support Ride sometime!" Within three months, they were bigger than ride!

Do you have a favourite Oasis song?
"Slide Away". It's breathtaking. In the early days, I used to go and see them a lot with Tim Burgess. The day Definitely Maybe came out, I'd been asked to come in and deputise for Eddie Phillips from Creation, who'd signed with Creation. Eddie couldn't do the gig, so they asked me to play guitar. I came and borrowed all Noel's gear. Tim and I went to the gig listening to Definitely Maybe, all the time thinking, 'This is great, this is great.' "Slide Away" was our favourite song. Though, you know what? "Cigarettes & Alcohol" is the English national anthem!

What about one you enjoy playing live?
"Rock 'n' Roll Star", my absolute favourite. It locks in, musically and emotionally. You put it at the end of the set, just when you think there's nothing left, and it tears the roof off. The ending is one of the best I've ever heard, since "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" by The Who. I know everyone thinks Oasis are dad rock, but I think that ending for "Rock 'n' Roll Star" is pretty out there.

Which is the most memorable of the two songs on Stop The Clocks that you play on?
"Songbird". I remember we recorded a version with Liam on bass, Noel on drums and Johnny Marr on electric guitar. We'd just come back from the Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants tour. There'd been a huge row in Barcelona, and Noel had simi-left the band. This was the first big storm that Gem and I weathered. Johnny came down for the weekend - he was like a father figure - and we worked through a load of Liam's songs. The one really big positive thing out of all this was that Liam really motivated. There was this day when we did "Songbird" and Noel just said: "look i want to play drums today." He wasn't in the mood to talk. And it came out like "Please Please Me", that kind of vibe. It was lovely, actually.

Source: Uncut Magazine

Noel and Liam talk about the songs on the second CD on Stop The Clocks

Live Forever

Single taken from: Definitely Maybe
Released: August 8, 1994
Highest chart position: 10
Produced by: Oasis/Mark Coyle

Noel: The song that changed everything. That and "Supersonic". It's sleazy rock'n' roll tune. The sentiment of "Live Forever", see, you can still live by that to this day, man. I remember writing that in Manchester and that had come out of Nirvana's second album, where he had a song called "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die". I was like "That c**t is sat in his mansion in Seattle, on smack, he's got everything, he's got the world at his feet, right, he's in the biggest and most revered band in the world today, and he fu**ing hates himself and he fu**ing wants to die." I was like: "I'm not fu**ing 'aving that! Bollocks! He might have been depressed, but there's no need bringing everybody else down!"
I remember, I was listening to Exile On Main Street, and it was "Shine A Light" which kicked off this song. You know that line: "May the good Lord shine a light on me"? I was on the guitar, going "Maybe I don't really wanna know"... It came out of that. It took me a night to write that song. And it's still the gig favourite. It's about friendship. Your best friend of that fu**ing night. The most important line in it is: "We'll see things they'll never see". When you have a friend and the two of you have a sit-com or a favourite album that everyone else thinks is shit, but you two know it's got something special.

Liam: Live, "Live Forever" is fucking fantastic, always is. I tell you, I wanna do something next year, otherwise we'll fu**ing go insane. I don't know how these bands have fu**ing two or three years off. And the way I see it, what's the fu**ing point of having all this time off if you've got the tunes? That's what we're here to do, mate - make music, do a gig. Not sit about all day scratching our heads, watching a bunch of other c***s do it. I've got loads of tunes. One's called "Guess I'm Out Of Time".

Acquiesce

B-side: Some Might Say
Single Released: April 24, 1995
Highest chart position: 1
Produced by: Owen Morris/Noel Gallagher

Noel: It's not about me and Liam. I wrote it on the train, going to Loco studios to record "Some Might Say". The train got stuck in the Severn Tunnel, signal failure, and it was in there for fu**ing hours and luckily enough I had me guitar, and I just wrote that song on the train. I didn't get a piece of paper and pen and write i, but I was humming the melody on the train. It has a second verse which Liam never sings, 'cos he's too fu**ing lazy. He asked the other day, "What second verse?", to which I replied: "The fu**ing second verse that you never sing that's on the fu**ing record." He says: "That's f**k all to do with me, man. That's the guy who outs my lyrics out, man - if he don't put it out, I don't fu**ing see it." He doesn't have lyrics for all the songs, just about three or four. I think one of them is "Supersonic". He has four monitors and these sheets. There's just these four songs he can't get his head around. And they're the real fu**ing old ones!

Supersonic

Single taken from the album: Definitely Maybe
Single released: April 11, 1994
Highest chart position: 31
Produced by: Oasis/Mark Coyle

Noel: McGee leant us some money to record a few songs because he was paranoid we were going to sign for someone else. I was thinking, I don't want to give the guy nothing, he might think these are a bunch of fu**ing chancers who've spunked it all on Es and coke. So I went in the backroom and just fu**ing wrote a song, and didn't think anything of it, and that version everyone knows is the rough mix from the night before. We left there at five in the morning. We were driving back to Manchester from Liverpool, as the sun was coming up, and we were listening to it on cassette in Mark Coyle's little fu**ing car, and it was fu**ing brilliant. We had to fight for about a good couple of weeks, to get it released as a single. McGee wanted "Bring It On Down", 'cos it was the Sex Pistols and all that, and the great thing about McGee is, he used to let his artists do whatever they want. We stuck by our guns. It's gotta be that tune, 'coz lyrically it was all nonsense that was written on the hoof, but it just set us apart from everybody else in the country. Y'know: dogs fu**ing sniffing Alka Seltzer and girls giving blow jobs to doctors in helicopters, you know what I mean? What? F**king hell, I'll have a bit of what they're on. But still, a great recording.

Liam: We recorded that in Liverpool. I remember the guitar sound, thinking that was new. It sounded really rough and raw.That was good. I never thought it was a hit, not like "Wonderwall" or maybe some of the others. I mean, we knew we were going to fu**ing big at some point, I just think it was time for the band. I remember going on The Word with it and after people started coming up for autographs, nice one, telly! I mean, it was all getting a bit big. I was well up for it, me. It didn't phase me one fu**ing bit. Everything was geared up for it, we practised nearly every f**king day. We were good, we weren't just f**king flukey. We weren't - not dissing the Mondays or, anything like that - we weren't like a lads band, we were grafting. I'm sure they were grafters, but they were in it for the crack more then the music. Do you know what i mean? I don't mean like, the crack, literally.

Half The World Away

B-side: Whatever
Single released: December 18, 1994
Highest chart position: 3
Produced by: Owen Morris/Noel Gallagher

Noel: "Half The World Away" was written at the same time as "Talk Tonight" during those Vegas sessions, so it's the second country and western song. We were away on tour somewhere, and we got this message from Craig Cash. I'd known him for a while, and he said he was doing this sit-com called The Royle Family and they wanted to use one of our tunes. Craig explained what it was about: it's a northern family could be Mancs, could be Scouse, they don't get on but they all love each other. I was thinking: "well, 'Married With Children' [off Definitely Maybe] is f**king perfect." Then when we got back and they said they were going to use "Half The World Away", it didn't make any fu**ing sense to me. For me it's all about desperately trying to leave the situation that you're in, dreaming of being somewhere else, leaving the house, leaving the city that you're in. When you put that together with the sort of situation like The Royle Family, it's kinda quite tragic. They're all tied to each other in that fu**ing little room.

Go Let It Out

Single taken from the album: Standing On The Shoulder of Giants
Single released: February 7, 2000
Highest chart position: 1
Produced by: Mark 'Spike' Stent/ Noel Gallagher

Noel: "Go Let It Out" and "Fuckin' In The Bushes" are the two redeeming features on Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants, the rest of it was kinda forced. I was making an album for the sake of it, really. "Go Let It Out" came quite quickly: I was in New York, the line in the song "The right time is always now", was on a billboard in Times Square. I wrote it in the Mercer Hotel, on a 12-string guitar. Sonically, it's one of my favourites, it sounds like a modern Beatles, I think. I'd lost all inspiration, I had nothing left to write about. You know, Definitely Maybe was written about being young, and about looking at the world like a huge great big fu**ing playground. Morning Glory was about being in that playgroun, and like "it's all actually kinds rotten here." Those first three albums all deal with the same sort of things. For the middle two, I had nothing left to write about, 'cos I had everything that I wanted. I had a big house in the country, I had money. I wasn't going to write about getting divorced. Let's not confuse anger with fu**ing misery. Great pop music - apart from the odd masterpiece, like "Ghost Town" or "Love Will Tear Us Apart" - is generally uplifting.

Songbird

Single taken from the album: Heathen Chemistry
Single released: February 2, 2003
Highest chart position: 3
Produced by: The band

Noel: Well. That's Liam's. It was a huge sigh of relief for me when he finally recorded it. 'Cos he played it to us for fu**ing six years, the fu**ing same two chords, and no words just, "Na na na na nah-nah..." Fu**ing shut up! Good Tune, though, I do like it. He would hear things on the radio, I don't know if they were hit bands at the time, he'd be like, "we're supposed to be fu**ing rock'n'roll, man what's all this fu**ing nonsense?" He still says it now, and y'know. I go, "Rock'n'roll band? I've got fu**ing one word for you: 'Songbird'. If you wanna write a rock'n'roll tune, fu**ing write it man, but, I've written lots of rock'n'roll tunes, you haven't written one." It's great he gets involved with the direction of the band now. Where it's not all just focused on me. With Gem and Andy writing tunes, it's getting even better. It's more of a band now than it's ever been.

Liam: We were in France, at somefu**ing chateau. I'd just started seeing Nicole, we went for a little play under a tree, and this tune pops up. I wrote it in just one day, man. I'm only doing it for me really. I don't do it for the band. All that department was Noel's. As long as everyone else is doing cool tunes, I'm happy. I'll sing anyone else in the band's tunes. I couldn't give a f**k how people see me as a songwriter. As long as they see me as a fu**ing decent frontman. A singer.

(What's The Story) Morning Glory?

Album Track: (What's The Story) Morning Glory?
Released: October 2, 1995
Highest chart position: 1
Produced by: Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher

Noel: Cocaine and fu**ing razorblades and mirrors, I'm amazed we got away with it at the time. I love it when we play it live. Somebody said to me on the phone once, it's an American saying: "What's the story, morning glory?", like we say, "All right, how you doing?" And I was like, f**k, hang on a minute, while I write that down, that's fu**ing starters, I'll have that.
The tune is great. It's brilliant to play it live and I think it's got enough nonsense in it to inspire the likes of Kasabian. They're like "Can you walk down a hall, slightly faster than a canonball?" Hello? Have you been taking drugs again? These two, "Morning Glory" and "Champagne Supernova", are fu**ing great for that. Can you be caught in a landslide in a champagne supernova in the sky? To me, the song, is a complete and utter picture, y'know. The lyrics for some people like the young chap from the Arctic Monkeys, are everything. And to Morrissey. To Bono, it's all about the words.
To me, nah. The words don't mean a great deal to me. They're just a vehicle, they're just the means to get the fu**ing engine started. You have the song, I ain't gonna labour over the lyrics. Sometimes they're great. In "Live Forever", they're fu**ing brilliant. And in "Talk Tonight" they're brilliant.
All the good ones, you kinda nail quite quickly, but lyrics, I'm not really arsed about that. I've read that all the time people thought Dylan's lyrics were nonsense. But when you listen to them in the context of the music, they're magnificent. I guess if you read the Arctic Monkeys' lyrics, you think that's a piece of work. The stories in Morrissey's lyrics, you don't need the song to bring it to life.

Liam: We were out on the piss onre day in the village and brought back a load of f**king people, a couple of chicks and geezers, y'know, just the ladsan' that having a bit of a party. Noel's come in and flung everybody out. Me and him had a bit of a go. I think I smashed the gaff up pretty tasty, actually. I remember waking up up the next day, in the corner, that's tipped up. I think I'd smashed me leg up, and I went back to Wigan with [designer] Brian Cannon. We went to Wigan Pier, on Crutches.

Champagne Supernova

Album track: (What's The Story) Morning Glory
Released: October 2, 1995
Highest chart position: 1
Produced by: Owen Morris/Noel Gallagher

Noel: "Champagne Supernova" was kinda like our "Stairway To Heaven" at the time. I remember Weller coming down to do the guitar solo, and we all just got absolutely steaming drunk f**king pissed. Mixed it drunk. And it still breaks my heart to this day when i hear it. "Why didn't you turn the solo up?" he asked me. "I didn't fu**ing mix it", I said. So he starts having a go at me: "You fu**ing turned it down on purpose, you c**t." And I'm like: "Why would I do that, mate, you're a miles better guitarist than I am..." But I remember those being good times in the studio. Coz we'd already had the success of Definitely Maybe, we knew we could do it, d'you know what I mean?

Liam: That's a fu**ing mega tune. I like the title, me. That's when it was like, that's when it was havin' it. The name says it all, d'you know what I mean? Champagne Supernova. What the f**k's that about! I haven't got a clue. It just reminds me of getting pissed, in a big style way. F**kin' havin' loads of fu**ing drugs. That's what that means. Champagne just means booze and Supernova is fu**ing out of it! We usually play it around the end of the night. I'm usually a big fu**ed by then.

Don't Look Back In Anger

Single taken from the album: (What's The Story) Morning Glory?
Highest chart position: 1
Released: February 19, 1996
Produced by: Owen Morris/Noel Gallagher

Noel: That all started in Paris. I remember, and I would never fu**ing do this now, It's so fu**ing ridiculous... we were in Paris playing with The Verve, and I had the chords for that song. We were due to play two days later. Our first ever big arena gig, it's called Sheffield Arena now. It was called something else then. The Verve pulled out, because of a flight or something, and they were breaking up for the first time. I got to the soundcheck, and I wrote the words out in the dressing room, and we actually fu**ing played it that night, in front of like, fu**ing 18,000 people or something like that. On acoustic guitar. Sat on a stool. Like and idiot. I never fu**ing do that now. And it'a the biggest song of the night now, when we play it live. Which must do Liam's head in because he doesn't sing it but it makes me feel pretty good.

Source: Uncut Magazine

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