Liam Gallagher has exclusively revealed to MTV News that Beady Eye have already started working on new material for their "storming" second album, which he hopes will be released next summer.
Gallagher, who formed Beady Eye in 2009 with former members of Oasis when his brother, Noel Gallagher, quit the legendary Brit pop band, said fans should expect a “massive wall of sound, great anthems and epic tunes”.
The frontman revealed: “We’ve started and it’s sounding good – we’re not messing about. We’ll have bits of time off but we won’t be sitting around watching Jeremy Kyle, we’ll be in the studio. It won’t be out this year, but we’ll record about February and I reckon it’ll be out next summer.”
Gallagher was at Wembley Stadium on Saturday to watch his beloved Manchester City win the FA Cup, but he thinks it’ll be a “long time” before Beady Eye play a show there.
He explained: “I’m not in the mood for doing big gigs just yet. Our first tour was great – it was great starting off again and playing the smaller venues."
Liam added: "The album went down pretty well and it was good to see people’s faces again, but we’ll move on to bigger and better things because album two is gonna be storming.”
Speaking at the launch of his fashion label Pretty Green’s second London store, Gallagher stated that he still only wants cool kids to wear his clothes: “You don’t know if you’re cool until you’ve put my gear on."
"You might have been a bit of a d**k before you try mine, but there’s room for everyone. I don’t want no idiots wearing it."
Gallagher continued: “When someone comes up to you and says ‘I like your music’ and they look cool that makes my day, but if they look like a f**king clown I’m wondering if I’m making the right music. I’d hate to see the Queen wearing Pretty Green.”
“I’ve had an amazing week. Opening my store, being in Beady Eye, Man City winning the FA Cup, being alive... life couldn’t get any better.”
Oasis star Noel Gallagher and Badly Drawn Boy singer Damon Gough are set to take the stage at City’s sold-out homecoming party.
The M.E.N. understands Burnage-born Gallagher, a lifelong Blue, is currently in discussions with the club. And officials hope Gough, from Chorlton, will also take part in the celebrations after Roberto Mancini’s men have paraded the FA Cup through the city on an open-top bus.
It is also thought members of the last Blues squad to win the Cup, in 1969, will be honoured on what promises to be a night to remember for fans. All 47,000 free tickets for Monday’s extravaganza have been snapped up.
Details of City's victory parade and fan party
The Blues will head to Eastlands from Albert Square at 6pm. They are expected at the stadium at 8pm. A giant fireworks display is expected to bring the curtain down on the evening at around 9.45pm.
Manchester council expects more than 100,000 fans to turn out for the parade and event. Some 400 police officers have been drafted in to deal with the crowds.
# A memorial match will take place tomorrow at Hyde’s Ewen Fields in memory of City legend Ken Barnes, who passed away last July.
Barnes played nearly 300 times for the Blues and, in an association with the club that lasted 46 years, he also worked as assistant manager, coach and chief scout. Several of the youngsters he helped recruit will turn out for the 3pm match.
The teams include ex-Maine Road heroes Uwe Rosler, Paul Dickov, Asa Hartford, Andy Morrison, Ian Brightwell, Kevin Reeves, Colin Hendry, Richard Edghill and Neil Pointon.
Admission will be £5 for adults and £3 for children, with all proceeds going to the Stroke Society Fund. Team One will be coached by Shaun Goater and Paul Lake, while club ambassador Mike Summerbee will be in charge of Team Two.
Below you can watch an inteview with Liam Gallagher a lifelong and avid Man City fan and gets his eager hands on the blue side of Manchester's shiny new FA Cup.
In an exclusive interview with FATV Liam reflects on his confidence in the team, the party atmosphere and the Poznan!
Click here for pictures from last nights official Covent Garden store opening.
Liam Gallagher has said he believes brother Noel is a "poor Manchester City fan" for not attending the FA Cup final last Saturday (May 14).
Speaking to XFM, he said: "He's a scaredy cat. He can't handle being in with the real fans. He was in LA, wasn't he? With all those LA type people."
Gallagher added that his brother was a "poor City fan" especially because "he's on the fucking radio every fucking weekend talking about football and he's not there. Poor, mate. I'm sure he had bigger things to do."
Manchester City, the team both the Gallagher brothers support, lifted the FA Cup trophy last Saturday after beating Stoke City 1-0.
As well as slamming his brother ex-Oasis singer Liam also said that his new band Beady Eye are well underway in the writing of the follow up to their debut album, 'Different Gear, Still Speeding'. He said it would be released next summer.
"We've been in the studio messing around with a few tunes," he said. "We're going to finish the tour about Christmas time, then about February go in the studio and hopefully have it out by summer. We're not going to rush it, but we're not going to fuck about either. We've got the songs, we're ready to go."
Andy Bell has been at the epicenter of British rock music since the late 1980s, when his band Ride were at the forefront of the shoegaze scene. From there, he did time with Britpoppers Hurricane #1 and Gay Dad before landing on the mothership of British rock with Oasis. With Noel Gallagher and company, Bell set down the guitar for the first time and quickly learned the bass. In the aftermath of Oasis’ 2009 breakup, Bell remained with bandmates Liam Gallagher, Gem Archer and Chris Sharrock to form a new group, Beady Eye. The band released their first album, Different Gear, Still Speeding, in February to positive reviews, only bolstered by the group’s subsequent live performances.
Bell sat down at the Gibson NYC Showroom to talk about Beady Eye, his beloved Trini Lopez and the amazing run of drummers in his career.
“The alternatives at the time were to either keep playing together or go home and sit there watching daytime TV,” says Andy Bell, who was Oasis’ bassist and is now playing guitar in Beady Eye, the band he and Oasis mates Colin “Gem” Archer, Liam Gallagher and Chris Sharrock came up with. Its debut album, Different Gear, Still Speeding, came out in February. The decision to stick together wasn’t a hard one.
“I don’t think any of us really had the urge to go out and find anybody else to play with,” says the 40-year-old Bell, who had fronted the British band Ride before joining Oasis in 1999. “We were very happy playing music together, so it seemed like the most natural thing in the world that me, Gem, Liam and Chris would continue. So we just kind of decided to do it as a new band.”
A new band, perhaps, but one with a musical pedigree few new acts can boast, as well as a history both laudable and notorious. Oasis did, after all, have a run that included eight consecutive No. 1 albums in the UK and 70 million records sold worldwide.
America was less enthused, but Oasis still had three platinum-or-better releases in the US, with ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory (1995) selling more than four million copies, and enjoyed hits such as Live Forever (1994), Wonderwall (1995), Don’t Look Back in Anger (1996), Champagne Supernova (1996) and Don’t Go Away (1998).
Oasis was undone, however, by the very public feuding between the Gallagher brothers, to which the various other band members – eight in the group’s 19-year history – were mere bystanders. Noel Gallagher had often spoken of striking out on his own, and the final blowup in Paris included Liam breaking one of Noel’s guitars. Even so, Bell says, the end came as “a bit of a shock.”
“I guess I should have been prepared for it to end that way,” the guitarist says, speaking by telephone from his home in Manchester, England.
“But, when you think back, (the conflict) was happening constantly, really, so who knew when it was really the end, you know?
“But, in saying that, I don’t want to give the impression that it was always bad,” Bell hastens to add, “because, if you fight every six months, then you’ve still got six months of good times in-between. Basically most of the time it was a brilliant laugh, and then there were dark moments. That’s the best way I can describe it.”
It would be easy for the spurned musicians to trash their former leader, but Bell will have none of it.
“I would never slag off Noel,” he says. “Oasis was a band that definitely worked. It was a great band to be in, and I think it’s true to say that we would have carried on with Oasis until we all dropped dead if that was what was wanted. But it was Noel’s baby. Noel was the leader and he called the shots, which is only right. And some great music was made, man.
“But Beady Eye is kind of the opposite of that,” Bell continues. “It’s a democratic band. We all have an equal say. We all come in with ideas and songs, and we’re all involved with the sleeve design and the video treatments and photographs and everything. We’re trying to do this as a unit, and we kind of like the novelty of it at the moment. It kind of appeals to us.” Bell and company didn’t take long to get Beady Eye up and running.
“We came back to London having decided to continue in some way,” the guitarist recalls. “There was no mention of a band name or anything. It was like, ‘Let’s just continue doing stuff.’ In a way it was an experiment.” The attempt could easily have failed, he admits.
“It could have turned out that we didn’t play well together in that new way,” Bell says. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. The quartet started working on new music immediately, beginning with Beatles and Stones, a song which pays homage to their musical forebears and, Bell says, also “sums up the idea that we want to stand the test of time.”
The group made a series of demo tapes in a small studio, operating the equipment themselves and knocking out tracks such as Millionaire and The Roller, both of which ended up on Different Gear, Still Speeding and established Beady Eye as a worthwhile endeavour.
“Once those three were done we started to feel like, ‘Yep, this is going to work,”’ Bell says. “There wasn’t much of the, ‘Let’s have a meeting and decide what the Beady Eye sound is going to be.’ The sound of the album is really just the sound of the 13 songs we came up with.”
There was instant excitement when word of the band leaked out. Producer Steve Lillywhite, whose track record includes the Dave Matthews Band, the Psychedelic Furs, the Rolling Stones, U2, XTC and more, actually approached Beady Eye about working with them, rather than the other way around.
Different Gear, Still Speeding sounds a good deal like, well, Oasis.
“Well, we all were in that band, and Liam was the singer,” Bell says dryly.
It’s closer, however, to the ascendant Oasis of the 1990s than to the band in its more convoluted later years, when Archer, Bell and Liam Gallagher joined Noel Gallagher in the songwriting.
It brings the same kind of reverence toward its British pop and rock forebears, aware of being part of a musical lineage and defiant in its claim to the same melodic and sonic elements as its predecessors. The Roller sounds like it’s about to break into John Lennon’s Instant Karma! (1970) at any second, while The Beat Goes On nods to the Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie.
“There really isn’t a message other than that it’s just about the songs,” Bell says. It’s just about the music, and our drive is all about making the records the best they can be and being the best live band that we can be, and that’s the end in and of itself. It’s very simple.
On Thursday 18th May there will be an exclusive 20% discount off all Green Label items in our Carnaby Street store which will run from 17:00pm – 21:00pm.
To help you shop in style Eddie Pillar will also be DJ’ing instore between 18:00pm & 19:30pm. In order to be eligible for the discount you need to register and bring with you a free ticket from 'Carnaby London'.
You can register for a free ticket from 'Carnaby London' by clicking here.
A short trip away, Liam Gallagher will be officially launching our Covent Garden store. We have a whole host of events to celebrate the launch including a free goodie bag giveaway with limited edition (A6) postcards & Pretty Green badge. Also, following the success of Manchester City at Wembley, the FA Cup will be making a special appearance at the store.
The official launch will kick off at 18:30pm. We will be filming the evening so hope to see a lot of familiar faces.
On April 16th, Beady Eye released an exclusive 7-inch box set in celebration of Record Store Day.
Beady Eye's US and Canadian record label Dangerbird Records have given us a copy to give one away in an easy to enter competition.
The box set is limited to just 2,000 copies (available in the USA only) and includes three 7” singles for “Bring The Light,” “Four Letter Word,” and “The Roller,” each featuring a rare b-side. Also included in the box is a 13×19” poster & digital download of three live tracks recorded for KEXP Radio in Seattle.
Fans could only find the box at local independent music stores listed on the Record Store Day website.
Tracklisting: 1. Bring The Light 2. Sons of the Stage 3. Four Letter Word 4. World Outside My Room 5. The Roller 6. Two of A Kind 7. The Beat Goes On (Live from KEXP) 8. Three Ring Circus (Live from KEXP) 9. Millionaire (Live from KEXP)
All you have to do to to win the box set is join the Beady Eye and Dangerbird mailing lists details here.
One winner will be picked at random by Dangerbird Records on July 1st 2011.
The Auction Ends on May 22nd, the current winning bid is $1,877. 53.
Beady Eye were among several acts to appear at a recent fundraiser for the Red Cross Japanese Disaster Benefit at Brixton Academy. The evening raised £163,262.97.
During the evening many of the performers signed a Japanese flag which is set to go up for auction in aid of the Japanese Red Cross on May 16th. The winner of the auction will have their name written on the flag by the members of Beady Eye.
Check out the auction here, below are a few pictures of the flag.
Former music mogul Alan Mcgee has denied his legendary chance discovery of British band Oasis was set up by record industry bosses, insisting the rumour is "rubbish".
MCGee was head of independent label Creation Records in 1993 when he watched a short gig by the Wonderwall hitmakers after arriving early for another band's concert in his native Scotland.
Legend has it MCGee was so impressed he immediately told Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher he wanted to sign them on the spot - and they went on to become the biggest British group of the last 20 years, selling 50 million albums worldwide.
Recent rumours have suggested the "chance" meeting was actually set up in advance by bosses at the Sony record label - but MCGee is adamant the random encounter with the unsigned band is true.
He tells rock magazine Nme, "You're believing rubbish! Of course I was there! Ask Noel Gallagher! I've heard this story once before - someone connected to The Libertines said that Sony gave them to me. As if Sony would give me a band that sold 50 million records to put out so I could get all the money! Life's not that nice! People don't actually want to give you credit. I've heard that I didn't find Oasis, I didn't do this, I didn't do that. How many things didn't I f**king do?"
And Gallagher has backed up his former mentor's version of events, adding: "Lots of people still don't want to believe that story, (but) the first time I ever met (MCGee) was at (that gig)."
The video below shows footage a the King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow, Scotland. Included is footage of Oasis performing Up In The Sky on that infamous night.
We're celebrating the release of a new film about Creation Records with a massive special on the label. 'Label'? More like 'rock n roll training camp for lunatics'. We speak to Alan McGee, Bobby G, Noel G, G Rhys and all the rest about the rise and fall of the label that put out 'Screamadelica', 'Definitely Maybe', and that Kevin Rowlands one where he's in a dress on the cover...
Taken from an interview with Alan Mcgee, read the full article here.
What I thought was a good point was when Noel [Gallagher of Oasis] talks about the end of Creation Records. I remember talking to people who worked for the label the day you shut it down and it seemed almost everybody, aside from you, was like, “What the fuck are they doing? This is so unnecessary!” Do you ever look back and think, “Shit, maybe I should have kept it going”?
Not at all. See, the last ten years have been really interesting for me. There’s no way I’d have ended up doing what I’m doing now if I’d have kept Creation going. You don’t learn anything unless you go down a different path. You could look at that decade and go, “Well, he managed the Libertines, signed the Hives, signed Glasvegas and sold millions more records”—you could go on about all that shite, but I’ve learned a lot more about life in the last decade than I did in the one before it.
I think you learn more from getting stuff wrong than getting stuff right, too. Between 1990 and 1994 we really got it right artistically, and from ’94 onwards we really got it right commercially. We could have just rolled on if we were only in it for the money. We could have hired a staff of six or seven people and loads more bands, but you know what? Creation was an idea that Joe Foster and I had in 1983, and by ’96 we had achieved that idea, but back then my ego was too big to let it go, so I continued to ’99. It got to a point where it was just really drudgey—like we’re all sat around off our faces, waiting for the next Oasis album so we can be number one again, waiting for the next Primal Scream album so we can be number two again, you know what I mean? It was time to get out.
You had the big drug heart attack on the plane and then gave up partying during the time that Oasis were going bananas with the second record. Did you ever go to NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meetings?
I went once or twice, but I think I went to the wrong places. I went to the Peckham one and I remember people talking about shooting people. So it was never that appealing. I just did it one-on-one, sort of. And it’s okay now. I see people like Gillespie and the guys who are probably slightly damaged goods now because we all did a lot of drugs, but it’s all okay.
I have a theory that there has been a massive rise in cocaine use in this country...
It’s probably got a lot worse quality…
And I have a theory that people like yourself and Noel Gallagher are personally responsible for that rise. What do you think about that?
Haha. I think it’s an interesting theory.
All of a sudden, after Definitely Maybe, it seemed that everybody in the country was suddenly doing more cocaine. There was never really a band on the radio all the time that promoted cocaine use as much as Oasis. And I am being serious, too.
Well, I think I am being serious back. I think drugs are endemic in society. People think drugs are rock’n’roll, but everyone does drugs. Not to do drugs is probably more rock’n’roll. Literally, the guy that comes and fixes my cupboard in my house, he probably goes out on a Friday and comes back on a Sunday. You know what I mean? I think there was a point in the 90s when Noel said “drugs are like having a cup of tea” in the toilets at some party somewhere. It took us six months to get over that one, off-the-cuff remark.