Andy Bell Interview

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.

Click here to watch the interview.

Source: www.gibson.com

Brother On Beady Eye

Click here to find out what Brother think of Beady Eye, if they would ever collaborate with Morrissey and who their biggest inspirations are.

On This Day In Oasis History...

Below is a video from the 20th of May 2005, when Oasis appeared on the 'Late Late Show' in Dublin, Ireland.

Beady Eye Talk Pretty Green

Below is short interview with Andy Bell, Gem Archer and Liam Gallagher, that was broadcast in Italy on May 2nd.

Thanks to frjdoasis3

Andy Bell Interview

“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.

Source: www.timesofoman.com

20% Discount Off Green Label At Carnaby Street

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.

Source: www.prettygreen.com

On This Day In Oasis History...

Below is a video from May 19th 2007, when Noel Gallagher appeared on Soccer AM.

Win A Beady Eye Box Set From Dangerbird Records

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.

Signed Japanese Flag By Beady Eye, Paul Weller, Kelly Jones And More Up For Auction

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.

Alan McGee Denies Oasis Meeting Was Set Up

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)."

Source: www.contactmusic.com

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.

Oasis Night In Tokyo This Weekend

This weekend is the 10th anniversary of the 'Oasis Night' club night in Tokyo Japan.

Below are numerous pictures from previous 'Oasis Night's', that have been held in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka.

For more details click here and here.

In This Week's NME Magazine

In this week's NME...

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...

Alan Mcgee Talks Oasis

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.

Source: www.viceland.com

Upside Down The Story Of Creation Records is in store now, and entered the Official Music DVD Chart at number two this week.

Vincent Kompany Splashes Out £6,000 On A Signed Guitar

Manchester City defender Vincent Kompany has been a rock for The Blues this season so deserves to treat himself.

The Belgian international splashed out £6,000 on a Gibson guitar signed by Noel Gallagher.

Vincent was bidding at an auction during a charity fashion event organised by City keeper Shay Given.

Source: www.thesun.co.uk

Beady Eye's 'The Roller' Playmobil Video

Below is a fan-made video for Beady Eye's 'The Roller.'

More great Playmobil videos by Lunalunatomo

Win Some Beady Eye Artwork

To celebrate the greatest domestic trophy there is in Worldwide football, Liam Gallagher has dug deep and produced a fitting piece of Rock N Roll Silverware for SPORT as a competition for their readers. The artwork is taken from their recently released debut album ‘Different Gear, Still Speeding’ which entered the UK charts at No. 3 and has since gone gold. The album has charted around the world including a No.1 record in Japan.

Click here to enter the competition.

Source: www.sport.co.uk

John Mackie Featuring Bonehead Updated Tour Dates

May 20th - Friends of Mine Festival - Cheshire

June 4th - Playground - Whitehaven
June 24th The Cellar Southampton

July 9th - Globe - Cardiff

August 12th - Beckfest - Cumbria

Visit John's Facebook page here for ticket information, and pictures from a number of gigs they have done to date.

On This Day In Oasis History...

On May 15th 1996, at the time Oasis became the fastest-selling group in U.K. history after all 330,000 tickets for their summer shows sold out in just nine hours.

The tickets for shows at Knebworth and Loch Lomand were priced at £22.50.

Over 2.6 million people applied for tickets for the shows, making it the largest ever demand for concert tickets in British history.

Liam Gallagher Goes For A Ride On His Bike

Rock icon Liam Gallagher knows the rules when taking a bicycle onto a ferry - you have to dismount and Roll With It.

The Oasis frontman took time out from a family holiday in the exclusive Sandbanks resort in Poole, Devon, to ditch his wild man image and go for an idyllic cycle ride by himself.

The 38-year-old singer had been relaxing at the West Country resort with wife Nicole Appleton, before whisking her off to Wembley for Manchester City's historic FA Cup win over Stoke City on Saturday.

Let's just hope he found a faster mode of transport than a push bike to get back to London though... as that would have taken some wheel effort.

The couple have visited the millionaire's playground a number of times in the past and are rumoured to be looking to buy a property in the area.

They appeared to be getting to know the locals during their break, as they visited shops, a marina a hair salon and dined in a posh restaurant in the resort.

But by Saturday the calm was over as the family traveled to London to watch Liam's favourite football team win their first trophy 35 years.

Kitted out in Manchester City's sky-blue strip with the letters 'GALLAGHER 11' printed on the back, Liam cheered the team to a 1-0 victory.

These holiday pictures reveal a calmer side to the wild man rockstar.
In January Gallagher revealed how a fan once snorted his dandruff after mistaking it for a chunk of cocaine.

The singer, who was once known for his own use of the drug, said the man had spotted a flake from his scalp after he performed at Glastonbury, then popped it up his nostril.

Click here to see a number of pictures of Liam at Wembley and on his bike.

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Noel Gallagher: 'The Manchester City FA Cup Win Was Never In Doubt'

Oasis legend Noel Gallagher tells Andy and Bobby why Stoke never had a chance against Manchester City, and why United couldn't put City in the shade this season!

To listen to the full interview with Noel click here.