Having spent much of the last eight years moonlighting with various bands - most notably recording a clutch of demos with half of The Smiths in his basement home studio - this month Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs jumps Hadrian's wall for a rare gig in Glasgow. Dave Kerr tracked him down to speak frankly about past glories, life after Oasis and what he makes of the Gallagher's post-millennial output.
You've been recording with Moondog One [formed with Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke in 2001], but otherwise maintained a pretty low profile in the years since you split from Oasis, what's been keeping you occupied in recent times?
I’ve been doing a lot of work for a band from Manchester called The Vortex, they had a single out last week and I played on that. So I’ve been doing a lot of gigs with them, like a semi-permanent member of the band as it were. They’re really good, really enjoying playing with them. Alan McGee’s just latched onto them; we just played Death Disco - McGee’s club down in London – four weeks ago. He’s still quite in touch and thinks they can do something, so he’s gonna book them non-stop from January to June of next year to big them up and see what goes.
You say semi-permanent -- would you entertain the idea of touring with a band fulltime again?
Not really, no; I’m still playing guitar at home and whatever, doing stuff just myself but I met up with these lads and just love the whole attitude, they’re sort of like Primal Scream with Denise Johnson. They’ve a girl called Jaxx on backing vocals who’s just joined and she’s really lifted them up. When they asked me if I’d play on the record I jumped at the chance. Then they asked if I’d like to come up onstage and thought ‘yeah, love to’. Their whole approach really caught my eye and my ear. The atmosphere of the gigs reminds me of the feeling I had about Oasis in the early days, so I’m really enjoying that.”
Speaking of those early days, Definitely Maybe took the band to dizzy heights - literally overnight - and Oasis are probably one of the last bands to have that happen on such a huge scale before the advent of the internet. A lot fans and pundits often refer to that era as Oasis’s artistic pinnacle. How would you describe the experience, in retrospect?
It was difficult, because we really were just a bunch of kids who’d come off the streets and had been offered a record deal then chucked in the studio. To be put in a situation like that in the studio, it was all new to us; we didn’t know what we were doing. We knew what we wanted; we wanted somebody to capture the sound of us as we were on stage. We had trouble because we had the wrong record producer [Dave Batchelor – one-time boom operator for Return of the Jedi - his only remaining cut from the sessions would be Slide Away]. He wasn’t capturing us the way he should. It was pretty sore at times, but eventually we got that right, we got the right people in [Stone Roses sound technician Mark Coyle and Verve producer Owen Morris] and we did it. It was heads down and full on, 24-7 recording, we were absolutely lapping it up, loved it.
Did Noel really just waltz in and start pouring out the classics?
When Noel first came into the band, he came in just to jam really. We were just a four piece and he came in armed with all the songs. The first song he ever played us was Live Forever, and we were just like ‘Wow, where’d you get that?’ And he said ‘Words, music, finished. Here you go; there are the chords…do it.’ Song’s done. He came ready equipped with the first album and plenty more, it was pretty amazing really.
Besides the songs, the cocksure bravado of the Brothers Gallagher quickly made the band a household name, but behind the scenes did you really believe that so much success could be had with three chords and an attitude?
I don’t think any of us thought we could have had so much success. It was quite obvious to us after a few months of rehearsing – before we’d even played any gigs - that we were going to do something, but we never thought we were going to dominate the music scene as we did. If somebody had said ‘in just a couple of years you’re going to be headlining two nights at Knebworth to quarter of a million people’, we’d have been like ‘nah, surely not’. But there we were and we did it. It’s all beyond my expectations.
Post-Knebworth – on the streets of Manchester - you must’ve felt a bit like Rocky Balboa returning home after finally beating Apollo Creed, no?
It was a bit mad. But even now I get nothing but absolute respect off people. For the part of Oasis that I belonged to, people still have absolute maximum respect for that and anywhere you go, clubs, pubs, streets, shops – wherever – people always walk up, shake your hand and pat you on the back and say ‘thanks for what you did, you made it for me’. It’s all nice and positive.
Noel infamously left the band during your first big American tour, what went through your head at that time?
We thought that was it, I think we played the Whiskey in Los Angeles and the morning after that Noel upped, left and went to Vegas. We didn’t know where he was. We lost him for a few weeks and any messages we did get back when we found him were ‘I’m not coming back’. So we just thought that was it, ‘brief but beautiful, what’s going to happen next?’ We were bunkered up in a hotel in Los Angeles, we called it the war bunker and were like ‘right, let’s try and put a search party out for Noel, let’s find him, he’s somewhere in the world.’ Scary, it was. Anyway, he came back and the rest’s history.
The circumstances of your departure from Oasis have always been a bit of mystery. There were dozens of tabloid stories, of course – I remember one that suggested you and [former Oasis bassist] Guigs poured wine over Liam [who was understood to be teetotal at the time] while he was asleep when the band was in France, and that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. What really went wrong?
All that was a load of crap. Basically, what it was, when we’d come to record Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, we’d rented the biggest château you’ve ever seen in the south of France and brought in all our equipment and set up our own studio there. It should’ve been fun, it should’ve been brilliant, and it wasn’t. I got the feeling that no one was enjoying it, the atmosphere wasn’t good and to me, personally, to go on and finish the album then go out and tour it for a year and a half, I wouldn’t have been true to the band. I wouldn’t have been giving 100%, and you can’t be part of that band if you’re giving something slightly less than that, which I would have been doing. So I walked, it was time to go. I look back and I had the best time of my life playing with that band but the last thing I was going to do was lie to any of those lads and pretend I was enjoying it. The whole buzz had just fallen then, but I’m sure it’s back now for the band, it seems to be.
Any regrets?
No, it’s a long time ago. People always talk about ‘what if?’ but it was a long time ago. The first year was a bit odd, it was a bit like being at home, getting back to normality, walking the streets and getting used to that really. Then people stopped asking questions in the street and accepted the fact that I’d left. It was especially odd when Andy and Gem joined and they started touring again, but there were no regrets for sure. I look back at all the good times. I only ever look back positively. I made the decision and it wasn’t one I made lightly.
I couldn’t get you on the phone and not ask you this question: The new Oasis album isn’t long out, what do you make of it?
Yeah, I really like the album. I went to see them in Birmingham the other night and it was brilliant. I think they’ve gone back to their roots, with a little twist, back to what you’d expect Oasis to come out with. It’s really direct, there’s a lot of power and to watch them doing it on stage the other night and see the energy coming out was just incredible.
And the direction they've taken since the ‘classic’ lineup dissolved?
I think they’ve finally found it again. I’m always going to be Oasis’ number one fan but I’m also going to be Oasis’ number one critic. I’m always going to say ‘you’re never going to catch that energy and that rawness that we had on Definitely Maybe’, and even the two after that but especially Definitely Maybe. I’m always going to say it’s not quite Definitely Maybe and it never is going to be – because that is the album.
You could see it the other night in the crowd reaction, as soon as they launched into Supersonic, Rock ’n’ Roll Star, Cigarettes and Alcohol – the crowd went ballistic. And it’s like, there you go. Some of the albums in-between it were like ‘yeah, alright, but not quite’. But, again, I’m always going to love them but I’m always going to hate them as well. It’s difficult for me to say.
Didn't you need a disguise to get into the gig without incident?
I got mobbed the minute I drove in, it was probably a bad move but I thought ‘I’ve got to get down there’. They got me a parking pass so I wasn’t going to be in with the kids but they spotted me coming in and I got battered to say the least. It was alright though; it was all well-natured.
So you’re all on good terms?
Yeah, it’s difficult to meet up; they’re in London, I’m in Manchester but I’ve been out for a drink or 10 with Liam and half the band, which is alright. I actually played Death Disco a few years back with a band called The Seers and Liam turned up to watch us. I played a gig not last year but the one before for Manchester versus Cancer at the big Arena here, I was in [Electric Milk] band with big Gaz Whelan of the Happy Mondays, we opened up and Noel was headlining. We met up there and that was all cool.
Do you think Oasis could be the new Stones – will they ever relent?
It really is Noel and Liam, isn’t it? Whoever comes and goes in-between, I think there’ll still be them. I think they’ll be around till they drop, I don’t think there’s any way they’re going to stop – no way.
In terms of what the future holds, you’re playing with [Glaswegian singer/songwriter] Pete MacLeod at the minute, which seems a little bit obscure given that he’s based in Los Angeles. How did that come about?
He’s a good friend of McGee’s. He’s really into his stuff. I just got a call through saying that ‘this guy Pete MacLeod’s coming over to the UK for a few acoustic gigs, and would you be interested in jumping on stage and joining him for a couple of numbers?’ I had a listen, really liked it and he agreed to come over to do two or three gigs in the UK, but two or three gigs has since turned into four weeks touring, which is great. There’s a bit of a demand and it’s all evolved from that phone call.
Is there a recording collaboration on the cards too?
We don’t know what’s going to happen; we’ll see how we work together.
Source: www.theskinny.co.uk
