archival oasis blogging

I loved the first part of the <There and Then> video. I still remember how at the end of <The Swamp Song>, Liam walked on and shouted "Acquiesece" to the mic, while you striked the chords to kickstart the gig. It was unforgettable. Amazing.

N: Hmm that sure was a good show.

What do you think tonight's gig is gonna be like?

N: I think it'd be interesting! Our lead singer is in a funny mood now and we're probably gonna have a car crash tonite. I never try to predict anything. You know there's so much shit in life you're gonna be dragged down if you set your hopes too high, right? What I know is I'm gonna be brilliant, but I can't control the crowd to sing along, or clap or anything...I'll just make sure that I play well and sing well, that's what I'll try to do.

How do you prepare yourself for a show even when you know you're not at your best?

N: That's a difficult question...You don't really need to be in a good mood to play a gig you know. For me it's always do it first, and worry later, yeah.

---

Sometimes I feel so inconfident on stage.

N: Why? What's the worst thing that can happen?

Like, your monitor goes quiet, and all sorts of things...

N: I don't use a monitor. Never. Just shut it down, man.

What, really?

N: I only need one when I need to sing, rest of the time I'd switch it off and just listen with me ears. I mean what's the worst thing that can happen? People might get up and leave, big deal!

Not able to hear anything from the monitor...that freaks me out.

N: So what? You should know what you're playing anyway. Even if I can't hear anything, I'd still know how to play a song! You're never gonna, and you should never, never try to play a song as it sounds on the record! I'm never bothered with with that.

--- Any words of advice for people in a band?

N: Just don't think too damn much, you know? Just chill and enjoy it! Tell you what, I never give advices cos I don't take any. Just enjoy yourself....How old are u, son?

28.

N: 28, that's great, soon you'd be 50 and it's all gonna pass...so don't worry about anything.

Thanks for the advice!

---

Where do you get your inspirations from?

N: Man, I dunno. It just comes. I was not trained to be a musician or lyricist or anything like that. You just pick up the guitar and it'd come. I don't know where that's from. It just happens.

What are your plans after this tour?

N: We aint got any to be honest. Apart from a long break. No plans whatsoever for the next record or for other people.

Which songs would you recommend? Out of <Dig Out Your Soul>?

N: The first one, <Bag it up>, <Waiting for the Rapture>, <Soldier On>.

What kind of music fans would you recommend these to?

N: I don't think like that. You should just get the sound right. It's to do with "What I do" and "Who I am" and not "Who YOU are". I think if I like something then someone else would probably agree it's good as well.

You mentioned in an interview that you liked this song <Magic Colours> by a 70s Hong Kong musician called Teddy Robins. It happens that <Dig Out Your Soul> is very psychedelic sounding as well. Did you get you inspirations from there somehow?

N: I got this record called <Love, Piece and Poetry> in a record shop in London which was supposed to be a 60s psychedelic record from Asia. I thought there might be some good stuff in there and that track, <Magic Colours>, it fxxking blew me away! A bit like Jimi Hendrix or something, probably one of the best thing I've ever heard! But no I didn't get my inspirations from there, at least I probably don't play guitar as good as he does.

Are you familiar with other Asian music?

N: No to be honest I don't know anything about the music here. I'd listen to stuff from the US, India, Germany, Sweden and France though.

---

I got into Oasis since WSTMG, and I was crazy about it, singing <Don't look back in anger> with my twin brother all the time...

N: You have a twin brother? Is he in the same band as you?

No...

N: He was, wasn't he?? Kick him out!!

Now you used to be working class...

N: I still am.

...well our band is sort of from the working level as well. We're still struggling. Do you have any things to say to young people and musicians here, cos most young people would just spend their time playing video games and stuff...

N: That's what it's about these days isn't it? In my days, people were into music like people are into video games now. If they want to sit in front of a computer all day long...then they could try to make some music on the computer. In fact, the guitar is one of the most difficult thing you can learn in the world. It's much easier with a computer. I started playing the guitar becos I had nothing better to do. My life was really shit.

And it took me around 15 years to really learn how to play it well. Even now I'm still spending all my time learning things about the guitar...compared to that...video games are much, much easier.

You know it's a wonderful thing to be...with music. Whether you're just singing it or playing it...it's all brilliant. But it's hard to get other people into music though, you have to try it and see if you'd like it.

---

So do you really not use a computer?

N: No I don't. Tell you what, there was this time I was at home and my missus went out, leaving the computer on in the kitchen. So she called me and asked me to shut it down for her and I said "alright". Then I went into the kitchen and I found out I didn't know how to bloody turn it off! So I just unplugged the thing from the socket, you know?! Then she came back and found out and was mad at me, saying how I was an idiot or something...But then you can live your life so so many years without using a computer, so I don't think I'd need one. I can't drive, can't swim, but I'm doing alright.

Don't you think the Internet can let you see more of the world?

N: Nah I'm not having that...What I mean is, I'd get up and go there if I want to be somewhere, you know what I mean?

Do you not use a computer to record demos either?

Gallagher insists he has only vague memories of his You Tube moment.

“I remember being hit really hard. I didn’t see him come on stage or get led off, I just got hit.”

The guitarist initially thought he’d been stabbed – the intruder had run from being in the rain to the backstage area then on stage – leaving puddles of water on the stage where Gallagher wound up. After he realised no knives were involved, Gallagher ignored medics' advice and continued playing for another 40 minutes.

“I had an almighty pain in my side. I was being silly, it got to the point where I went ‘F--- it, I can’t do this’ and got taken straight to hospital.”

Gallagher can’t discuss the intruder in detail for legal reasons, but is happy to do some mild character assassination.

“He’s 47 and got three children, if you can believe that,” Gallagher says.

“He’s obviously gone through a midlife crisis. I wouldn’t get in and analyse it too deeply, that’s for a lawyer to do. I don’t know why people do things like that.”

However, don’t expect to see Oasis surrounded by men-mountains next time you see them live.

“We’re not going to become one of these American bands with more security guards than musicians on stage, we don’t go in for that Madonna sh--. We’ve got enough security guards as it is. If they’d been doing their f---ing job properly instead of playing air guitar I’d be alright.”

Broken ribs aren’t stopping Gallagher talking up Oasis’ seventh album, Dig Out Your Soul.

Or not talking it up as the case may be. He’s already labelled lead single The Shock of the Lightning the album’s only obvious hit.

There’s ragged rock tracks (Ain’t Got Nothin’) recycled psychedelia (the acid-soaked Bag It Up), some swamp blues (Get Off Your High Horse Lady), an organic Chemical Brothers-style trancefest (Falling Down) and even a track minus any guitars at all – To Be Where There’s Life. It’s as experimental and loose as Oasis get, without losing the plot.

“When we were making it I thought there didn’t seem to be that many hit singles on there, or even songs that sound like singles, but that’s a good thing,” Gallagher says.

“I wouldn’t plan to make an album like this every time, it’s happily fallen in our laps by accident. In the grand scheme of things it’s a pretty special Oasis record.”

As with the last few Oasis albums Gallagher’s songwriting dictatorship has given way to a musical democracy – each member gets to write at least one track.

Liam Gallagher’s I’m Outta Time is an album highlight. It is – who’d have thought – a ridiculously familiar (and surprisingly beautiful) Beatles throwback.

This dose of pre-Fab four one comes with a surprise addition - instead of just channelling John Lennon, they’ve actually sampled him, via a grab from a vintage interview.

“Not that you’d notice it was him,” Noel Gallagher says. “It sounds like Winston Churchill. If you’re going to put John Lennon on a f---ing track turn it up I say. It’s kind of a bit neither here nor there for me. You can’t really hear what he says.”

Noel gets his time to shine on Waiting for the Rapture, one of his vocal moments on the album.

“The reason Liam doesn’t sing the songs I sing is that he can’t sing the falsetto bits,” Noel says.

“He doesn’t have the will or the capacity to get up to those notes. I like my singing. I used to sing out of necessity a few years ago because Liam wouldn’t or couldn’t. But now when I write batches of songs I think ‘Ah, I’d like to sing that’. My voice has developed at a very late stage, which is good because it means I haven’t spent 20 years f---ing it up.”

Waiting for the Rapture is about his girlfriend Sara McDonald, not that Noel admits it. “You can’t really write a full album about your missus. She’ll start getting the wrong idea and start thinking I like her.”

There are, however, no songs about their newborn son Donovan.

“Songs for children are utterly banned,” he says. “I’m not into that sh--.”

Liam Gallagher’s 2000 song Little James remains one of Oasis’ creative lowpoints.

“Well, I can’t speak for my brother,” Gallagher says. “But for the other three of us they’re banned.”

Gallagher’s enjoying singing more than ever before; even single-handedly promoting Oasis’ best-of Stop the Clocks with a global solo tour last year.

If the eldest Gallagher has his way, Dig Out Your Soul will be the last Oasis album before they embark on the obligatory solo diversions.

“After this record I’m not sure what we do next as a band,” he says. “Since Gem (Archer, guitar) and Andy (Bell, bass) joined we’ve been leading up to this particular point, this record. If I had my way I’d like us all to do solo projects next time around. It’d be interesting for people who like Oasis to see how the four parts make up the whole.”

Dig Out Your Soul arrives as all Oasis albums have – the good old fashioned way. The only real concession to anything approaching technology is a Chemical Brothers remix of The Shock of the Lightning for the, er, clubs.

Those expecting online leaks or Radiohead style free downloads should look elsewhere.

“No one’s getting anything free from me,” Gallagher says. “If they can find it out there on the internet and steal it good luck to them. But we’re not going to put it anybody’s f---ing pocket for free, f--- that.”

Nor will you see Oasis measuring their carbon footprint, ala Radiohead, any time soon.

“Global problems are very easily solved by rockstars, aren’t they,” Gallagher mocks.

“Starving people in Africa, let’s do a gig, that’ll sort it out. There’s war on the streets of Baghdad, let’s do a gig. Global warming and carbon emissions – let’s have a concert. It’s f---ing bullsh--.

"The only way it’s going to be solved is if the world powers get together and are serious about it. I really think it’ll take an absolute global catastrophe for anyone to take it seriously, not just saving a few polar bears from dying. In the meantime Radiohead can get on their battery operated pushbikes as long as they like but they’re pissing in the wind

“You can’t blame rock stars for global warming when the Chinese, the Indian and the Americans have been pumping out sh-- into the atmosphere for the last 100 years,” Gallagher continues.

“That’s just f---ing nonsense. You can’t put a load of rockstars up on a stage and expect to wipe out global poverty. That’s ludicrous. Somebody’s doing a load of acid if they think that’s going to happen.”

Also still in place is the internal feuding between the brothers Gallagher.

Liam has gone on record saying he “can’t stand” Wonderwall, still the band’s biggest hit. “Every time I sing it I want to gag,” Liam told Q Magazine.

“See, this is one of the reasons I really f----ing dislike him, he’s full of f---ing sh--,’ Noel says.

“He tells the journalists of the world ‘I hate singing Wonderwall’. Yet we were rehearsing and I was saying ‘I can’t be ars-ed, I’m gonna drop it (Wonderwall) from the set’. He’s the one saying ‘No no, we’ve got to play it, we’ve got to play it’.

“I read these interviews with him and I don’t know who the guy is who’s in these interviews, he seems really cool, because the guy I’ve been in a band with for the last 18 years is a f----ing knobhead.

"I don’t know where this schizophrenia comes from. Then he wonders why I’ve f----ing got no time for him.”

Still, things could be worse – it could be James Blunt.

Between albums Gallagher reportedly insisted he was selling his house in Ibiza after finding out Blunt had moved there. The story isn’t exactly true, but Gallagher knows it sounds good.

“I’m sure he’s just saying he lives in Ibiza for effect, I’ve had a house there for 10 years and I didn’t see him once,” Gallagher says.

“I heard he’s got a nightclub in his house, which is strange, because he doesn’t look like he could take a stiff cocktail. But I must say it did make me quite uncomfortable knowing I was there and he was up the road somewhere being sh--t.”

NOEL ON …

Amy Winehouse “She’s got an undeniably great voice but there’s plenty of great singers in the world. It astonishes me, fame seems to hit those kind of people hard. They kind of pull down the shutters and become drug addicts because they can’t deal with it. But it’s what they’ve been waiting for all their lives.

This should be her time. She should be ruling the world but she’s a slave to the gear. F--- her. There’s no point wasting words on people like that. They have no respect for themselves so why should people have respect for them?”

The new James Bond theme “We wrote a song, which will be on our next album now, that when I finished I thought ‘It sounds like a James Bond theme tune’. Not one of those ridiculous ballads, the actual theme tune. At the time they hadn’t decided who was going to sing the theme. So I sent it to Sony, the people who look after that kind of thing, and never heard anything back. And they got Alicia Keys to do it. I haven’t heard it but I’m sure it’ll be f---ing dreadful. Jack White’s bits will be amazing, because he is, but it’s an odd coupling.”

Lars Ulrich using Noel as a role model to kick cocaine “I f---ing love that guy. All these heavy metal characters you meet, like him and (Marilyn) Manson they are, with the best will in the world, ludicrous people. I like that Enter Sandman tune and Nothing Really Matters, but I don’t own any of the records. That doesn’t dilute what I think of them as fellas. I like a few of Manson’s tunes but it’s not my bag. Hip hop’s not my bag but I don’t deny its right to exist.”

Coldplay “I like Coldplay. I’m not in a band full of Coldplay fans, there’s only me. I don’t speak about it with the other boys. I like Coldplay and U2, everyone in Oasis f---ing hates them. I think they’re a bit insecure Coldplay and U2 sell more records than we do. I love Violet Hill. I like them, I won’t f---ing deny it. I struggle a bit with Coldplay. You play someone a song and go ‘listen man it sounds like the Beatles, it’s f---ng great’ and then the next one sounds like Annie Lennox, so it’s like ‘OK, well that one’s a bit sh--’. I like Chris Martin. I think he’s a really great songwriter. He fascinates me, he’s f---ing proper posh. I haven’t met his wife. I somehow don’t think I’d be her cup of tea. I’d like to meet her, it’s Gwyneth Paltrow for f---’s sake, but I guess she wouldn’t like my profanities. I have a habit of swearing a lot.”

Kaiser Chiefs “There’s been a feud between us and them, but in the case of the Kaiser Chiefs the little fat singer, he started it. It’s not important what he said, and it’s a shame one has to get involved in this kind of thing but you can’t let these fat idiots get away with it.”

Bloc Party “They’re a bunch of middle class kids trying to rebel about against mum and dad. They sit on top of an apex of sh--.”

Keane “I feel sorry for Keane. No matter how hard they try they’ll always be squares. Even if one of them started injecting heroin into onto his (Noel uses potentially offensive euphemism for the male member) people would go ‘Yeah but your dad was a vicar, good night’.

Turning 40 “It doesn’t bother me. I’ve always felt older than I am. When I was 30 I felt 40. I feel f---ing 65 with three broken ribs. You’ll find people who rib you about their age are petrified about getting old. It doesn’t bother me. I guess because I’ve never traded on my good looks like Liam.

To me it’s not about the haircut or jawline or belly. I’m known for my songs, I can do that at any age. If I’m being honest everyone would like to be 20 years younger but you’ve got to be comfortable with it. Liam’s been dying his hair for a while. And he wears make up. Seriously. I’ve seen him in eyeliner at parties, the Clockwork orange. And he knows about his moisturizer. I think he’s trying to head off old age but it’ll catch him.”