Noel & Liam Gallagher - ITV/The Beat - 28th June 1994

Noel Gallagher - PEOM - 19th June 1994

http://www.peom.co.uk/oasis_interview.html

Oasis were on the brink of massive success and this interview was prior to the release of Shakermaker. PEOM thought that it might be a good idea to interview them after I had seen them at the Old Trout in Windsor. I was over powered by their music and they dressed in a 90's mod style. That's a winner with me! Noels self-belief and assertiveness for Oasis is so paramount in this interview and I was enthralled by this. It makes intriguing reading, a young man waiting for the big time to happen and fully aware of the antics of the music press. Noel had his head screwed on, he knew what he wanted and how to get it! My only negative criticism is that he had a habit of slipping into a very negative outlook, which is very tiresome. I still rate Oasis as a band and only the Gallagher's are left from the original line up, even the last album. They made the charts exciting in the 90's and TOTP performances were colourful. That was the last time from a commercial perspective the TOP 50 sounded fresh. I hope there are some young (ish) bands ready to take on the establishment again, your country needs you!
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It’s 7.15pm, and we’re late. We’d arranged to interview Noel Gallagher of Oasis in Brighton and we had this crazy mod romantic idea of hiring scooters for the trip. It was Mad Dog’s idea. A great idea in itself: except that Snotty Dog, and third member of the PEOM entourage. So we tear through swing-doors of the Dudley Hotel in Brighton in our crash helmets. (“Remember the doors of the gaff we smashed?” – the Quadrophenia reference in this piece and not the last.) The guests and hotel staff in reception stare at us perplexed, among them is Noel. I walk up to him.“Sorry we’re late, Noel, but Snotty Dog kept falling off his scooter”Noel is unconcerned.“It’s alright mate, we’ve only just come back from the sound check”“So where do you want to do it?” I asked.“Do what?”“The interview”“I think me room will be best , don’t you?”“Yeah, of course”My 1st question was about the history of Oasis.
Noel – Oasis started when our kid and the other three decided they were going to form a band. I was away in Europe or somewhere and I came back and me mam said “Oh Liam’s just formed a band” I said “ Do what”, “Singing”. So I went down to the gig that night at The Boardwalk and they were called OASIS and they had four songs. They were pretty awful and afterwards they said to me “Do you want to be our manager?” I said, “Fuck that, I am joining the fucking band. Take those trainers off and get a new bass in. We’re off to the top!” I liked barged me way in and started writing the songs and never looked back since.We used to practice religiously three times a week, just writing songs. It was weird because once we got a record deal nothing changed; we were acting the same way as we were before. We always thought we were the greatest fucking band in England. We used to rehearse Saturday nights when everyone would go out. We’d be down the rehearsal room like all hours of the night and morning and our mates would be going. “What are doing? It’s Saturday night, everyone’s going out” But it paid off in the end.Oasis make it look all very simple, but they’ve worked extremely hard. (Young bands start taking notes, they may come in useful)

PEOM – So where exactly in Manchester do you come from?
Noel – Right on the South Burnage, it’s the last part of Manchester before you get to Greater Manchester it’s just like a little shitty suburb where fuck all happens it’s one pub and a chippie and a bookie and that’s it.

Oasis are in the position now that every young band wants to be in. Since October 1993, it’s been all go for Oasis; sell out shows, front covers of nearly all the music magazines and the ultimate teenage dream – Top of the Pops. Of course they couldn’t have got there without that all – important record contract. Bands can spend so much time trying to convince record companies of their potential. So, I asked how did you get yours?
Noel – Well it’s quite legendary story this now, but it was at this gig at King Tut’s in Glasgow. We hired a van, at the time we were on the dole and we didn’t have any money, we charged our mates fifteen quid each and there were about 20 of us. When we got to the gig, the promoter said“Who are you?”“We’re Oasis”“You’re not playing here tonight”“ Yes we are, we’re playing with Boyfriend.”“No, you’re not, you’re not down here.”“Oh it’s alright coz they’ve asked us to play!”“I’ve only got a licence for 2 bands. I can’t put 3 bands on so you’re not playing”So after six hours of arguing and shouting and threatening he let us play for twenty minutes just when the doors were opening. So we went on, there was like nobody in the club. 15 of our mates and that were it. But as luck would have it, Alan MaGee of Creation Records had just missed his train from Glasgow back to London, he realised that Boyfriend were playing round the corner and he had an hour to kill. So he was just going to come in and have a word with that lot and then get off, and as he walked in we had just walked on-stage so he was walking past the stage , this is what he said anyway, he took one look at us and thought THEY LOOK A BIT FUN.One of the guys from Boyfriend came round to him and said “Ah these guys are from Manchester they kicked us out of our dressing room and drank all our cider and threatened to smash the club “up” and all it did was get Alan more interested in us.We just did four songs and after we came off stage he came straight up to us and said “Have you got a record deal?”“No”“Do you want one?” “Who with?”“Creation” and he offered us a six-album deal and about a week later he phoned us and said, “What was your band called again?”We were freaked out by it all.All them years in the practice room, we always knew that we were really good. Even though we didn’t know about approaching record companies. I could never see meself walking into the offices of a record company going “This is my demo tape.”But Noel Hated the role he had taken on as player-manager, it got in the way of the creative process, and whilst out of all the members of Oasis he was willing to take the role as “the responsible one” someone was needed to deal with the business side of things fulltime, especially now they’d been offered a record deal.

PEOM – So how did you begin your relationship with Marcus Russell, your manager?
Noel – That in itself is another interesting story. About 3 years previous I used to go to the Hacienda on a Saturday night and always used to bump into this little guy with a skinhead and chat to him as you do when you’re E ‘ed . I told him I was in a band and he said “Give us a tape, I’ll give it to our kid.” And every time I saw him, he’d say “Give us a tape for our kid.” And then I saw him just after we had the offer from Creation. I was just walking through town. And he says, “How’s the band going?” “Oh we’ve just been offered a record deal from Creation.” And I had this HMV bag with The The’s new album in it and when he saw it he goes “Fuckin hell, you’ll definitely have to get a tape to our kid.” I said “Well, hang on a minute, I don’t mean to be rude or nothing, but who the fuck is your kid” “Well it’s our Johnny innit?” and then it clicked Johnny Marr. So I gets a him a tape, two hours later I had Johnny Marr on the phone. I fuckin freaked out. He said, “I’ve just heard your tape and think it’s amazing,” So we went out for a drink that night and he came along and brought his manger with him, Marcus Russell.

PEOM - Were you a fan of The Smiths?
Noel – Definitely! Johnny Marr was the man who taught me to play guitar.

PEOM – What bands made you want to be in a band?
Noel – The Jam, Stone Roses, The Smiths and The Beatles. I always used to bash about on this guitar, playing stuff like Hey Jude. Then in 193 I saw The Smiths and I said, “That’s it! That’s the way I want to play guitar.” Then after that I saw John Squire from The Stone Roses cross them two with Paul Weller and John Lennon and that’s how I wanted to sound.

PEOM – Did you ever get into dance music?
Noel – Up until about ’91 I was blown away by it. ’88 and ’89 were fuckin’ unbelievable years. I gave up playing the guitar and starting messing about with a keyboard and a drum machine because I was so into it. Now it’s gone full circle, there’s no more mew sounds any more. All the chord progressions have been used, all the samples have been used. It’s as boring as fuck now.

PEOM – Oasis have grown in a very short space of time – from playing The Old Trout in Windsor in may’94 to headlining The Forum four months later. Is it all happening fast enough for you?
Noel – I don’t want get too big. I’d love to do Wembley Stadium but where do you go after that? I didn’t think we’d get to this stage here for another two years and in a way it’s fuckin pissed me off. We had all these ideas we were going to be this maverick outcast band from Manchester, being from Manchester everyone fucking hates you anyway. We were going to shove it up them for two years and then we’d spilt up.Like we know Shakermaker is going to go Top 20 and it’s shit knowing that before it comes out. I’m not going to get excited by that now. It’s sad in a way, once all I wanted was a piece of plastic with some of my songs on it and my name on it. I got that and I thought I don’t feel that special. And I thought I want to get into the charts – and then I got into the charts without really trying and then I thought right Tops of The Pops. It’s really sad , we’ve only had a few records out and I’m bored shitless.

PEOM – Are you happy with the image of Oasis and the way the press have portrayed you?
Noel – Because we’re not part of any scene, the press have to got to offset you against something, that’s the way British journalism works. That can’t just say this is Oasis , take it or leave it. It’s got to be they’re like a cross between the Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses.When we started the NME hated us, so the MM decided that they were going to love us, so when the NME started loving us, the MM said “Oh, we hate this shit.”A guy from the NME was with us for three days, I’m not slagging him off, he was dead cool, he got into it and all that but in this interview, he’s got this quote from me saying “Glastonbury’s the only place where you can paint your face like a panda and get away with it because if you did it in a pub round our way someone’d stab you in the throat. He said that to me. I just sat there and said I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. When I saw it in print two weeks later and I was supposed to have said it I thought “Why don’t you just interview yourself.” But it’s the game, there’ s nothing you can do about it.At the moment the NME in particular are looking for something that isn’t there. It’s like gossip columns. I was supposed to have beaten up twelve crusties single- handedly in the Camden Underworld one night. But I’m sorry but I wasn’t there. I was in Ireland. But our kid just plays up to it all the time.

PEOM – What about the image Liam has in the press?
Noel – Liam is all mouth and no trousers. He gets all upset about what the press say but I say to him “Look, you’re the one who says you’re going to bottle some journalists, you’re the one who says you like fighting.”I couldn’t give a flying fuck mate. I don’t care if people throw a bottle at him, as long as it hits him and not me. I’m only interested in music. I’ve got the band to worry about. I do all the meetings and all the interviews. I write all the songs and all the lyrics and when they do a soundcheck, they just sit there and they’re like four guys from Manchester. What are they going to do themselves? Except get pissed and get into trouble.

PEOM – Do you feel responsible for them?
Noel – I feel responsible for them, but anything else it’s just their tough shit. What I worry about at the moment is that it’s over riding the music, but you’ve got to wait for the press to get bored with it an go a bit deeper.

We decided to close the interview as time was pressing. We left Noel in his hotel room to do another interview, this time with Spiral, a Spanish music magazine.Brighton’s a great city with a number of cool venues to see a band in – The Zap , The Pavilion. But the venue Oasis were playing tonight was definitely not one of them. Just a square concrete room with a stage at one side of the room and a bar at the other – WHICH SHUT AT 11!Oasis came onstage at 11. This is why we were here, this why we wanted to do a piece on Oasis. Because put simply they are a Fucking great band. Even with the poor quality PA they sounded good. Oasis are not the most original band around at the moment. But who cares? It’s entertainment that matters.The crowd was healthily young – obviously too young to be part of the experience of the bands that influence the sound of Oasis. But this is the best sort of crowd – energetic and enthusiastic because they are going out and getting into music for the 1st time.Oasis end their set with a heavy version of I AM THE WALRUS (John would be proud) and Liam is belting out the GOOO GOOOO G’JOOOObs. Liam, for the record is wearing dark glasses and a rather far-out colourful cagool. Noel walks off before the song ends.

PEOM – Why do you walk off first when you do your last song. I AM THE WALRUS?
Noel – It’s just that the first couple of times we done it we couldn’t work out an ending, So I’d stand there nodding at them to end it and they’d be looking all dazed, so I just put down me guitar and said see you later Bye. Let them sort out an ending themselves. When we first started doing that song at the end when we’d do small gigs with no dressing room. I’d put my guitar down and walk off and go to the bar and then it was like “HEY THIS GUY’S REALLY COOL MAN. HE PUTS HIS GUITAR DOWN AND GOES TO THE BAR AND WATCHES THE BAND FROM THE FRONT. IT’S LIKE SAYING WATCHING IS ACTUALLY BETTER THAN BEING IN THE BAND!” Nah, not at all, there’s no dressing room mate.

Noel Gallagher - NME - 4th June 1994

Those Windows are Saying Throw A Chair Through Me

How time flies, folks. One minute you're a small band with your debut single in the shops, a battered old van driven by your battered old guitarist and a novel line in hotel redecoration. Next thing you know, you're Chris Evans' best mate, you're awash with cash and awards and even your heroes th'nk your a god. So let's hark back to June 1994, when an emergent Oasis went on the road and SIMON WILLIAMS discovered a band thatwanted the world... and got it.

Liam: "My head's in ruins - so's my shirt."

Noel: "You're a mad c***, you are.."

Liam: "No, you're the mad c***!" (Repeat to fade)

It all started off normally enough. A quiet Monday evening in Portsmouth, a sold-out gig for Oasis, followed by a drug pilgrimage and a 'crap' student party on the outskirts of town. Then back to the hotel for a few swift nightcaps. Simple, eh? In the bar, Oasis bumped into East 17, fresh from their own gig at the Guildhall.

"Are you Blur?" demanded East 17.

"No, why? Are you Take That?" came the stroppy reply. While the Walthamstow terriers wisely retired to their various rumpus rooms, Oasis settled down in the bar with a gin and tonic or ten. There was merciless ribbing of any roadie with more than a passing interest in Manchester United - crowned champions earlier that evening, much to the disgust of the pro-City band. Then a bottle of champagne or two appeared on the table. Then the barman made the terrible mistake of abandoning his post. At this point, some drinkers would notice his departure and wonder how long he'd be, imagining wistfully all the alcohol they could purloin in the interim. Oasis don't imagine - they just do. Before you could say, "Bugger me, free booze!", two of the entourage were scrambling over the bar. Emptyin, the fridges and passing the bounty over the counter. One minute later, 50 bottles of beer were being stuffed under chairs and into innocent bags. Then things got really strange. Guitarist, Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs, decided to go for a dip in the horribly convenient pool next to the bar. The Gallagher brothers, Noel and Liam, decided to have a scrap about an ex-girlfriend. Allegedly. Expletives started flying. Then punches started flying. Then bottles of beer started flying. Then furniture started flying.

Bassist, Paul 'Guigsy' McGuigan, valiantly tried to separate the Gallaghers, receiving two knuckle sandwiches for his endeavours. Someone started throwing chairs at Bonehead in the pool. Then tables. Liam had Noel on the floor. Noel tore Liam's shirt off. Other residents, tiring of the mass brawl downstairs, started coming out onto their balconies and shouting abuse. One particularly aggrieved sort was accompanied by his girlfriend. While her lover's attention was focused on the mayhem below, she would calmly open her towel to show Oasis either Nothing Very Much At All or Everything, depending on your perspective. At this juncture, the pissed-up band would roar their encouragement, causing the baffled boyfriend to turn and find his demure-looking companion safely covered by the towel. Then he'd shout more abuse and she'd flash again.

And so it went, with a few more punches thrown here and a few more items of furniture thrown there (ie, in the pool). Eventually, at around six o''bleeding'clock in the morning, the night porter appeared to tell the fuzzy thrill-seekers that, actually, if it was alright with them he was going to knock off because, urn, someone had called the police.

It is common knowledge that hotels are utterly brilliant places. Let's face it, if you get smashed off your nuts in the confines of your own home and gleefully decide to trash your living room prior to catching a bit of shut-eye, are the cleaning pixies likely to rearrange the furniture into some kind of social order while your hangover works itself into a midday frenzy? Nope, you'd just wake up to discover that, somehow, World War Ill had kicked off during the night and your house is in a state of blitz. But, hotels being hotels, when Oasis shamble into the bar the following lunchtime - apart from the occasional dark stare from the receptionists - life is back to normal. Stunningly overpriced pots of tea are being drained. Liam and Noel are comparing wounds and laughing about their fight. The swimming pool has been cleared of chairs and Boneheads. And everyone logical decides it was the hotei's fault, anyway.

"It's a stupid place to put a pool, innit?" frowns Liam. "It was asking for trouble putting us in this hotel."

"It's true." nods Noel. wisely. "Those plate glass windows are just saying, 'THROW A CHAIR THROUGH ME!" were it not for a bar bill totalling £150 or so, the odd bruised ember and some us chinking noises emanating from a large black bag through the foyer out to the van, you could almost yourself that nothing happened. Really.

"Still we don't need a rider," sneers Liam, waving carelessly at the departing baggage. "We can just go in and say, 'Newport - you can stick your YER ARSE!"

This is life on the road, Oasis style. You may not think it's big, or clever. But it is rock'n'roll bonkers. This becomes screamingly apparent when lounging around the hotel lobby preparing for the drive to Newport. While most sane people are dreaming of a world with no spirits and a nice weekend on a health farm lest their livers quit and their brains implode, Bonehead studies the tour itinerary and suddenly yells, "F***ing brilliant!" The curfew at the venue tonight is half past one!" Oh good.

Our task is to follow Oasis around the country for three nights, from Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms to Derby Wherehouse via Newport TJ's and points in between. In this time various people will threaten to leave the band to set up habardasheries, the band will threaten to leave, several people and several senses will most leave everyone.

Liam, Noel, Guigsy, Bonehead and drummer Tony McCarroll fuelled by little more than raging testosterone, Big Macs, gin and tonics and whatever powders dust their nasal passages - will play splendid sold-out gigs, abuse more hotel staff and talk utter brilliant bollocks. Like about the time they stunned half of Manchester by appearing on The Word a full month before the 'Supersonic' single was released. Paula Yates was 'up for a bit of sorting out", according to the ever charming Liam, and Oasis once again made friends in their own inimitable style.

"Bonehead had his arm around Hufty," recalls Noel with a sad shake of his head. "He was shouting in her ear, 'What are you into birds for, anyway?' Then he started licking her head, right in the middle of the bar..."

It's hard to tell when the on the-road psychosis actually kicks in, such is the all-pervading air of insanity from day one. This is the second nationwide jaunt by oasis, the first being a co-headline with Whiteout. And beneath the manic exterior, the swaggering, crowdshagging arrogance that dictates that they think they really, really are the best band in the entire galaxy, Oasis are freaked. Totally. The first date was in Hull, where there were more people turned away than actually allowed in. The promoter eventually threw open every door of the venue, so the building was svvarming with would-be punters peering in, striving to get even the smallest piece of the action.

Then 200 punters were turned away from the Coventry gig, where massed stagediving was the order of the night. So much so that Noel - possibly being as sensible as he'll ever be on this tour - suddenly has the diamond idea of, like, escaping unscathed. So halfway through the last song, he hands his guitar to a roadie and, with the legendary words, "I'm f***ing getting out of here!" heads towards the dressing room.

"I had to climb onto the PA to escape," he winces. "And someone's trying to untie my laces and someone else is grabbing hold of my trouser leg. I get to the dressing room just as the crowd is spilling onto the stage. Three-quarters of an hour later, the rest of the band appear and they look as though they've been in a fight! They were mobbed - the crowd wouldn't let them go! It was f***ing hysterical, like Beatiemania or something!' "We expected the gigs to be full," he admits, warily, "so we could be arrogant and say, 'Oh yeah.' But I tell you man, we're more shocked than anyone! It's like, we've only had one record out - what's it gonna be like when we get an album out?"

There's a great - probably entirely mythical - story which sums up Oasis perfectly. After all the band (bar Noel) were arrested on the ferry to Amsterdam a couple of months back (in April 1994), Creation President, Alan McGee, took the group's press officer to one side and said: "F***ing hell, man, I've been trying to make Teenage Fanclub interesting for five years! Look what you've landed here!"

Fact is, Oasis are a dream come true. They fight! They flirt! They go f***ing mental! And they make music that creeps through your intestines, squeezes your kidneys and proposes to your heart. Probably. They are so OBVIOUS that the more manipulative record company sorts should be leaping off their high-rise ledges in droves, because Oasis - with their housing estate backgrounds, their working-class clumsiness end semi-genius pop sensibility could never be invented in a million units. To put it simply, as The Stone Roses once said, Oasis are what the world has been waiting for.

Which, funnily enough, takes us to Newport, where Noel is comforting yet another G&T in a pub around the corner from the hotel. The fact that this particular hostelry has so many games it resembles a boozer's indoor sports centre, and thus leads to all manner of theories, vis-a-vis whether people in Newport actually talk to each other, is only marginally interesting. What is fascinating, however, is that the posters advertising tonight's gig proclaim Oasis plus Very Special Guests. With The Stone Roses supposedly recording a few miles up the road in Rockfield, it doesn't take a Nobel Prize winner to hazard a wild guess that the Manchester of yesterday is going to make an appearance next to the Manchester of today. Noel laughs off the idea that the Roses intend to play, although subsequent rumour-mongers insist that Geffen had phoned TJs a few days before to book the slot for Ian Brown's bunch. Yet you can't rid yourself of the feeling that, in the absence of the Roses and Happy Mondays, there is a massive demand for a cocky,
rocking, PC-shocking Manc band. And that is Oasis.

"It's like, you get a band like Suede," ponders Noel, "and they write pretty decent music and all that, but Brett Anderson's lyrics are basically a cross between Bowie and Morrissey, and I don't think that some 16-year-old on the dole is going to understand what he means by "Animal Nitrate" or whatever."

"The thing about The Smiths is that Johnny Marr was a lad and you knew he was a rock'n'roller that's why I got into them. And I think a lot of kids find Suede too intellectual, while with Blur they don't understand all that stuff about sugary tea. But with Oasis, like the Roses and the Mondays, it's the bottom line: here's a guitar, here's the songs, you have them. We're not preaching about ye olde Englande or how it was in the '60s. We're not preaching about our sexuality, we're not telling people how to act."

"You want to write about shagging and taking drugs and being in a band. You don't wanna write about going down the supermarket or anything like that - I know it's terrible, so I'm not gonna write about it. I met a girl the other night and I felt really sorry for her, because she came up to me and said (really quietly), 'I've got Supersonic' and I'm, er, really into your lyrics and I've been through a lot as well.' And I went, What do you mean? 'Supersonic' is about some f***ing nine-stone geezer who got Charlie'd off his nut one night... it's not about anything!' It's just about a feeling, you just get up and play it. All I know is the gigs are selling out and we're probably gonna get loads more trouble on this tour..,"

Fact: Oasis talk a lot of bullshit. After the Portsmouth gig, Liam insists that he's going to 'sort out' East 17 because, he alleges, "They've ripped off "Imagine"." Half an hour later, the singer is insisting that all he wants to do is sit down with East 17, neck a few beers and sort out how they can "topple Take That".

The same applies for Noel when he's told that Manic Street Preachers are coming down to the Newport gig: 'Do they wanna fight?' asks the guitarist. Nah, the Manics don't fight, comes the answer. "Right!" beams Noel, "we'll kick their heads in, then!" The beauty is, much like all their hormone-raging banter about 'shagging' and 'birds', Oasis are never actually doing anything. All mouth and no trousers, they're simply on a half-drunk, half-addled crusade to mollycoddle their audiences into believing that Oasis are the gnat's knackers.

Simplicity is the key: Newport, much like any other set on the tour, is utterly straightforward and unnervingly familiar. There's the Coca-Cola song! The one-that-sounds-a-bit-like-Blur-song! The Wham! song! A cover of "I Am The Walrus"! And no bleeding encores! It's the history of rock splattered over the past 30 years from The Beatles to the Mondays, played by five blokes who scarcely move a muscle onstage, who barely communicate between songs, and who are hardly likely to rival Bad Boys lnc in the,"Woof woof! Down boy!" stakes.

And if you believe Oasis are adhering to some sort of genius game plan (Look sultry! Look disinterested!), then Noel's confession that he'd 'love' to dance around on the stage, but he has to concentrate on playing muscle onstage,but he has to concentrate on playing guitar because he isn't that good will blow any conspiracy theories out of the water. Fact is, far from swanning through the ranks to run rampant in the Fab 40 with their debut single, the Oasis success is...an accident.

"They were just an indie band before I joined," explains Noel. "It was all right, it just wasn't rock'n'roll. But the bassist looked good, the drummer didn't look too bad, and Our Kid looked pretty f***ing cool. At the time I was a roadie and I thought, "F-me, it's looking me in the face." So I bowled into the practise room one day and said, 'Right, change that guitar, take them shoes off, cut your hair, I'm gonna be doing this from now on.' And they just looked at me and said, 'oh, all right, then."

So Noel took control of the band, injected it with the requisite rock'n'roll spirit, played the others stuff by T Rex, The Faces and, urm, Burt Bacharach, started writing all the songs, insisted that the band rehearse three times a week including Saturday nights - and then... nothing happened.

"We were actually trying to convince people we were great," sighs Noel. "But after the first four gigs in Manchester no-one would put us on, because we had this reputation for being...not lads, just difficult. We had a fight with the headlining band one night 'cos they pulled the plug on us during the last song. That's when it started, because loads of A&R men had come to see this other band and they saw them have this MASSIVE scrap onstage with us. It got us a bit of a reputation.

"It's like McGee saw us by accident in Scotland and he says, 'Have you got a record deal?' and we said no and he said, 'D'you f***ing want one? I'm the President of Creation Records!' So I said, 'Aha! So it's your fault then is it, you twat!' And he says, 'What do you mean?' And I said, 'Shonen Knife is your fault! It's all down to you, son!"

Now, naturally, the phone doesn't stop ringing. Manchester rumours abound (the one about Oasis buying a massive house in London and living it up with butlers and limousines is a peach). And Oasis don't give a f***.

"That city's done us no favours, man,' shrugs Noel, defiantly. As well he might, because ultimately Oasis have rolled along under their own steam. In "Cigarettes And Alcohol", Liam sings, "You've gotta make it happen", and, in a very real sense, that line could be taken as the band's short, sharp sense manifesto. Noel reckons he hasn't had a day off since the previous October. In a recent two-week break between tours the rest of the band went home (mostly to their Mams) while the guitarist stayed in London doing press and mixing the album. So it's little wonder he's letting his hair down, raving about. Enjoying yourself, about making the most of it while you can and taking in the smell of the crowd while the fans can still get close to you.

"It's all new, no-one's seen it all before," he insist. "The next tour will be even better because we'll have another record out. Then there might be ambulances at our gigs!"

He knows that this is the optimum time for really appreciating why you're in a band, when you're buzzing on your new-found infamy, when all the gigs are packed out, when the crowds are all singing along even though only a minuscule part of the set has actually been released. And - better still - Noel Gallagher knows precisely how f***ing ridiculous this entire situation is.

"Who'd have the bollocks to release a first single like "Supersonic", with lyrics like that about Alka-f***ing-Seltzer?' he rants, waving his G&T around. 'I just hope that some band reads those lyrics and goes, 'What does it all mean, maaaan?', while the guy who actually wrote it is in a pub somewhere, pissed as a F**ING TWAT!"

"Music for me at the moment is DEAD. It's poncey and serious and everyone's gotta make some sort of statement, whether it be about 'Parklife' or their feminine side or their politics. But we're a rock'n'roll band - we say all you need is cigarettes and alcohol. Everyone's dead into analysing, but don't analyse our band. 'That's a good song, that is. What does it mean? 'Who gives a f*** what it means?"

So "Shaker Maker" (the Coca Cola song), naturally is the new Oasis single, and it's kind of something to do with the Mr Fluffy guy who sells Soft Mints by wobbling into lampposts. And Mr Benn's in there, as well as a load of other characters, and Noel says that, more than anything else, it just makes him laugh.

"There hasn't been any 12-bar blues in the charts for as long as I can remember. And I don't think anyone's ever sung about Plasticine and Coca-Cola in the same song, so that's the one for us, that is. Get it in the charts!"

"Like I said before, it's just a feeling. if you sit down and think, 'Why do I like this band so much? Well, the singer's an arrogant git, I'd like to twat him one. And the rest of the band might as well be cardboard cutouts.' So you end up thinking, 'I don't like f*** all about this band, but... the songs! Aren't the songs F**ING GREAT!?"

A few more things you may or may not need to know about Oasis on the road. Already a seasoned autograph campaigner, Liam has sussed that signing fans' chests is a daft idea because cleavage perspiration prevents your pen from working properly. Whenever two or three of Oasis are gathered around the piano they will bang out a cheery version (to the tune of The Small Faces "Lazy Sunday") of, "Wouldn't it be nice to be a f***ing cock-er-nee I Wouldn't it be nice to be in f***ing Blur - SLAG!" And Newport witnesses some serious psychological collapse.

It may be something to do with the manner in which Oasis valiantly attempt to get a goodly proportion of the TJ's crowd into the hotel after the gig. Dispensing with the trite formalities traditionally deployed to convince suspicious hotel staff of their guests' worth, Liam simply harangues and abuses the night porter until the poor bloke's left with the choice of opening the front doors or being chased around by drunk Mancunians. It may then be something to do with the six-hour drinking session that ensues in - spookily enough - the hotel's Oasis bar. Whatever, the following morning is a sad sight for bloody sore eyes.

Bonehead has trashed his room. You can tell this by the way the morning staff patiently file in from the street carrying paraphernalia (telephones, cushions, pillow cases scarred with tyre marks). Bonehead would have thrown the bed out as well but it was too big. Now he is sitting id the lounge with a transparent shower cap on his face, muttering, "I can't do it any more."

"There's no such word as 'can't'", a worryingly wise Guigsy informs his colleague.

"But I CAAAN'T!" howls Bonehead. "I'm giving up this rock'n'roll business, I'm gonna be a Tory MP. GIVE ME A SATSUMA! GIVE ME A SATSUMA!"

Over on the other side of the bar, an irate Liam is throwing this morning's music papers around and ranting about Oasis being exploited or some such like. Noel watches his brother, adjusts his shades and sighs. "I'm gonna tell him that Henry Rollins has been slagging him off," he decides. "He'd rip Our Kid's leg off, shove it up his arse and then lick him to death like a f***ing lollipop!"

And over in the corner, Guigsy sits wondering why his hands are shaking so much, enthusing about Star Wars and planning for the future: "You know Leonard Nimoy is on Creation?" Erm, yes. "Well, I want Spock to be our tour manager. Could you imagine it? 'You have just thrown that table out of the window - that is highly illogical, Guigsy'..."

Obviously, confronted with all this evidence, any sane sort without direct responsibility for this oasis tour would pack their bags, slink off to the nearest mainline station and get the first train back home to Normality, pronto.

Sadly, the NME crew simply sits in the midst of the chaos and twitches.

Eventually, after losing the band transport for half an hour, oasis apologise to the staff, pile into the van and head off to Derby armed with half a local McDonald's. It's one of those afternoon-after-the-few-nights-before journeys, where a sense of communal numbness prevails, Bonehead wants to vomit and the tape deck blasts out The Beatles, The Who and the Sex Pistols. Then we hit the traffic jam from hell outside Birmingham.

When a sleek business type refuses to let the van sneak in front of his saloon in the outside lane, the previously dozy band suddenly erupt, banging on the windows and hurling abuse at the unfortunate driver. Then, as we crawl through the roadworks, Bonehead spots a clutch of archetypal British workmen doing bugger all and yells, "START DIGGING!" Five minutes later, and now fully warming to the task, Bonehead decides to stagedive. Clambering on to his seat, he throws himself headlong into the back of the van. Nothing wrong with that, you might say. Except Bonehead is driving.

It could be said that if in hedonistic terms Primal Scream are The Muppets, Oasis are more like The Muppet Babies: a danger only unto themselves, they're the sort of trainee rock'n'roll gits who may be sussed enough to go backwards for their musical inspiration, but they've mercifully left behind the nastier elements of the trade RAWK lifestyle. So their bag is speed rather than smack, and their attitude is based upon bewilderment rather than insufferable belligerence.

Noel's the one with the permanent half-smile who appears to get most of his kicks from watching the rest of the band's antics. Tony barely utters a single word in the entire three days. Guigsy, general consensus has it, is coming out of his shell and becoming more and more unhinged the longer the tour progresses. Bonehead is simply bonkers. And Liam...Liam is the loose cannon, the one who spends ten minutes abusing receptionists and the next half-hour trying to chat them up. Lippier than the rest, he's always up for something. And when he recounts the Portsmouth saga to an enraptured mini-audience in the Derby dressing room, you can see how much he gets off attention.

"Beer is the best drug ever!" he bellows at one point. "I do f***ing care, me."

"I feel sorry for our kid sometimes," Noel had mused back in Newport.

"I get all this shit going inside my head and I can write it all down and get off on that. But he can't, so his release is to get off his head."

Noel admits that he worries about some of the, uh, less PC things Liam is inclined to blurt out. "There's no need to say them, really. He just sets himself up." He talks about his brother's responsibility towards the I pointing out that he's representing five people, including himself. And sighs heavily again. "Our Kid thinks that I was sitting in a room reading a don't want that at all, man he f***ing winds me up. He's the one person I argue with. He goes on about this and that and say, 'Shut up, you f***ing dick - I used to change your f***ing nappies!' Basically, if he's a for a smack in the mouth, I get one. And the same applies to me - if I'm asking for a smack in the mouth, I'll get one."

What if Wank Weekly phoned up and asked Liam to romp around in a soapy bath full naked models for the centrespread? 'He wouldn't do it,' frowns Noel, after a long, considered pause. "That'd cause another fight. But do you know what really worries me? I worry that someone's gonna throw a bottle at Our Kid one night and he's gonna casually move out c way and let it smack me right in my mouth!"

So Oasis do another cracking gig, and some more substances and more socialising. And then - no doubt to the relief of five horrendously overworked constitutions, not to mention all of Derby's hotels - they go home. After a bizarre night drive a England, there's a quick sprint around Manchester dropping various members off at their houses.

It all ends at 3am in the Britannia Hotel, where The Buzzcocks are retiring to bed. These Animal Men cower in shady corners and the bar bulges with soft Southerners in crap Adidas gear loudly celebrating United's championship success.

In the midst of all this, Noel Gallagher partakes of one last G&T and contemplates the next step in the Oasis plan for global domination: Glastonbury.

"People go on about the pressure and all that because they sit and think about it ail day," he decides. "But we'll just bowl up there, arguing in the coach on the way. Someone will probably have a tooth missing by the time we get onstage and we'll play the gig and then we'll get off and start arguing again.

"This is another dream: I always wanted to go to Glastonbury but I could never afford a ticket, and now, all of a sudden, someone's paying me to play to a load of people and give me loads of beer and drugs. It's gonna be brilliant, because once you're in that field anything goes. When you're at home in your local pub and announce, 'I'm gonna get my face painted like a panda,' everyone goes, 'What the f*** does he mean? Let's bottle the c***!' But at Glastonbury you can take all your clothes off and run around naked - that's what it's there for! Same with this band: let your hair down man, have a good time, that's what it's there for. Then you wake up the morning after and do it again.' And again. And again. And again...