Oasis Interviews Archive

A shitload of interviews from all the various members of Oasis and selected associates from the start of their career right up to the present day. These transcripts have been taken from various websites, forums and newsgroups over the years. Credit goes to those people who took the time to put these words online.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Noel Gallagher - Associated Free Press - 30th October 2005

Oasis song-writing legend Noel Gallagher, currently on tour after the release of the band's sixth album, thinks the only thing that might put an end to live performances by the chart-topping group is the health of younger brother Liam's hair.

"The masterstroke in this band was having a singer five years younger than anyone else. As long as he doesn't go bald, we'll be around for a bit," 38-year-old Noel told AFP before a performance in Paris.

The surly Gallagher brothers, famed for their thick Manchester accents and bitter sibling rivalry, burst onto the British music scene more than a decade ago before going on to sell millions of records worldwide.

Their volatile relationship, fights, drug problems, celebrity relationships — and their prodigious talent for producing catchy pop songs — have filled thousands of news pages the world over.

But the fact that Noel is now joking about ageing and baldness suggests that he may have come to terms with the end of his hell-raising days.

Despite a long and much-publicised history of fraternal friction, Noel says he hasn't had a proper fight with Liam "for a few years."

"All those stupid fights about... whose jackets was better than the other's have all gone," he says.
He admits though that seeing teenagers in the audience singing along to some of the band's early releases "freaks him out."

"There's kids singing along to 'Rock 'n' Roll star' and they would have been like six when it came out," he says. "That took me like two months (of the tour) to get used to. Before, I wouldn't look young people in the eye."

The latest album "Don't Believe The Truth" has been well received by fans, and the return to public favour was cemented when Oasis picked up the Best Album award at Britain's prestigious Q music awards in early October.

The album is a return to a well-tested formula: Liam's strained, nasal vocals laid over powerful guitar chords, coupled with catchy choruses in both rock and ballad formats.

After six albums, it's clear Oasis are not about to reinvent themselves.

"I'm not going to develop anymore after 38. It's as simple as that," says Noel.

Does Noel have another "Wonderwall" or "Live Forever" in him, two of the band's most enduringly popular songs?

"I used to write five songs a day. But now you've got baggage and when you get older you've got things to do," he says. "I don't write as much as I used to, but I write often enough to satisfy my interest."

Not the talk of someone who's still got things to prove. Fatherhood, for one thing, has sapped some of his energy, he says.

But the singer-songwriter has lost none of his cockiness or taste for feuding with fellow musicians. Nor has bringing up a daughter curbed his colourful language.

Noel dismisses, for example, the revival of guitar-based pop music — called by some "Britpop II" after the Britpop of Oasis and Blur in the mid-1990s — as "Indie rubbish".

Noel has already publicly mocked British rivals Bloc Party, and he is no less scornful of bands such as Franz Ferdinand and Maximo Park because they perform in modish suits and ties.

Attending the NME music magazine awards in Britain, he said, was like being in a school disco, where rigid jacket-and-tie dress codes are enforced.

"We were the only people sat there without shirts and ties on. Everyone else was in school uniform," he says. "The first thing we did when got back from school was get that... tie off and get some casual clothes on."

Noel insists on leading a normal life and going to the shops near his home in West London because if not "you end up like Elton John, or... George Michael."

The sight of the Rolling Stones, still touring well into their sixties, is "sad," he said.

Not to be neglected in Noel's litany of abuse was Oasis nemesis and British pop rival Robbie Williams.

"I wouldn't walk a mile in his shoes because he seems to be a very lonely, unhappy, very confused young man," he says.

More surprising is Noel's readiness to loosen his grip on the direction of the band, something over which he has always maintained absolute control.

Noel wrote only half the new album. Band members Andy Bell and Gem Archer wrote one song each, and Liam did three.

"Liam 's only just started to write songs. He's like a... mad man," he says. "He's writing 10 songs a day. I was like that 20 years ago."

Noel on being a parent? "A big responsibility," "one of life's greatest things," "a... pain in the arse."

"If I had any advice, between the ages of 15 and 30 just absolutely go for it like every day was your last. As soon as you hit 30, take your foot off the gas a bit," he says.

Oasis are on tour until next March and will visit Japan and Australia in November.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Noel Gallagher - Associated Australian Press - 27th October 2005

Oasis supremo Noel Gallagher has lavished glowing praise on Australian guitar-rock outfit Jet, calling their music a turn-on.

The British pop star, known for hurling abuse at pop contemporaries such as Robbie Williams or Bloc Party, says he's a convert to the Melbourne rockers, who recently supported Oasis for a series of gigs in the United States.

"When I first saw Jet it was too rock for me, but they're four of the coolest guys I ever met," Gallagher told AAP backstage in Paris, halfway through a world tour.

"You can't argue with Are You Gonna Be My Girl. I never listened to any of their singles and stuff but I'm a fan now."

Gallagher, who has made boasting an art form, still believes Oasis is the best band in the world, but in a display of eyebrow-raising generosity, the 38-year-old star is happy to oil the Jet engine.

"They played me some of their new record which is incredible. It's nothing like the one out last year. It's really, really great. They turn me on, really."

Oasis's sixth album, Don't Believe the Truth, was released in May and is widely heralded as a return to form more than a decade since arm-waving pop anthems like Wonderwall and Don't Look Back in Anger rocked up the charts and helped launch Britpop.

Gallagher and his brother Liam's drug and alcohol-fuelled antics have been making salacious tabloid fodder ever since, but while bands like The Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses never recovered from the Britpop hangover, Oasis are still selling albums and packing out stadiums around the world.

That, of course, is no surprise to the ever-confident Gallagher.

"We were listening back to this (album) thinking it's great and absolutely totally convinced everyone's going to get it and everyone did. So I'm pleased the fans like it and the people who've stood by us for years".

As a pop veteran, Gallagher has little time for the new generation of skinny-trouser and tie-clad guitar-driven bands such as Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs, dismissing them as "indie s***".

"Within that realm of indie s***, Franz Ferdinand is about as good as it gets. Take Me Out is a tune that wins hands down but, really, it's f****** indie rubbish," Gallagher said.

"We were at the NME awards last year and we were the only ones not sat there with shirts and ties on. Everyone else was there in school uniforms, it was like being at a school disco."

Few things, though, rub a Gallagher up the wrong way quite as much as Robbie Williams.

The tabloids' favourite pop feud reared its head again after Williams hinted a track on his new album was a sexually explicit expose of his ex-girlfriend, All Saints star Nicole Appleton, now 33-year-old Liam's fiancee and mother of his youngest child, Gene.

"I feel sorry for Robbie Williams because nobody once ever mentions his music," laughs Gallagher cheekily.

"I wouldn't walk a mile in his shoes because he seems to be a very lonely and unhappy, very confused young man. He doesn't know whether he's straight or gay. He's forever going on about wanting a girlfriend and seems to be a lonely, sad man."

Gallagher still knows how to throw a verbal punch but after years of pop superstardom, fatherhood and eyeing 40, he admits he increasingly enjoys what he calls an ordinary life in his west London home.

"It's a bit weird going to the supermarket (sometimes) you kind of freak people out when you've got four bags of shopping," he says.

"But you've got to have a real life because if you don't, you end up like Elton John or George Michael.

"Can you imagine George Michael buying toothpaste and a toothbrush and a newspaper or some lemons?

"Ordinary people are determined to make you feel bad, though. You'll be in the queue at the supermarket with a pint of milk, some bread and a newspaper and someone will say, 'what you doing here?'

"I turn around and say, f*** off, I'm doing my f***ing shopping like you are."

The star says he's horrified by the prospect of becoming a rock dinosaur in the mould of the Rolling Stones, although the band has no intention of hanging up their guitar straps just yet.

"As long as (Liam) looks good we'll be around for a bit. So when he hits 40, that's when we'll start having problems," he laughs.

"Luckily we're blessed with great hair, I don't dye mine, nor does Liam, so we're still hanging in there."

Gallagher's days of heavy drug abuse, hell raising and general rock 'n' roll mayhem may be easing off as he takes his foot off the pedal, but there's no doubt what still gets one of Britain's most colourful pop icons revved up.

"You can't beat walking out into a football stadium and have 20,000 people simultaneously fall in love with you."

Australian fans will have a chance to lose their hearts to Oasis when the band tours later this month. Gallagher promises no repeats of their disastrous 1998 visit, which culminated in Liam being charged for headbutting a fan in Brisbane.

"I can't remember it really, I was just too f***ing out of it at the time," Gallagher says of the incident.

"We'd gone off the rails completely, it was great being in the band but I wouldn't have liked to have been in the audience. We had a great time but I'm sure all the people who paid all that money didn't.

"We were f***ing appalling, we were shocking, which is why the next time (in 2002) was so fantastic because we made a conscious effort to really turn it on.

"We're really looking forward to going back this time."

Oasis kick off their Australian tour on November 26 at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, before concerts in Sydney and Melbourne.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Noel & Liam Gallagher - Taratata - 7th October 2005

Noel




Liam



Performance date: 9th June 2005