Noel Gallagher - Unknown - 26th November 2005

NOEL Gallagher looked more Johnny Cash than bad boy of rock in Sydney yesterday.
D
ressed in black, the 38-year-old Oasis guitarist had plenty of lip on the eve of their third Australian tour, but he was playing down the Manchester band's notoriety.

Gallagher said the band was more about the music than making headlines.

"I think we were always recognised for our music, first and foremost," he said. "There may have been a few years where the records weren't well received and we got more headlines for some of the things that went on."

Noel and his younger brother Liam have been a fixture on the front pages almost since they released their debut album, Definitely Maybe, in 1994.

Their Australian debut seven years ago was a low point, with Liam arrested for headbutting a fan.

"We weren't in a very good place as a group," Gallagher said of that first visit.

Oasis made amends with Australian fans four years later with an extensive tour that included some small-venue performances and not so much as a finger waved in anger.

This time the band is here on the back of their recent, critically acclaimed album, Don't Believe the Truth, an album "our kid" Liam had a hand in writing. The sibling rivalry is long gone, it seems.

"Our fallouts tend to be more public because we're quite forthright and we don't bullshit people," Gallagher said.

"I'm sure it's the same for Coldplay. I'm sure they don't always get on with each other, but if somebody asks us a question we're quite up-front about it.

"There are only two people in the world who are not fascinated by our relationship, and that's me and him.

"Nobody gives a f..k about it any more. It's not really relevant to what we do. Whatever we might say about each other in the press, it's all done with a very large pinch of salt."

That's not to say the elder brother doesn't regret some of the things he says.

"I'll be reading articles for the next two weeks in Australia going, 'That doesn't look good in print'. But, f..k it, that's the way I am."

Oasis have had a string of hits, including Live Forever, Rock'n'Roll Star and Don't Look Back in Anger. Many of those will be on parade when the tour begins in Brisbane tonight.

"This time it will be special," Gallagher said. "I'll be great, I can guarantee you that."

Noel Gallagher - The Age - 25th November 2005

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REGRETS? Noel Gallagher has two. The first is not taking a year off after Oasis played Knebworth in August 1996, the peak of their Supersonic/ Wonderwall golden years.

The 250,000-strong homecoming fulfilled their destiny as saviours of British rock. The inevitable slide into exhaustion and mediocrity effectively began the next morning.

"The second is changing brands of cigarettes," the songwriter says, blowing smoke from his Barcelona hotel window, " 'cause Marlboro Lights are a ladies' fag and it makes me feel less of a man when I spark one up in the morning."

They're minor quibbles, really, 10 years after the infamous Blur versus Oasis comedy made Noel Gallagher rich and famous. His and his brother Liam's sixth album, Don't Believe the Truth, is another bloated wall of distorted guitars and vacuous macho bluster that both signifies and seals his contentment "I meet people in bands and they're obsessed with pushing things forward," he says.

"I just wanna stay the same, which kinda makes me unique, so that'll do me."

Bands like Radiohead and REM and U2 and Coldplay are constantly trying to change who they are, and I wonder if it's because their personal lives are so rock-solid that they need to constantly destroy and re-create in their professional lives."

My personal life is f--kin' chaos, right? Everything outside of my music is falling apart and being re-created on a weekly basis. So I have to have something that's solid as a rock and that is my f--kin' music. Thank f--k for this band, you knowarramean?

"I don't wanna be in the studio going, 'What are we on now? Are we doing reggae or space jazz?
Oh, it's the Beatles?' That'll do me, thanks very much, I f--kin' know where I am with that. I'm good at that."

In theory, Oasis are even better at that since Zak Starkey, son of Ringo, became their drummer last year.

Gallagher prefers not to dwell on the dynastic implications. "It might freak me out," he says. "I might wake up from a dream and I'll be in a band with (fashion designer) Stella McCartney instead."

Neither is he inclined to read too much history into his latest choice of album titles. Since Oasis arrived in a snowstorm of British music press hype in 1994, many observers have found the alleged truth of their greatness hard to believe.

On their first visit here in '98, most Australians agreed they were a first-rate media circus with a pretty lame musical score. The same description applies to most British acts that have emerged from the machinery that Oasis set in motion.

The Gallaghers are scathingly dismissive of the latest production line led by Franz Ferdinand. Nor is Noel convinced by England's most absurd new rock hero, the crackaddled former Libertines personality turned Kate Moss handbag, Pete Doherty."

Babyshambles (Doherty's new band) ... it does all smack of the emperor's new clothes at the minute."

They're kinda the opposite of Oasis in a way, in that we were trying to make it big and Babyshambles are trying to make it small."

You gotta make it big. Don't f--kin' make it medium."

In that sense, even Coldplay are OK by Gallagher: "The only rivalry Oasis have with Coldplay is in Liam's head, right? Chris (Martin) is actually a good mate of mine."

Melbourne's favourite rock exports du jour are likewise men after Uncle Noel's heart.

"We did five weeks in the (United) States with Jet," he says, "and I gotta tell you, I love them boys. The bass player threatened to drink every member of Oasis under the table on more than one occasion and would then promptly pass out."

But their new f--kin' record, man, I'm telling you, I am pretty f--kin' amazed by. One tune sounds like the Beach Boys. Not that I like the Beach Boys. I f--kin' hate the Beach Boys - I think Brian Wilson is a cabbage. But we had a great time with them and they are top, top geezers."

Speaking of Blur, the Gallaghers were in the same room as Gorillaz' Damon Albarn at the Q Awards in London last month.

Any 10th-anniversary olive branches exchanged?

"Damon?" Gallagher sighs.

"Bless him. My missus is a Gorillaz fan so she was passing his table and said to him 'Oh, I really like your album'. After, he told someone that we'd sent her over as an emissary to test the waters."

"Now, I like Damon's music. He's made some f--king great tunes. But he's a f--kin' knobhead, man."

Gem Archer & Andy Bell - DW World - 10th November 2005

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1772337,00.html


DW-WORLD caught up with Andy Bell and Gem Archer from Oasis before the British rock band's Düsseldorf show on their current world tour to find out what life is like on the road with the Gallagher brothers.

Bass player Andy Bell and guitarist Gem Archer joined Oasis five years ago after two of the original members left the band. Since then, they have played on two albums and have toured the world's stadiums a number of times while living at the heart of one of Britain's most notoriously combustible rock bands.

DW-WORLD: You've both been with Oasis since 2000, what’s changed in the band over that period of time?
Andy: The ship is a lot steadier than it used to be. When I think back to the first couple of tours we did, it was pretty chaotic.
Gem: We’re older and wiser…and we've got a different drummer now, that’s the biggest difference really. But it’s ever changing.

DW: When (previous Oasis drummer) Alan White left the band, did you have any thoughts of "what have I got myself into"?
Andy: I did get that feeling when Noel left, which was quite soon after we joined the band. Noel had a big row with Liam and took off for about two months in the middle of the tour. That was a bit of a weird one but when Alan left, that was in between tours at the end of a long break so that didn’t really interrupt anything.

DW: But that didn’t make you think that you’d made a bad choice joining Oasis?
Gem: No, not at all. Anybody who knows the band knows that it's all about the chaos and I do remember Marcus (Russell) our manager saying when we joined, "a month in Oasis is like a year in any other band" and it still is.
Andy: And you can see that because we've aged twenty years in the last five.

DW: The band seems a more diplomatic concern these days, with everyone taking on song writing duties. Was that a very organic thing or was there a meeting where Noel sat everyone down and said, "I need you all to pick up the slack"?
Andy: There aren’t any meetings! You only get meetings if there’s a big crisis. We just let it organically move forward.
Gem: We can't speak for what it was like before our time but it just evolves, whether you’re just doing demos in the studio or talking about what you’re going to do in the sound check. I suppose back in the day it was more like "right, we’re doing this."
Andy: It just seems like it's been organic and we came into the band at a time when there was a space for songs. I think if we would’ve come into the band when Noel was in his first song writing flush, the first era, there wouldn’t have been space for it.
Gem: He was white hot. Liam was in the pub constantly, he'll be the first to admit that, so Noel had the responsibility.
Andy: And it was Liam who opened the door really when he started writing. Then Noel probably thought, "well there’s space here for more than just my tunes" and then we came along soon after.

DW: Over the past two albums, you've both contributed songs. Is there a chance the distribution of labour will be expanded and that we’ll be able to hear your songs in your own voices in future?
Gem: I don’t think that'll happen. Liam is the singer and Noel sings as well.

DW: But you were both singers in your previous bands…
Gem: I enjoy singing but Oasis for me is those two voices.
Andy: That would be a step too far. I think I'd resign if that happened.

DW: Andy, your song "Keep the Dream Alive" on the latest album ("Don’t Believe the Truth") seems to deal with the loneliness of being on the road. Is touring something you both still enjoy?
Andy: I actually wrote that for the German football team…
Gem: I completely still enjoy it, man. The bad thing is missing your kids. Even then you have to explain it to them that it's got to be done. I could be driving a cab, I could be on an oil rig…When we're at home, we're all there all the time. If you don't get a buzz from being on tour, you're in the wrong game, man.

DW: Is touring something that has gone to another level since joining Oasis?
Gem: Definitely. But all of us are from the old school; we've all done that up and down the motorways thing, sleeping on the amps and all that. We've heard the stories of when Definitely Maybe (Oasis' debut album) was out; Bonehead (original Oasis guitarist) was driving the van. We know what it's like.
Andy: When I was doing the tours with my previous bands, I always wondered if it felt different to be in U2 or something. What's their daily routine? And when you get that routine of being in a huge band, it isn't essentially any different than when you were all squeezed into a Transit van. It's just bigger halls, more people, but you’re still sitting in a dressing room with your mates before the gig…

DW: So you've just swapped the Transit van for the luxury air-conditioned tour bus?
Andy: You still wake up and feel like a rabbit's shat in your mouth at 3 a.m. when you’ve got to leave the bus and get into a hotel for a day room that you have to leave six hours later…still pulling your bag along a corridor with your hair all over the place…trying to find your room…But that's great though, I’m not complaining.


Andy Bell and Gem Archer talked to Nick Amies.