New NME interview with Liam and Noel
jamiec补: the original dreaming idler
It may have been a vintage year for rock thrills, but Oasis aren't
havin' it. On the eve of their huge Manchester homecoming, Liam and Noel
tell NME why they're the real Pop Idols.
When Liam Gallagher was a lad, he always has chips for school dinner,
sometimes with gravy, sometimes with curry sauce. Fifteen years, 36
million albums and several dimensions of extreme human experience later,
he's having exactly the same; chips'n'curry, out of a paper bag, on a
polystyrene plate, with a plastic fork, perched on the glittering
glass-topped table of Aberdeen's poshest, Brigadoon-type hotel. Today's
bag was brought to him, yesterday he went to the local chippy himself.
"An' I got mithered by loads of schoolkids," he chirps, "probably
thought I was Gareth Gates. I don't get chips'n'curry in London, or
gravy, so every time I come up here I just OD on it. Y'want one?"
And such flawless skin, too, 'ladies'. Liam Gallagher, nearly 30, and
some won't want to hear this, is actually becoming better looking.
Today, without the shades, and with an early night (he could rest easy,
apparantly, knowing the bar was open until 8am), his eyes are extra
colossal, motionless deep blue discs in a white expanse, eyelashes so
black there's some in-built miracle-mascara Revlon wand at work. So
beautiful, in fact, they're ridiculous.
Noel, meanwhile, 35, wears shades 'cos he feels "like shit", hangover
wrecked, but nothing "a cuppa tea an' a kip" won't cure. Nonetheless eh,
too, is becoming better looking; good hair, sculpted stubble, eyes
beneath the shades the brightest, lightest blue. No trace here of the
bashed-up face in the crash that could've killed him one month ago in
the States.
"You're lying on a bed all smashed up," he muses, a seat next to Liam on
a deep-pile sofa, shades off, no chips, "and you think, 'If I was Thom
Yorke or Fran Healy, I'd have a box set written about this immediately',
but y'see I can't write fookin' songs like that... (Sings) 'Oooh, I was
driving down the highway and me face went through the windscreen...' I
walked away, what can I say? James Dean didn't. It's not gonna be a big
deal in my life. I was more excited about getting a jar of Vicodin;
fookin' amazin' man."
So a near-death situation doesn't do a thing to your head?
"Well, 20 miles an hourr faster..." he shrugs, "but it wasn't, and I
don't dwell on it."
You must have had the fright of your life, Liam.
Noel: "He got fives days off! Loved it!"
Liam: "I was pissed off about it 'cos I was halfway through a big
session. And I sobered up dead quick, 'What d'yer mean car crash?!'
Naah, it was heavy man and he was lucky but it's over now."
Noel: "I'm more from the Billy Connolly school of philosophy; it was
funny, man. I felt sorry for me mam and me daughter an' all that but the
worst thing that happened was me favourite sunglasses were smashed to
bits and that proper pissed me off; me purple lenses I've had for six
years, me Captain Kirks!"
Liam: "He put 'em on after, going, 'This is what I looked like when I
got out of the car (mimes comedy broken specs at jaunty angle).' One
lens in, one lens out, all bent up."
This year Oasis are, evidently, invincible; new single 'Little By
Little' their first true classic for years ("Top lyrics," notes Liam,
correctly), second A-side 'She Is Love' unhampered by the fact that the
woman it was written about, Sara MacDonald, is no longer Noel's "bird".
"I can detach meself from it," says Noel. "It's the same with all songs,
'she' could mean your car, your guita, your new pair of trainers."
Liam: "Well, that's the way it is now. Heh heh!"
Noel: "In America, some idiot wrote that we were gonna ban the single
coming out. '(Imaginary phone to ear) Uh, Sony Music? It's Noel from
Oasis... me an' me missus have split up so stop the presses an' can we
take it off the album?' Fook off!"
Practically five minutes back in Britain, Noel Gallagher - deeply astute
culture-watcher - has already surveyed enough TV and tabloids to know
exactly where the mainstream is 'at'.
"Have you noticed, now," muses Noel, "if it's not ordinary, fookin'
talentless idiots from Tesco with a lisp doing reality TV shows, it's
celebrities? Them c---s in the jungle, man... Why don't they put Fawlty
Towers back on on a Saturday night? It's hilarious, though: Geri
Halliwell going '(Primly) Y'know, I just don't think you've got the
X-factor.' What's that all about? I have to say there's no better mental
image than Geri Halliwell going through George Michael's dustbins
looking for chocolate cake. I've got to sit down and close the fookin'
paper an' go, 'Just let me picture that.' Fookin' have a bar of
chocolate, man! You weigh about two pound; have a Dairy Milk an' a
hazelnut and then a lager an' go to bed; what's up with yer, man? An' if
you fookin' put an extra pound on get on the fookin' running machine
like the rest of us, fookin' loser. You wouldn't admit to shit like that
would yer?!"
Liam: "They're all c---s, all of 'em. Actually I don't like this
interview already, 'cos everyone's a c---! Everyone'll be goin', 'Here's
them two pair o' bastards comin' again!'"
Noel: "Ten minutes in and we're already slagging off bimbos in bins! Why
can't we just be like everybody else?"
NME: Lancashire County Cricket Club's ground in Manchester, 50,000
people a night; triumphant homecoming or just another gig?
Noel: "Well, they're the biggest we've done since Knebworth [CNS: er,
Wembley?!]. We've played to 470,000 people in Britain this year. And
there's loads of kids. At Finsbury Park I'm looking out and there was
nobody I could see even approaching 30. I was talking to a woman today
an' she said, 'Can I have an autograph for me son, he went to your
concert last night and it was his first gig, he's been putting off going
to a gig until he sees Oasis first.' He cam back in tears. Him and his
brother - teenagers - at their first gig. Let's hope they go an' start a
band."
Liam, chips aloft: "That's the main thing."
When you go back to Manchester, does it feel like coming home?
Noel: "I love it, me. I go up every Saturday when City are at home, if
I'm in England. If I didn't have a daughter that lived in London, I'd
move back there. Your mates you grew up with are sill exactly the same,
still smoking weed, 'Ariight?' and they greet you like you've never been
on the telly. You walk round the town centre and you think, 'There's
actually no paparazzi, no joournalists, they don't live 'ere. I could
take me pants down, walk up Market Street, naked, with a Nazi hat on;
everyone'd be like that, 'Look at that knob'ead.'"
For the aliens beamed down on their holidays, how would you describe the
Mancunian attitude?
Liam: "Someone who don't give a fuck but actually gives an extremely
large fuck. Someone who doesn't care, but really does. More than anyone
who apparantly does care."
Noel: "Back in the day when the Royalists got as far as Manchester,
everyone went, 'Fookin' what king? That bloke in tights? No chance,
we'll have a house of common people.' I think we're like Italians. Ever
been in a roomful of Mancunians? Whoever's the loudest is right."
Spike Island, Haigh Hall, other northwestern legends; how will these
'cricket' shows compare?
Noel: "Well, we're the best live band in the world, bar none, so it's
all abouot the weather. If it stays dry it'll be monumental."
Liam: "Spike Island was fookin' shocking. Shite man. But I just wanted
to see their heads onstage and get pissed with me mates. Looking back,
the music side was rubbish, but the gathering was top."
Noel: "I was looking at some footage the other day and I was nearly in
tears, man. They looked the bollocks, apart from Mani of course, in his
ponytail. Bonehead had a Transit van that was painted in Jackson
Pollock-style and they all watched the gig on top of the van. I went
with me girlfriend and managed to blag it backstage - first time I'd
ever been backstage - boring as fuck, loads of people stood round
smokin' weed; we expected naked women handing out 50 pound notes. So we
went back out. But anybody who felt cheated by it is missing the point.
same as Knebworth. You were at something monumental which will never be
repeated. It's of your time. And you can say to your parents, 'We had
the same as you did in the '60's, man.' Wasn't as socially cosmic, but
it was the same."
Speaking of socially cosmic, you're playing with Richard 'Mashcroft'
again...
Liam: "He come round mine, took me driving in his new car. I shit me
pants 'cos he'd just passed his test. In this 50 fookin' grand white
Elvis motor. He goes, 'We'll take the roof down' and I'm thinkin',
'We're gonna look a right pair of proper c---s driving round London with
a roof down in this...naah, put the roof back up!' I love him, man."
Noel: "He plays you his stuff and talks all the way through it and
goes,'What d'you think?' And you're like, 'You talked all the way
through it, man!' He's (Liam) the same! It's spirit, man! And you can't
fake it. You see some of 'em on the telly and you go, 'Yeah, you're
saying the right things, you've got the right clothes and the right
hairdo but you're a knob'ead an' you know it."
Music is great again, though, allegedly.
Liam: "But there's still no rock'n'roll stars. There's loads of bands
but there's not one rock'n'roll star. Anywhere."
Noel: "I would agree with that. There needs to be a big British band
whose first five singles go in at Number One. Do big, huge gigs, 10,000
people a night, or it ain't gonna matter. The Vines and The Strokes an'
all that, the music's fine and I like it, but they speak in different
accents, they don't have the same reference points. I've never been
touched by any American bands. It's the people in the bands who are
important and they don't say a fucking thing. That guy from The Vines
screams and shouts his head off an' all I know about him is he's
addicted to McDonalds'. Great. That's something to believe in, innit?
Junk food."
Liverpool and the North have risen again. Or have they?
Noel: "It's The Coral and that's it."
The Music
Together: "Roobish."
Noel: "Dog shit, man. It's Rock School.
Liam: "He sounds like a witch."
Noel: "If people like it, fucking brilliant, cool, but it's a fuckin
con."
Liam: "You can have loads and loads and loads and loads of bands about,
an' if there's no personalities then it doesn't mean jack shit. You can
have loads and loads of booze on the table, if it's not alcoholic, it's
rubbish. You can have a load of cigarettes on the table, but if they
don't give you fookin' cancer, they're shit."
Complete the following statement: kids these days...
Liam: "...have got it too fooking easy. All sat at home on the internet.
Walking around in top clobber at 18 years of age, man; 80 pound trainers
and Burberry. All we wore was a fookin' pair of jeans, one coat an'
Dunlop Green Flash that cost seven pound."
So it's 'bring on the recession'?
Noel: "I don't understand all these pop stars saying, '(Posho's voice)
We should have a deemocratic debate about the war.'"
Liam: "I'm not worried about it; you either die or you wake up. Nobody's
gonna listen to knob'ead out of Blur or you or me or 'im. No-one even
listens to fookin' Bono."
Noel: "At least it'll be something decent to watch on the fookin' telly.
On the off-chance that whatsisname might have a nuclear weapon, who's to
fookin' say if it's a good or bad thing? I tell you what, if it means
halfway through fookin' Pop Idol there's a newsflash that says the
bomb's gone off and the programme's finished, I'm all for it. 'Gerrin'
in there lads', 'cos I've had enough of fookin' idiots runnin' round
jungles talkin' about farting. Proper fookin' action, on the telly, nine
o'clock, the fall of Baghdad, let's fookin' 'ave it. 'Ave it! I can't be
serious about it, my opinion means nothing. The people in the WHite
House can change all this, I play guita in a band and we're really good,
arsed about anything else."
The 21st century, who get's the blame?
Noel: "Everything's masked so well, who do you blame? You can't blame
anybody. Nobody hates anybosdy any more. Except me an' 'im, obviously.
Everybosy's 'alright'. Their music's 'alright'. I'd rather go'n'see a
band that were shit. I like people that hate Oasis, I really do, man.
People come up to me and say, 'You're shit', and I'm 'Great! Atleast
it's not 'alright'. What d'you mean it's fookin' alright? I'm singing me
soul to you and you thought it was alright?!' At least throw eggs.
There's no extremes anymore. Even the Tory Party, they're just a bunch
of knob'eads; what happened to all the evil people? The Devil's lost his
balls, man."
What's the answer, lads?
Liam: "We need a new drink. Look at that bar. (Surveys comprehensively
stocked poshos' bar) I sat there last night an' looked at it and went,
'I've seen you, done you, don't get on with you, fook you..." The drink
should be called C---. A proper c---'s drink. 'Can I have a pint of
C---?' 'What were you drinking last night?' 'C---!'"!
How do you think this Year of Triumph for Oasis came about?
Liam: "'Cos we're really good. For the people who expect you to fall
flat on your face, I always knew the fans would be there 'cos we talk
the same language. And the album's a good album. It ain't a mega album,
it ain't the best album, it's just a great album. And it makes way for
the next one."
Noel: "I've got four songs demoed for the next album already. And the
stuff he's written sounds mega. We always take this band one album at a
time. There'll be one more album definitely. An' then we're out of
contract with Sony anyway, so where do we go from there? Who knows? Who
knows, 'cos tomorrow you might be in a car crash."
Brothermark
thanks for posting it
mark
.·°^°·.+Nick S+.·°^°·.
jamiec²¹: michael barrymores swimming teacher
figures, said:
> thanks for taking the time to do that Jamie, appreciate it mate.
it's just a cut and paste from www.oasiscns.com so all credit goes to
them. i don't think i'd have the patience to do all that.
.·°^°·.+Nick S+.·°^°·.
;-)
ps. love the new name ;-)
The K
"jamiec²¹: the original dreaming idler" <noemail=nos...@mail.com> wrote in
message news:amg6bt$5mnk6$1...@ID-35858.news.dfncis.de...
sheislove
--
And on the 7th day, God created Man...chester.
"The K" <amiganxD...@aol.co.uk> wrote in message
news:amhjsp$61dbf$1...@ID-35974.news.dfncis.de...
The K
cheaper!
it's ridiculous the price of chips these days...you could buy a sack of
potatoes for the same price!
"sheislove" <hay...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:GsYi9.2731$MO1.31...@news-text.cableinet.net...