Excerpt from Steve Lamacq's new book...
jamiec21
your family'
Steve Lamacq tells the behind-the-scenes story of
his infamous
interview with the Gallaghers
Unlike the follow-up, Standing On The Shoulder Of
Giants, Oasis
didn't do that much promotion for their album Be
Here Now. Interviews
were out of the question. Then a rumour went round
that Noel wanted
to break his radio silence. The letters to Radio 1
from Oasis fans
had far from dried up and, anyway, Noel Gallagher
is funny and he
doesn't dry up. He'll try and get one over on you,
maybe, but he's
never dull. We hadn't reckoned on him turning up
with Liam though.
This was a bit of history. The brothers hadn't
conducted a high-
profile interview together since 1994. The news
spread like wild
fire. By the time the brothers arrived a small
crowd had formed
behind the glass partition that separates my
studio from John Peel's.
I was scared witless.
I shook hands with Noel, then put my arm out to
shake hands with
Liam, and he just stared at it. "You're shaking,
man," he said. "Why
are you shaking?" You should be standing where I
am. As they sat
down, Liam carried on:"So, who are you shagging?"
"Sorry?"
"Who are you shagging at the moment?"
"Well, no one. Sometimes you're so busy in the
music industry you
don't have time to have a relationship. That's
what I find."
Liam: "Are you saying me and Patsy are fucked?"
The CD machine
counting down the minutes and seconds of the track
on air said: 1
min, 27 secs. Liam gets to his feet again and
offers to punch me out.
Noel: "You've took it the wrong way, man. Sit
down."
Me: "I didn't mean you don't have time. I'm saying
that when I'm
working flat out, that's when a relationship
suffers."
Liam: "Right. Cos anyone says that me and Patsy
ain't going to make
it, I'll take them on."
Listening to the interview for the first time in
nearly three years,
they sound far more wasted than I thought they
were at the time. The
interview starts politely enough, then comes a
fairly innocuous
question about the B-sides for the forthcoming
single, All Around The
World. Noel lurches to one side and says: "We've
actually recorded a
cover of Street Fighting Man just to piss Keith
Richards off because
he's been slagging us off." "Piss" I can handle. I
don't even notice
it. Then Liam starts to fidget.
Liam: "Can I just interrupt here?"
Noel: "Interrupt away."
Liam: "All these slags coming out of the closet at
the moment,
right... before we go any further, I'm going to
shoot me mouth off to
them, right... "
Noel senses the danger even before I do. Standing
up, he produces a
wodge of cash from his trouser pocket. "All that
says you'll shut
your mouth. Go on, what is there? 85? And a
platinum credit
card."
Liam: "No, I've got my own, man. Listen, right,
all these old farts
who get out the day centre, they've got a problem
with Oasis. And I
ignore all that, right, because I dig their music.
But at the end of
the day, they all must want a scrap, right, and I
will offer them all
out, right here on radio. So if you want a fight,
right... Primrose
Hill, Saturday morning, 12 o'clock. I will be
there. I'll beat the
fucking living daylight shit out of them. And that
goes for George,
Jagger, Richards and the other cunt who gives me
shit."
There is a sort of unwritten league table that
deals with swearing on
air at the BBC. A producer once told me that one C
was as bad as five
Fs, in which case we were already scoring bad boy
points.
Me: "Who's hurt you most out of those?"
Liam: "Oh, fucking hell, it's got to be Jesus
Christ, hasn't it? But
no, listen, no one's hurt me right, because I
still dig their music.
But it's getting childish, innit? It's like being
in the playground,
and I left the playground years ago. Now they want
to be pushed on to
the fucking swings." And so it continued.
We both tried. Producer Claire Pattenden and I
asked if they could
cut out some swearing. Liam looked very menacing.
Claire: "I'm the
producer and I'm asking you to tone it down."
Liam: "Well, I'm the
fucking singer in Oasis and I'll have you and your
family."
It's live. I suppose we could have pulled the
plug, but at the time I
never felt that was an option. Besides, this was
the most animated
I'd ever seen them.
Bubbling away there's a disagreement over what
Oasis should do next.
Noel says they need a break. Liam wants to get
down to serious work.
Noel claims Liam loves being in the limelight.
Liam disagrees.
Vehemently. Liam wants to make another record.
Noel: "Well, I don't
[sounding miserable]. Work's become boring, mate."
Me: "Suddenly you seem a bit down about it."
Noel: "Yeah. Everything that led up to Knebworth
was really special.
Really exciting. Now we've become just another
band." Liam: "No we
haven't. I don't know what band you're in." Noel:
"We're going to
take time off and regroup." Liam: "We're going to
sit down and change
the face of OUR music and like..." Noel:
[Interrupting] "Blah, blah,
blah, blah..." Liam: "Well, see you later then."
There is a tense silence, as Liam stares at Noel
and Noel stares at
the floor and then I hurriedly hit the Death In
Vegas track Dirt.
Liam walks out. Claire, meanwhile, has been taking
calls from
management. They don't want us to pull the plug,
but we need to give
out some sort of warning.
Dirt finishes. Ridiculously, we've played the
radio edit. Might as
well have played the sweary version. I say: "It's
the Evening
Session, and if you're offended by any of the
language on tonight's
show, turn off. That's our advice." Noel laughs.
Immediately we've come off air, there's a
freelance photographer
standing by to take a picture of Noel and me. Noel
says: "You might
get the sack after that..." Then it's all smiles
for the camera.
For what it's worth, I thought it was a revealing
interview. But of
course, you can't swear like this on national
radio without there
being some kind of furore. The following morning I
gingerly picked up
the Sun. Sure enough: front page. "4 Letter Oasis
In Radio 1
Shocker."
My stomach started to twist slightly. As I
skim-read the piece all
the key words were there: "disgraceful", "often
rambling tirade", the
references to drugs and the threats to Mick
Jagger. It hardly seemed
real. But it was the penultimate paragraph that
really caught my
eye. "Lamacq apologised for the swearing towards
the end of the show -
the most foul-mouthed pop broadcast since the
1976 TV interview
which made the Sex Pistols famous overnight."
Quietly I was quite pleased with that. Since then,
the Oasis show has
gone on to be the most bootlegged radio programme
I've ever been
involved with.
Extract taken from Going Deaf for a Living by
Steve Lamacq (BBC
Worldwide, 9.99, published 5 October 2000).
PLEASE PLEASE - I WANT THIS , IF ANYONE HAS GOT IT ON TAPE MP3 IT OR
SUMMAT!!!!!!!
--
Jamie
"music, music, music, music, let's talk about music"
Noel Gallagher, 1994
"I stare at hotel walls and wonder 'where did it all go right?' "
Noel Gallagher, 1995
"Would Jesus Christ have been a pervert if he'd had a crisp packet on his
head?"
Liam Gallagher, 1997
"If I catch you dickhead, I'll break yer fuckin arse, yer family's arse and
yer mother's fuckin arse! Pack it in!"
Liam Gallagher, 2000 (after getting hit by object on stage)
Go Let It Out - Rare Oasis Mp3's
http://www.acquiesce.freeserve.co.uk/GoLetItOut.html
Geezer
I've got this on CD and tape. If you give me your address, I might *just*
tape you a copy.
G
jamiec21 <ja...@acquiesce.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
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Reg
Cheers..
"Geezer" <gareth_h...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
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Andrea Curry
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/10th_oasis.shtml
"Geezer" <gareth_h...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
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Andrea Curry
rtsp://rmv7.bbc.net.uk/radio1/g2/alt/10th/oasis_interview.rm
"Andrea Curry" <ain...@nospamgrane.com> wrote in message
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