With a new album looming, Oasis's battling brothers show a rare moment of compassion after onstage attack.
Noel Gallagher had been looking forward to Toronto all week.
That's what the fellow managing his affairs -- and his security -- told me backstage at the Pengrowth Saddledome as we sat in a drab, dimly lit room waiting to interview the leader of the British band Oasis.
Gallagher, 41, seemed relaxed, in good spirits and as cocky as ever Aug. 30 at the 'Dome. He had just run through a satisfactory soundcheck hours before the band's impressive show that evening and he was keen to talk up the group's latest disc Dig Out Your Soul, set to hit stores on Oct. 6.
But, according to his burly and quite jovial handler, the guitarist was most excited about playing Toronto's Virgin Festival on Sept. 7. Also on the bill that day was Welsh group Stereophonics and singer-songwriter Paul Weller, one of Noel's best friends, and it was indicated that when Oasis reunited with their mates they planned to "go a bit mad," as we might expect from the royal bad lads of British rock.
Those plans changed on the day of the gig when a fan tackled Noel onstage during Oasis's set, slamming him into a monitor speaker and breaking three of his ribs. Subsequently, the band wound up cancelling several weeks worth of shows through the end of September.
If there was a plus side to the incident, perhaps it was in forcing Noel and his younger sibling Liam, the thuggish 36-year-old singer in Oasis, to actually show each other a scrap of brotherly affection.
"I thought (Noel) had been stabbed," admitted Liam in an interview with MTV2. "It was f--king dark . . . but it could have been a lot worse. That's the way I look at it."
Liam, who had to be restrained from attacking Noel's assailant, added he vowed to protect his brother in the future. "It won't be happening again, I can assure you of that."
It was a different story in Calgary -- or, rather, the same old story between the eternally embattled brothers -- when Noel was interviewed backstage.
When it was noted, for example, that Liam's songwriting seemed to be improving with each record -- the singer wrote three of the 11 tracks on Dig Out Your Soul -- Noel was dismissive. "It's about time he got his thing down," he said. "I've been writing songs for this band since Day 1. He's been writing for three years. (Actually, it's more like eight. Liam's first song on an Oasis record was on 2000's Standing On The Shoulder of Giants)."
"He wants a pat on the back for that," Noel added with a smirk.
But when Oasis was formed in rough, working-class Manchester back in 1991, didn't Noel join his little brother's band on the condition that he would be the leader and the sole songwriter?
That's a myth, insists Noel. "In the beginning, we were all writing songs," he says. "It's just that I was writing more and mine were better than anybody else's, so everybody kind of took a back seat, which suited me. . . . It just so happens I've got this outrageous cross to bear. I'm extremely talented."
It isn't only Liam who's now contributing songs to Oasis albums either. On recent releases, including the new disc, guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell have also notched up a few songwriting credits. It's been suggested that this has been to the detriment of the band -- that Noel is, and has always been, the brains and the driving force behind Oasis creatively -- and as such he should keep hold of the reins.
As far as being the dominant talent in the band, Noel couldn't agree more. "That's just a fact," were his exact words. But he's emphatic that he never wanted the responsibility of being the band's one guiding light.
"Everybody's got to make a contribution or I may as well go solo," Noel says. "I never wanted that. I always wanted to be in a real band. . . . (I was) f--kin' sick and tired of driving this car. I needed to live a little. From 1991 to 1999 . . . everybody else was getting drug habits and shagging supermodels and what was I doing? Writing f--king lyrics. . . . It was just too much."
Still, Noel continues to be the band's chief songwriter, writing more than half of Dig Out Your Soul, which takes Oasis in a heavier, more groove-laden direction than on their more recent efforts. As well, Noel's songs are almost always given a higher profile than those of his bandmates, being chosen as singles and dominating the Oasis live show.
Does Liam in particular, ever at odds with his brother, occasionally bristle at this? Should we expect him to one day break out on his own and release a solo record?
"He should do it, because he's got enough songs and they're good enough," Noel says. "But I don't think he ever will."
And why is that?
Noel's reply was delivered with a sneer. "Because he's a coward. You've got to have the balls and put 'em on the line . . . I think he likes the shield of Oasis."
If the Gallagher brothers' antagonistic attitude toward one another is an act, they deserve an Oscar. They truly do seem to dislike one another, with Liam giving as good as he gets. In recent interviews Liam has been quoted slagging his brother's singing voice (Noel takes lead vocals occasionally) and he bitterly told one journalist: "(Noel) wants to be me. I don't want to be him."
When I asked Noel if he'd ever consider writing a song with his brother, he scoffed: "We barely speak to each other let alone write f--king songs together."
It makes one wonder how they possibly function as a band, or otherwise. But then, their relationship has always been such, Noel says, going back to -- well, to Liam's birth apparently.
"I had my own room before he came along," says Noel, with a trace of sarcasm. "I had to share my room with him . . . and I've always resented him for that."
If there's one area where the Gallagher brothers have showed somewhat of a united front it's in their shared derision for the sort of art-school indie rock acts that are so embraced by critics -- the same critics who have frequently written Oasis off as a Beatles-obsessed retro band whose tunes are filled with vague, nonsensical lyrics.
"I don't consider myself to be a great lyricist," Noel admits. "But I often find the great lyricists are s--t songwriters. Pete Doherty is a great lyricist. Hum me one of his tunes right now. . . . There's (great songwriters who were also great lyricists) like John Lennon and Bob Dylan, but they're few and far between."
According to Noel, the press has never been overly fond of Oasis, even in the mid-'90s when they were hyped as the band that saved rock and roll (a claim the Gallaghers themselves made frequently, and with much amusing arrogance). "We were the best band in the world," Noel maintains. "You couldn't touch us between '94 and '96. No one could."
But Noel is quick to add that a huge part of the massive success Oasis enjoyed was timing, with the band coming along at the tail end of the grunge heyday, an era that largely took the fun out of rock, the guitarist believes. "It was just that nihilistic attitude towards life," Noel says with a look of distaste. "(Nirvana's) Kurt Cobain blowing his head off, for instance. Just divorce the b---h, man, don't kill yourself. . . . But we came along with a great album and our attitude was completely the opposite of where popular culture was at that time. . . . Things ebb and flow and it all goes in circles.
"Now, for instance, all that optimism of what the press then termed as 'Britpop' has been replaced with cynicism and all this art-school nothingness. But that was a reaction to what was going on in the '90s and it will change again."
While it was clear that Noel's ego remained mighty the week leading up to his injury in Toronto, he also seemed more grounded than when the band first stormed through North America in their younger days. "I know my limitations as a musician and a songwriter," he said, uncharacteristically humble. "(Oasis), we're not the best band in the world and we're not the worst. But regular people get us. . . . I assume it's because they can relate to us in some way, which still amazes me.
"More people get us in England than any other group, and the press -- because it's inhabited by middle-class art students -- finds that offensive in a way. Which I kind of like."
Heath McCoy
Source: The Calgary Herald
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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