Liam Gallagher Talks About Noel, Oasis, And Beady Eye











"It's not about getting beaten and 'See you later.' It's about getting beat, getting up, dusting yourself off, and smashing the fuck out of the next person you see in front of you."

Liam Gallagher is talking about the possible return to the ring of his good friend the boxer Ricky Hatton, but he might as well be referring to his own reaction to the spate of backhanded compliments for his first post-Oasis record. His new band, Beady Eye, whose line-up includes all remaining members of Oasis except for his brother Noel, were written off by many critics and fans long before a single note had been released.

"I'm surprised that people were surprised that we'd make good music without Noel Gallagher," he tells me, indignant, from a hotel room in Paris. "I'm surprised and a bit disappointed that people think Noel Gallagher is the brains behind everything."

Last month's release of Different Gear, Still Speeding (Beady Eye Records) marks a new era for Gallagher and former Oasis members Gem Archer, Andy Bell, and Chris Sharrock. Some critics are backpedaling from their preliminary conclusions and conceding that the album is not half bad. Diehard Oasis fans compare it favorably to the band's work in the 2000s. "I've been doing this for 18 years; Gem's been doing it longer. They know how to write music - and I certainly know how to sing. We know how to put on a gig and we know how to write a tune."

Noel's bailing on Oasis just 18 months ago - on the heels of another legendary altercation between the siblings prior to a gig in France - has done nothing to stymie Liam's musical cocktail of Kinks, early Stones, and of course, Beatles influences. Beady Eye certainly keep alive the Oasis tradition of eschewing the reinvention of the wheel in favor of throwing new rims on a road-tested rig of melodies.

"Our musical journey doesn't stop because Noel Gallagher jumped ship," Liam says. "We've got to get back on track, and I was never nervous about it, really. I loved Oasis, but to split Oasis up was out of my hands. I'd have carried on doing Oasis, but you've got to do what you got to do."

Comparisons with the 'Sis are inevitable, though by now irrelevant. After 1995's masterful (What's the Story) Morning Glory? - the second half to one of the most successful one-two album punches in pop-music history - you had to dig to find any sonic gems in the sawdust of the five albums that followed. It's no secret that Noel ran the show as songwriter, but Different Gear, Still Speeding is perhaps more consistent than any recent Oasis release, in part because Liam was invested in it from the outset. "Normally, Noel would do all the guide vocals, so I'd be listening to his voice pretty much all the way through the bloody album, and then I'd sing at the end. I think the playing would sort of go around Noel's voice, and as much as he's great and all that, he's not rock and roll, is he?"

And there it is. As if on cue, and with no prodding: the first chip shot at big brother's expense. Almost two decades in and it's just as entertaining to watch this sibling rivalry still rage. "Me and Noel can't get on with each other. He thinks he's fucking God, I think I'm God — it doesn't work. We never really had an argument about music; it was always about personal things. It's a shame that in the end that broke the band up, but at the end of the day, I think it's better off for everyone. You change as you grow up, and maybe Noel isn't as rock and roll as he once was, and maybe he's scared of being in a rock-and-roll band and wants to take things a little bit easier and sit on his hill and be Bob Dylan. That's fine, mate, but you're never gonna get me sitting on a fucking stool playing acoustic guitar. I need to explode when I'm on that stage."

Behind the microphone stand is the spot where this Gallagher is at his best. Hands clasped behind his back, knees slightly bent, neck craned with a disaffected preen - it's a posture that's been both imitated and ridiculed. Liam flourished belting out the multitude of Oasis classics over the years, but those are songs he promises are forever in the rearview.

"I sang them to death," he says of "Wonderwall" and "Rock 'n' Roll Star." "If I didn't have a band, I'd be missing them, without a doubt. I gave Oasis everything and more, so I don't feel like I had anything more to give. I mean, I could have, but I have a new batch of songs now, and I'm quite happy singing them. And why the fuck should we sing his songs? We write our own."

Beady Eye tracks and the odd cover fill the live set, and reviews for an initial series of European dates have been mostly positive. To Gallagher, relying on the Oasis back catalogue is akin to "sleeping with your ex-missus." But he insists his brother will revisit the hits when Noel's pending solo career launches. "He'll take great pleasure in letting everyone know what songs he wrote and what songs he sang on, and he can top off his little set list with all his new songs. So that guy will be playing for three hours boring the fucking life out of people. We don't. We just hit people with an hour, and it's great."

So far, just three live dates in North America have been confirmed: New York, Chicago, and Toronto in early June. More are expected to be added, but if and when a Boston date is set, we might not find Gallagher out sauced on the streets. He's pulled back on the shenanigans that once cost him his front teeth in a German bar brawl, as well as getting him thrown off a ferry in Amsterdam, and leading to numerous entertaining, albeit dodgy, shows. "Yeah, without a doubt," he says when I suggest that he's dialed down the partying. But he adds a disclaimer: "Not to the point where it's all Chris Martin and you're in slippers or whatever and debating cheese and shit. We still have a party, but we only stay out three days now instead of four."

Told this piece will be hitting stands on St. Patrick's Day, the biggest day of the year in Boston to throw down a gaggle of pints, he reflects on his lineage as the youngest of three born in Manchester, England, to Irish emigrants. "They're just fucking amazing people, aren't they? They don't take themselves that serious, they just like to have a good time, and they're brutally honest, which is great. That to me makes a great person - what more do you fucking want?"

When asked whether maybe a decade down the line he'd be up for an Oasis reunion headlining, say, the Glastonbury Festival, Gallagher says that would be admitting Beady Eye had been a failure. "I don't want to get Oasis back together. We had a great run. We ended it with stupid behavior, and I'm not proud of that, but that's the way it was."

Besides, he adds, any Oasis reunion "certainly wouldn't be fucking Glastonbury, because it's a shithole. They ought to put all that fucking money they make and buy a decent fucking sound system. You can hear people speaking in the crowd when you're on stage - what's that about? Fucking rubbish."

Talk then inexplicably shifts to UK pop group S Club 7, a Gallagher obsession. "I'd be more excited about them getting together than Oasis," he gushes. "People would come around to it in the end. S Club 7 Juniors at Glastonbury, headlining - that's what I want."

Source: thephoenix.com

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