OASIS
{ domg it. The six or seven hours leading up to that
is work. If someone gave me the chOice, I wouldn't do it, but I don’t have a choice. If I don’t do it, it doesn’t get fucking done. If it doesn’t get done then people have got an excuse as to why you’re not selling records. But it’s not even that for me. Being on the road constitutes endless hours of talking bullshit. I’m 34 this year and I’m not Interested if John Lennon was a better songwriter than Paul McCartney, I’m not arsed who's in an argument With Robbie Williams about something. It doesn’t concern my group. It feels like you’re an endless guest on The Jerry Springer Show. It’s like (impersonates Jerry Springer, very badly) ’Today on our show we have two feuding brothers,’ and I’m IUSI fucking SICk of it. What I'm most Sick of is I’m sick of being sick of it. So I won’t be dOing it. I can’t see me being Keith Richards and playing ’Supersonic' when I’m 50. That would be fucked up. That’s not what it was about in the first place. As for the others, you'll have to speak to them. TL: Did you not find it odd watching a stand-in for you playing in your band? NG: It got to the pOint where we had this masswe row about something that’s really personal and I won’t embarrass him by telling you what he said about my family, so it comes to a pomt where either he’s gonna go or I’m gonna go. It's eaSier to get someone in to play gUitar than it is get a singer. It was one of them. I ended up with a black eye, after it all blew up. I ain’t gomg on stage With a black eye for no cunt. Just so people could take photographs and it’d all be like the Clampetts gomg round Europe or the Happy Mondays. I’m a bit too proud for that. I can't play gigs in sunglasses because I can't see what the fuck I'm dOing. It’s easier for someone to do me than it is to do Liam
'lt's our divine right as Mancunians to
bait David Beckham.’ NoelGaHagher
TL: Do you think these diffe are reconcilable?
between you
NG: (Long pause) I would ne never. (Even longer pause) This isn’t the me this has happened. If everybody papers 0 e cracks this
time it’s gonna render the nex utterly fucking meaningless. So yo the line somewhere. This has been the day he decided he was going to and his fucking divvy Wife a house instead 0. to America when we were number five in ~ charts, when he’d Just spent three month on his arse dOing fuck all anyway. So this has . escalating since then. A line's got to be drav under it at some pOint. He ain’t gonna change, so I'm not gonna be party to him any more. But that doesn’t mean the band are splitting up, cos there’s ways round it.
TL: What went wrong?
NG: It was fucking great until Whitey (drummer Alan White who strained tendons in his wrist which led to the cancellation of a show in the US) had to pull the gig. When you put ten geezers in a room With a rider you jUSt know What's gOing to happen. I knew six hours before, how it was gOing to end up, and that's fucking boring, it's like listening to the same fucking record over and over. So I sort of fast forwarded it. Everything was fine before that. The problem is when Liam drinks he’s a nasty fucking little bastard and when he’s sober he’s alright and that’s what it has always bOiIed down to. In the past it was Just how much I can put up With. I'm getting older and my fuse is getting shorter these days.
TL: You've got more things to concern you these days, haven't you?
NG: If you’re given a chOice and someone says you
t happens t to draw n since
TL: Are you going to be making the pilgrimage to Maine Road for Man City this season?
NG: Yeah. The good thing about the Premiership is that a lot of it happens down south so I don’t have to go that far. I’m definitely gomg to go to the derby games because I feel that ever since the World Cup the rest of England has had the pleasure of DaVId Beckham-baiting; City fans haven’t had that chance yet. We might get relegated this season so at least I’ll have two fucking goes at him. It’d be something to tell the grandkids wouldn’t it? It’s Our diyine right as . cunians. He's not heard nothing yet.
- id a cover of 'My Generation'. Are
NG: behind The . . to see them at Shepherd’s Bus mpire and they were amaZing. When you go and see these old geezers, you think musicians generally never lose it, but it’s down to whether the singer's gonna have the same v0ice and he was spot on. Zak Starkey was dOing a brilliant Keith Moon impression an’ all. I got up the next day and I had two of the biggest bruises on my knees I've ever had in my life from playing air drums. At one pomt I was in the air myself gIVing It air everything.
TL: Should we expect any surprises in the live sets in Scotland?
NG: We’ll sling another couple of songs III The set list we've been dOing on tour has been printed in pretty much every bastard magazine and when you don’t have that much time to rehearse new numbers it’s pretty much set in stone. If you get any complaints JUSI remind them that they’re lucky they’re seeing us at all.
Oasis play Murrayfield Stadium on Sat 29 Jul and Glasgow Green on Sat 26 Aug.
can either get back on the tour bus With someone you’ve Just had a fight With for another six weeks or you can go to your house in Spain With your Wife and your baby girl and we’ll find a stand-in for you, what are you gonna do? C’mon don’t take the piss. And the football’s Just starting. I can really see myself standing on stage in Denmark on a Tuesday night when I could be watching the football on the beach. Cos the two are perfectly balanced, aren’t they? Are they fuck. I turned on MTV one night they were dOing some German Festival and they were domg a pretty ropey version of ’Supersonic' and I was sat round the SWimming pool gOing: 'Ha, ha, ha, easy life’. They're still playing my songs: it doesn’t matter who plays them as long as they do.
Noel: 'l have no intention of pursuing a solo career'
(laughs).
’The singer’