Scene: Interior. A spacious bedroom in a big white house in Belsize Park, North London. Sometime at the start of 1998. An empty champagne bottle lies near the widescreen TV at the end of the bed. It's around four in the morning. The blonde is asleep in her Gucci pyjamas. Her husband is tossing and turning , plainly agitated even in his sleep. Suddenly he wakes up and starts hyperventilating. He sits up and clutches his chest.
Noel: Fucking hell. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. Meg! Meg, wake up. My heart...Meg, this is serious. You can't be that pissed...please.
He starts to sob; this is clearly the worst panic attack he has ever experienced
Noel: Please. Meg, please talk to me. I'm going to have a fuckin' heart attack. I've been up for three days doing loads of fucking charlie and my heart's about to explode and this is it: I'm about to fuckin' die.
Cut to dark.
Lunchtime, Paris,
February 2000
It is Liam who appears first. In the basement of a French TV studio, Liam opens the door to his dressing-room and stands still for a moment. He is tall, strangely beautiful and surprisingly self-conscious. He has just bought a dark-blue leather shirt from a shop round the corner and he feels good in it. He drops his shoulders forward, lifts his head and opens his knees wide. Although it takes just 10 seconds for him to get from one dressing-room to another, his simian swagger is sublime.
He stands in the doorway and looks expectantly round the room at his band, from his brother Noel to drummer Alan White to new guitarist Gem Archer and bass player Andy Bell. "S'all right, this shirt?" They briefly look up at him and nod. Noel, in blue jeans and dark-brown, collarless jacket zipped up to his chin, shakes his bead at his brother's vanity.
Oasis are in Paris to perform live on Nulle Part Ailleurs, a respected music and chat show originally presented by Antoine de Caunes. The previous day they were in ltaly at Sanremo, the country's most prestigious music festival. Luciano Pavarotti, guest presenter, asked to be introduced to the Gallaghers. Noel wasn't particularly interested; he was sulking because he thought the festival was "fucking crap". He says, "It was like that bit in the Rock'n'Roll Swindle when Sid Vicious comes out and shoots the fucking audience. The best thing about the whole trip was getting Sony's Learjet to Paris last night."
Being in Paris for 48 hours is no more romantic for Oasis than being in Italy. just before they go off for lunch, they run through a dress rehearsal of the songs they will later perform live. As Noel sings "Sunday Morning Call", Liam sits and watches, bottle of mineral water in one hand, cigarette in the other. The rock star at rest. His hair is ridiculously lustrous, longer than ever and immaculately cut. He sits forward, his hands dangling between his open legs, and looks at his older brother with an impassive expression. He is relaxed but his body remains motionless, not responding to the music at all.
It is Liam's turn on stage. He clasps his hands behind his back and leans up into the microphone. "I can see a liar," he sings in his urgent, gravelly voice. He knocks a tambourine against his leg, allows it to drop to the floor. Suddenly, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants begins to make sense; it is full of Oasis's trademark self importance, with a little added tenderness.
We go to a restaurant round the corner for lunch. Liam forgets his swagger until he walks into the restaurant. At the table, he wants to know, "Is this menu up its own arse or what?" He berates Oasis's manager Marcus Russell for not teaching the band French and then decides he'll just have a glass of water and some bread. "I'll just sit and chill. I don't know what the fuck I want."
The waiter approaches and Liam looks at him with big, child-like eyes and points at the white tablecloth. "Can I have some colouring pens please, mate?" The waiter nods sagely "Nah, only joking! You're not smiling but I'm only joking." I catch Noel's eye. He smiles and shakes his head.
After lunch (Noel eats a pancake filled with cheese which he describes as "baby sick") the brothers stay in the restaurant to do interviews. Liam is sitting around while Noel deflects questions about his new daughter, Anais, and I ask him about his rings. On his wedding finger he wears the Claddagh ring with its infamously big ruby and on two other fingers two heavy gold rings he bought in New York. "Look at this one, man, it's so cool, it's a scarab beetle, and this one's got Egyptian writing on it. Gotta find out what it means... it's fucking magical, this ring."
Liam turns to drummer Alan White. "The French journalist asked me what was British about our music so I told him: sausages," he says with a shrug. As Liam does more interviews, he becomes increasingly intolerant of the banality of the questions. "Yeah, we go to church and pray before going on tour... if a songwriter wants to write a personal song about his stepson or his wife and if knobheads don't like it, then they can fuck off... I'm a new man, man- it's 2000 now... so what if I'm a pain in the arse when I'm pisssed."
At the other end of the restaurant, Noel sits quietly in front of the TV cameras and looks particularly serious and a little pained. He is being asked if Standing on the Shoulder of Giants is a great Oasis album.
That night, England play Argentina in a friendly at Wembley. Oasis are scheduled to attend a record company dinner, but instead someone finds an English pub showing the game. We arrive five minutes after kick-off and have to push past dozens of lairy England fans to reach a specially corndoned off VIP section just in front of a huge TV screen.
Oasis have their first pints of the day; Noel orders Guinness and Liam lager. Noel concentrates on the game and occassionally discusses football, while Liam, aware of the nudging and staring going on in the pub behind him, puts on a performance.
Noel mentions going to Wembley at the end of last season to see Man City in the Second Division play-off final; Liam drums his hands on the table and his feet on the floor and shouts: "City! City! England! England!" There is a close-up of the long-haired Argentinian striker Hernan Crespo. Noel calls him, "Billy the Fish". Liam screams, "The Last Supper!" And roars with laughter.
For a while, Liam watches the game in silence, sipping his lager and cating a packet of salt and vinegar crisps from the box Noel has ordered. But he cannot resist drawing attention to himself for long. During his third pint, he begins to shout, Tourette's syndrome style, at the TV screen.
"George Roper! Ena Sharples! Ted Rogers! Big Bird!"
A black plaver appears. "Lennv Kravitz!" Then a bald one. "Arthur Scargill!" Followed by the England manager. "Kevin Keegan!" Liam has evervone laughing, including his cynical older brother, who is smiling properly for the first time today.
The following morning, despite staying out drinking till past 5am, Noel is on good form. We are travelling back to England on Eurostar. Once he has arrived in London, Noel will spend the rest of the afternoon doing phone interviews he does an average of five interviews every day. He will then have one day with his wife and baby before setting off for a month-long tour of Japan where a mere glimpse of a Gallagher brother has been known to cause a city-wide traffic jam.
We have seats in first class but it is virtually full, so we ask the conductor if he would find us a quieter carriage. He leads us to a tiny cell in which there are two seats, a table and a little window. Noel takes off his sun glasses (metal frames; yellow lenses) and sits back. He is wearing verv expensive blue vintage levi's with little embroidered flowers sewn at random into each leg, a sparkling white T-shirt, a Levi's denim jacket and shoes with crepe souls which he recently painted deep red to match one of his guitars.
He is much slighter than I expected, skinny even. I mention this and he smiles. "Mmm. Fucking hell, I don't know how 'cause I still eat like a fucking pig." he clears his throat. "What I used to do was get up, get fucking hammered, drink loads of beer, eat loads of crisps and not eat properly for two days. The next time I'd eat, it'd be down KFC at fucking five in the morning. Now that I have stopped the cocaine, I eat three meals a day, all at their allocated time. Now I lead a normal... well, not normal, but regular life."
Does he feel better now he has given up drugs' "Yeah. I'm still gutted I had to give them up though. I really enjoyed taking drugs. I was really fucking good at taking drugs. But I had to stop I started to have chest pains and panic attacks. I never used to get paranoid, I used to be happy-go-lucky and not give a shit about anything, but towards the end of 1997, it started going a little bit..." He pauses and frowns. "Mad."
It wasn't about being rich or famous, it was about anti climax. He had spent five years as a roadie for the Inspiral Carpets and a further five years with Oasis. When the band came back from the Be Here Now tour, Noel's adrenaline was still flowing. There was only one thing to do: party. His habit got so bad that he was forced on several occasions to call the doctor out in the middle of the night. The doctor simply told him to stop, but Noel didn't want to. He was having too much fun.
As we enter the tunnel, Noel describes the final panic attack, the night he woke up in the dark, hyperventilating, convinced he was going to die. He was desperate for Meg to comfort him, but she was lving next to him "pissed as an arsehole". When he called the doctor that night, he finally listened to the advice. He has not taken drugs for two vears. Which is not to say that he abstains from all vices he still smokes, still loves his Guinness. He admits to an addictive, all-or-nothing personality. just as he couldn't take drugs in moderation, so he can't go out and just have one pint. He has to drink until he falls over.
Noel wrote the Led Zep influenced "Gas Panic!" while he was mid-panic attack. In fact, he wrote most of Standing on the Shoulder of Giants while he was either considering giving up drugs or after he had stopped. He says that he is not used to writing sad songs as he normally sees the good in everything.
The reaction to Oasis's fourth album has verged on the hostile and I had expected to find Noel in a defensive mood. But he is simply pragmatic. He wasn't going to read any reviews but couldn't resist. It must hurt, I suggest, to write such a personal album and be criticised for not writing nursery rhyme lyrics like those on Definitly Maybe. He shrugs. "I knew what thev were going to say about us. Especially with Bonehead and Guigs leaving and then Creation closing. When I listened back to the final mixes, I don't think I was expecting people to be knocked out by the album. I gave it my best shot, but even I'm not knocked out by it."
Not only is Noel pragmatic but also surprisingly honest. He says that, at 32, he could retire, but enjoys "working my bollocks off", especially now that he's not out of it all the time. "Writing is the only thing I've got left that's mine, the only thing I do on mv own. I'm in a band with four other geezers, I've got a familv... I love being on my own."
He also has enough distance from the early vears of Oasis to regret at least a little of his excessive rock star behaviour. He now says that when he did interviews with Liam, what wasn't pure show was often misunderstood. He points out that Mancunian irony and sarcasm rarely translate.
For the first few years of the Oasis phenomenon, the brothers Gallagher were unable to resist winding the press up. "We'd be good cop, bad cop," he says, smiling as if at some distant life. "I'd be saying, 'Yeah, the guy's got a point' and Liam would shout, 'No! He's a fucking knobhead!' We were two gobshites from Manchester with a bag of charlie and an opinion on anything: 'He's a cunt, thev're shit and we're the fucking greatest thing since 'Muhammad Ali!...
How manv interviews were fabricated "Most of them! Rock stars arc the most boring, fucking shallow individuals ever. What do they do? Take drugs, shag birds, drink beer and make music. How incredible. We had nothing to say about fuck all, but a few lines in the bog before the interview would soon sort that out. I have spent the last six vears living, embellishing the truth; sometimes I'd hear myself saving things and wonder what the fucking hell I was on about. And I have to say that if someone starts asking personal questions I don't like, I'll start being a cunt."
There is one area Noel alwavs keeps private: his childhood. He will talk about going to see Man City with his father, about hating -'Man Utd so much that he spat at his TV when they scored in stoppage time to win the European Cup ("Meg was calling me a 'fucking yobbo' but I was beside myself with utter hatred"), about not having anything in common with Liam until he joined Oasis ("we shared a bedroom as kids, but we never really spoke").
He has spoken in the past about his errant father knocking him about and it is clear that both Noel and Liam adore their mother, Peggy. But Noel is simplistic about his background. ... The reason I'm in a band is to escape all that baggage from my past. journalists try to make me into a role model, because they think I've had a 'difficult' upbringing... well hasn't everyone? As if I give a shit about anvone else apart from me and me fucking missus?"
He sits back and scowls out of the window. "How can I relate to kids in the nineties when I'm 32 and a multi millionaire? I can't have an opinion on a 19-vear old from Brixton. I don't know shit from clay compared to these cunts who carry guns and mobile phones. A fucking rich rock star sat in his big house telling them not to do drugs or burgle? They'd tell me to go fuck myself."
When Noel first joined Oasis in 1991, he didn't feel like a rock star and he wasn't sure how to become one. Then it came to him. "You move to London, buy a big bag of charlie and a fur jacket. A cool pair of shades and a daft pair of shoes. And then you're a big rock star. Fucking hell." He smiles. "Before Oasis, you could've put me in vour local pub and I would've propped up the bar all night discussing Coronation Slreet and how shit it is. Instead, the number of nights I spent in Browns, telling the cast of EastEnders how many guitars I own..."
Noel was never shy but found it hard to go out in London when he was straight. He almost can't remember why he even started on the cocaine, but suspects it was because he wanted people to think he was funny. He found himself in desperate situations. "I used to talk to complete and utter bastards all night if I thought I was going to get shit loads of drugs out of them." He smiles; he looks a littlc embarrassed. "I've spent hours in toilets with people who I fucking hate just because there were drugs on the go."
When Noel bought his big white house in Belsize Park in the spring of 1997, he allowed it to become the epitome of Oasisworld, an Oasis theme park. He even put "Supernova Heights" on a big sign above the front door. He invited people he barely knew to his house to drink champagne and snort cocaine. He put up with at least 50 fans camping on the pavement outside all year round. The police who came to move them on would end up asking Noel for his autograph. Noel says he refused to become a recluse: "I wasn't about to ring up Harrods and ask them to open at midnight so I could wander round the underwear section. Fuck that... It was an insane time. Oasis touched peoples' lives. Evcrvone felt it."
Yet Noel was losing control. Oasis had made history bv plaving Knebworth in 1996 (the biggest rock event ever to be staged in Britain) and in its wake thev slowly became a parody of themselves. As Liam and Noel became caricatures of the modern rock god, the music became increasingly secondary. Thev became associated more with Hello! and OK! than with the music press.
Of course Liam and Noel's choice of partners made everything more intense. Patsy Kensit has been attracting attention since appearing as a Bird's Eye pcas girl at a tender age, while Meg Mathews was quick to embrace the celebrity thrust upon Oasis. "I have never accepted money to appear in Hello! or OK!- I've only been photographed at other peoples' weddings - and I wasn't happy with Meg appearing in them," he says, putting his hands on the table and displaying scrubbed fingernails. "I told her I would give her the £3O,OOO. Same with the column she did for The Sunday Times; I told her she'd get a load of stick for it. But it wasn't worth an argument. I'm not your typical husband who'll say, 'You'll do what vou're fucking told and that's the end of it."
Noel made it clear his money was hers, but Meg wanted to maintain a degree of financial independence. "I kept telling her about the fucking shitload of money in the bank, but she said, 'I'm not fucking coming to you asking for money every time I want to go shopping.' I can understand; it's her choice."
One dav Noel decided he'd had enough. Of everything. He was over the drugs, he was bored of Browns, he didn't like waking up to find strangers sleeping in his living room. He wanted to be a musician not a celebrity. He began to worry that he could no longer tell the difference between fantasy and reality. He began to wonder what he might feel about Meg once his feelings were no longer being enhanced or suppressed by drugs. "Part of me was thinking how weird it might be..." His voice drops to a whisper. "Well, I was thinking I might not realiv love her."
He wanted out. Noel sold Supernova Heights to save his life. If he could no longer take drugs, then he could no longer live in London; he couldn't be close to temptation. He didn't consult Meg. He sold it when she wasn't looking. He bought two houses in its place: one in Hertfordshire, the other in Ibiza.
When Noel talks about his very big house in the country, he can't stop smiling. He says it's "fucking first class". He is learning to appreciate the small things in life. "Listening to the birds in the morning... amazing. I will never sell that house. It's so unique. It's quarter of a mile from the gates. No paparazzi. No fans. There's a big wood out the back. On a Sunday morning, I take our two dogs for a walk in the woods... three years ago, if anyone had even hinted at me living in the country with dogs, I'd have said,'No way, fuck off!...
I wonder how Meg responded to such a decision. How did he manage to drag her awav from London. He laughs. "Kicking and screaming! Now she's got me traipsing round Covent Garden looking at penthouses, but there's no way I'm buying one."'
Noel says it's strange going back to London. "Everyone used to come round to our house and now we have to go round to other people's. Which I don't like. When I was a little kid, me mam used to take us to visit people's houses and she'd tell us, 'Stand in that fucking corner and don't move.' So even now I'm standing there asking if it's OK to sit down. Then I sit right on the edge of the sofa and wonder if it's OK to ask for a beer."
Does he miss his friendse "No, not at all. Fuck, no" He looks away. "I haven't got any real friends. Of all the people I met in London my best mate is Goldie. He's just bought a house round the corner from mine. Anvthing he says is the God's honest truth. He's not a wanker; he's from up north too."
If Noel is a self-confessed loner, Meg is the opposite. She must miss her mates. How often does she see people like Kate Moss? "She comes to the house, with Meg's mate Fran (Cutler). I like Kate, but when those girls get together... I just have to go for a walk, man. 'They'll all be sat there gossiping and as I leave Meg will be opening a bottle of wine. By the time I get back, everyone is in fucking tears! I ask, 'What the fuck's going on here?...
Just as Noel has sorted his life out, he is setting off on a world tour, leaving behind his baby and new house. He refuses to be affected by people who berate him for leaving Anais. "I'm not going to let her fucking change my life. She's not going to want to find out when she's older that her dad quit being the biggest rock star in England to look after her."
Noel always talks about children in the plural. He wouldn't mind a boy next time, but if it did turn out to be a boy, they wouldn't have another, for fear of having two lads. Is that because of him and Liam? "No, it's because I know people with two boys and they break stuff all the time. With a girl, at least I can sav 'Go and speak to your mother, I know nothing about that sort of thing.' Football, chips and Guinness. That's it."
Although Noel wants to move on, he loves discussing the past 10 vears. I say how ironic it is that Oasis are the biggest rock band in England and yet thev're all married. Noel laughs. "Yeah, but once Liam got married, that was it. I had to get married. Because it wasn't fair on Meg. Not to have a wedding. Because everyone else had one."
The wedding had to be cancelled once because Meg told everyone she knew. Three months later, Noel said they'd try again, but only if she promised not to tell a soul. "Las Vegas was a good crack, man. Elvis didn't marry us, but he was there. Me and Meg went outside the church for a cigarette and Elvis pulled up in this fucking pink Cadillac. Me and Meg couldn't believe it. We were both drunk anvway
Liam and Patsy weren't invited. Did they mind? "No," says Noel, gently. "We're no good at those family outings, us lot. I wasn't pissed off that Liam didn't tell me about his... I remember, we were still up from the night before, lying wasted on the couch and the phone rings. It was Liam, telling us he'd just got married. I said, 'Fucking bell man!' He asked if I was surprised he'd got married. 'No, but I am surprised vou're up at half nine!"
As the train draws into Waterloo, Noel gazes out of the window at the ashen skies and colourless buildings. He toys with his platinum wedding ring, which he wears on a chain round his neck (Meg bought the wrong size, so it doesn't fit) and sighs. "I don't think anyone in England minds our music, I just don't think they like us verv much. First impressions stick. For those initial couple of years we were always the two Manc lads with a bag of charlie calling everyone a cunt. Even though I live in the country now, me and Liam are always going to be the token bad boys of British music. Even when we're 50."
Finally, he smiles. "But I can't complain. You have to live with these things. I'm happy now... so the immortal words for me are: Fuck it."