ROLLING STONE June 1998
THEY CAME, THEY SWORE, THEY FELL over. With their amply-postponed first Australian tour, Oasis proved a media event first, a rock & roll band second - maybe even third.
The working class heroes who led the 90's British rock renaissance are facing an uphill battle in the wake of Be Here Now, increasingly careless live performances and a relentlessly intrusive media. But there's little doubt that Noel Gallagher - ace songwriter and master of the interview soundbite - will emerge triumphant from the inevitable debris.
As he sat down with Rolling Stone in Perth, Oasis was facing a proposed ban by the Australian flight attendants union. "I'm in a bad mood today," Gallagher Snr. warned for openers.
Rolling Stone: How's Australia treating you? Alright?
Noel Gallagher: Fuck no! It's been a fuckin' nightmare so far. It's just the media making a big song and dance about fuck all, really.
Rolling Stone: How much responsibility do you take for that? You played the media card pretty heavily from the start.
Noel Gallagher: Not really. It's there for a purpose. It wouldn't exist without bands and bands wouldn't exist without it. The media was dead on it's fuckin' arse before we came along. The music press in England was going out of business. Then again, the music business was going out of business. We knocked a few things over, had a couple of beers, spoke our minds and everybody says we used the media. It's bullshit, as far as I'm concerned.
Rolling Stone: Do you read your old interviews?
Noel Gallagher: No. Depends how pissed I was. If there's something I can't remember saying I'd probably go back and read it and wonder what all the fuss was about. I'm paid to be a bullshitter so therefore I bullshit. That's what rock & rollers are supposed to do, aren't they? That's what I was told when I was growing up with the Sex Pistols anyway. I don't know where it got waylaid into politically correct bands fuckin' pissing about talking about fuckin' rainforests and all that. But it's a changing world in which we live.
Rolling Stone: Oasis resist that to a large extent. It seems that your platform is rock & roll is rock & roll, a great song is a great song. Do you have anything to add?
Noel Gallagher: No. That's about it really. A great song is everything, innit? The Prodigy are a great band but they don't write great songs, y'see what I mean? Same with the Chemical Brothers. Whereas the Verve and Radiohead write great songs. I was bought up with guitars. I'm not a raver.
Rolling Stone: Bono made a comment when he was here that he couldn't understand the 90's nostalgia boom: the Beatles and the Stones. He said at least U2 were forward-looking. Do you see his point?
Noel Gallagher: People think that techno music is this great forward-looking visionary thing. It's 10 years old! It's retro! What Prodigy are doing now is retro. So everybody who's saying that can fuck right off, basically.
Rolling Stone: Will you be making another record like "Be Here Now"?
Noel Gallagher: I wouldn't make another rock & roll record. Not in the sense that I made then. I'd do something different but I don't see why I should change just because everybody else thinks we should. We have to be the last bastion for rock & roll behavior in the world don't we? Cause no one else is doin' it.
Rolling Stone: Have you grown up much since "Supersonic"?
Noel Gallagher: Oh yeah, I've had to. I think the songwriting shows it. I suppose I'll always be a bit young and foolish [yawns], but you can't go on being a rocker at 50 can you? You can't go on pretending to be Johnny Rotten at 40. Even though he did. But he's good at it.
Rolling Stone: Jagger's a pretty good rock star.
Noel Gallagher: He's not, he's pathetic. I like him as a person, I've met him a few times but wearing tights on stage at 50, a grown man shouldn't be doing that.
Rolling Stone: Where will you be at 50?
Noel Gallagher: Me? I'm finished at 35. I'll be a songwriter, some kind of Burt Bacharach type character sitting behind the piano crooning with some orchestra full of chicks or summat. I'm getting a bit tired of it now so I'll be five years more tired of it in five years. All of the extra-curricular activities take it out of you.
Rolling Stone: Extra-curricular? Um, like promotion?
Noel Gallagher: Yeah, all that stuff, and staying up all night partying takes it out of you.
Rolling Stone: Is that necessary?
Noel Gallagher: It keeps you sane, anyway. I couldn't just go on the road and go to bed after the gig. Fuck that. There's got to be more in it for you than that, just do your job and go home. You're just working for the man then, aren't you?
Rolling Stone: How do you rate yourself as a rock star?
Noel Gallagher: As a hellraiser I'm way below average but as a rock star I'm probably quite interesting. It depends on whether you like me or not. If you don't, then you'll probably think, "Stupid twat, I hope he dies."
Rolling Stone: If there was a public execution on the telly, would you watch it?
Noel Gallagher: Depend's who's getting executed. If it was a member of the royal family, without a shadow of a doubt. I'd pay for the adverts in the middle as well.