Getting High (45 page)

‘Noel's like, “Get him out of here or I'll fucking kill him. I know what I'm doing, you fuck off.” Liam storms off and then everybody quickly leaves the control-room, leaving just me and Noel.

‘I'm now thinking to myself, Liam's probably right, and Noel is sat there going, “He's a fucking dickhead, a wanker, what the fuck does he know?” And I said, “Well, maybe he's right.” And Noel starts going, “Don't you come down on his side or you're sacked.”

‘Three hours later, Noel's calmed down and he comes into the control-room and says, “Maybe he's right, you know.” So then he put the guitar part down but he played something different. He changed a couple of the notes so he then felt justified in saying to Liam, “I've got an even better one now.” And so everybody was happy. But it was a real coke-fuelled session, everyone really on edge.' (A salient point in Liam's case is that when he was smoking spliff he was far less inclined to furious outbursts than when he was ingesting large doses of cocaine.)

The band then resumed their US tour, but in Noel's mind Tony McCarroll's die was cast. He would have to go, although there was no way they could sack him just yet.

From 3 March to 25th they had American dates to fulfil, followed in April by a video-shoot for the single, and three more shows that would culminate with a massive show at the Sheffield Arena; Noel had been proved wrong as the gig had quickly sold out. After that, it was back into the studio to start work on their second album which Noel would call
(What's The Story) Morning Glory?.

What's more, the tabloids were now regularly featuring the band. The
Sunday Mirror
, under the headline, Oasis Drug Scandal, published a story on 19 February that began, ‘Top British pop group Oasis have caused a storm in their hometown by boasting about drug taking.' They later quoted Alf Morris, a Labour MP, as saying, ‘What Oasis should be telling the Americans is how many people battle every year to win a university place.'

The US tour started up in New Jersey and went to Washington, Virginia Beach, Philadelphia, New York (where they met and got on with tennis player John McEnroe), Providence, Boston, up then to Canada for two shows, back down to Cleveland, and then Detroit and Indianapolis, where Liam was hit on-stage by a pair of spectacles and the band threatened to down instruments. The night before he and Bonehead had gone to see another UK band, Bush, and pogoed down at the front.

The tour moved on to Chicago and then the Orbit Room in Grand Rapids where Liam walked off-stage after three numbers and Noel had to finish the set. The next night they played Prince's club in Minneapolis and there met Nigel Dick, a British video director now living in the US. He would go on to shoot videos for ‘Wonderwall' and ‘Don't Look Back In Anger'.

The last gig in Milwaukee was perhaps one of the best of the tour, and then the exhausted band flew home. It had been a serious slog around America, but it had gone a long way to breaking them there.

On their return Oasis travelled to Chatley Heath, Surrey, to shoot a two-day video. The video had been budgeted at around £40,000 and filming was due to begin on 29 March.

They booked into a hotel but on the day of the shoot, Liam was nowhere to be seen. Finally, someone called him at the hotel. The idea is shit, he said, I'm not having it. Then he put the phone down. Liam, the purist.

Marcus then rang him and informed the singer that it would cost the band a day's worth of filming, some twenty grand, if he didn't show. Give a shit, Liam said, I'll pay it. The single doesn't need a video anyway.

The video was cancelled and in its place they cobbled together a film using different bits from their previous videos, including the American version of ‘Supersonic'.

Now, they had three gigs left to play. Two warm-up dates, one in Southend and the other in Paris at the Bataclan, and then back to Sheffield for their biggest gig to date.

At the Southend show, Noel broke the set up and, for the very first time in the UK, sat on a stool and played an acoustic set.

In Paris, on 19 April, it was reported that Liam had an altercation with McCarroll. Not so, he says. ‘I was standing in this bar and this mad bird that he was seeing walked in and started fighting him. He was down on the ground so I started eating these cherries and spitting the stones on him as he was rolling around.'

Meanwhile, Noel had other things on his mind, like polishing off a song floating around in his head, entitled, ‘Don't Look Back In Anger'.

For the past few months, he had been listening to a private tape, given to him in America, of John Lennon starting his biography. On it, the former Beatle says, ‘I love that thing they said about George Bernard Shaw, that his brains had gone to his head.' So did Noel. It was the impetus he needed to start work on what proved to be an exceptional song.

That he was excited by it can be gauged by the fact that he premiered it publicly on acoustic guitar at Sheffield Arena. Paul Weller and Johnny Marr were in attendance, and Ocean Colour Scene and Pulp played support. A sign of what was to come.

‘That was funny that gig,' Noel recalls. ‘I remember being onstage in this huge hall and Liam saying, “Why are all those kids being held back by the barriers?” and, I'm shouting, “I don't know, I'm trying to play my guitar, you wanker.”'

Which is when Liam and Noel told the crowd to fuck the barriers and the bouncers, and come further forward. Instantly, a mass of people vaulted themselves forward, an image that Noel would refer to after the show as ‘like a revolution or something'.

Later that night, back at their hotel, Noel leant over to a friend and said, ‘Do you realise that a year ago we were just about to put our first single out and today we played to 12,000 people?'

It had been an astonishing twelve months by anybody's standards. Two days later ‘Some Might Say' c/w ‘Talk Tonight', ‘Acquiesce' and ‘Headshrinker' was released.

Both
NME
and
Melody Maker
made it their Single Of The Week, and both reviews stated that it wasn't the best Oasis single to date but it had so much punch it literally swept all before it.

The next week it entered the charts at number one. In the same week, Paul Weller's new single, ‘The Changingman', came in at seven. One of Noel's ambitions was to eclipse Weller's record with The Jam of having three singles enter the charts at one. And there he was, six places above him.

At a party in Soho, after Oasis had played
Top Of The Pops
, Noel sat in a chair, excitedly telling people, ‘Weller's single has gone in at seven. That's the first top-ten entry he's had in years.'

‘Yeah, but Noel, you're in at number one.'

‘I know, but Weller's in at seven. It's fucking top, isn't it?' Meanwhile, Tony McCarroll was back in Manchester trying to adjust to life without Oasis. After the Sheffield show, Marcus had called him in for a meeting and told McCarroll what he had heard all these years but refused to believe. If he didn't shape up, he would be out. Now, it was true. He had played his last-ever gig for the band.

‘When I read “Oasis is Noel's band” it fucking sends me mad. It's no one's band. Take one away and there's nowt left.'

It lay at the core of everything, the way his brother ruled the band, dominated it with his songwriting and took all the major decisions. It badly angered Liam, made him feel that if he, Liam, sat down one day and wrote a song nearly as good as ‘Hey Jude', it would be very, very doubtful that Noel would choose to record it. And that did his head in.

He also believed that the success they now all enjoyed was as much about him as it was Noel. Sure, we know who writes the songs. And fair play, each one's a cracker.

But would they be so potent sung by anybody else? Could they be so perfectly realised without his unique voice placed right in the centre? And who were all the boys modelling themselves on? And who were all the girls rolling over for in early-morning hotel rooms? Me, Liam. Li-Am the walrus, koo koo ka choo. That's who.

It bugged him the most when Noel pocketed all his publishing money. Did his head right in. Oasis wasn't about money. It hadn't been formed for that purpose. It had been created to further music, and therefore Noel should share his good fortune. It was a band. All or nothing. I'd do it. Give a shit, here's the dosh, lads. But Noel refused.

As for himself, Liam was determined to have it large. He had waited years for recognition and success and now he had it, there would be no letting up. Liam would play as hard as he worked. On days off, he would wake up with a hangover at about four in the afternoon. By six, there would be a drink in his hand. By nine, the night, a promise full of pleasure would be beckoning to him and he would not, could not resist. The only thing that bugged him out was the media attention.

On 28 February 1995, he had got into a drunken fight at the Dry Bar in Manchester. Not only was it reported in all the papers, but some scumbag had given
The Word
the camera tape of him being ejected. They'd screened it, the fuckers.

But Liam, in his rampages around town never forgot other principles.

‘I remember going down to that club Brown's,' McGee recalls, ‘and Liam was there. I hadn't seen him in quite a bit and he was surrounded by all these women, gorgeous women trying to get his attention. So I went over to say hello and he said, “Sit down, sit down.” So we started chatting and I said, “Liam, look if you want to pull these women I'll go away, I don't mind, in fact I perfectly understand. I'd do the same thing in your shoes.”'

Liam looked at McGee.

‘They can wait,' he said. And then, ‘So come on, how you been? Still signing shite bands on our money, are ya?'

Noel and Meg were in Camden now, living down Albert Street in a small flat. It was obviously a serious relationship but initially Meg found Noel hard to get used to.

To begin with, Meg's job wasn't working out. Flavor, the company she had set up, was failing. Too many phonecalls, not enough results. Noel told her that she should quit, find a less stressful job. It was taking too much out of her.

But Meg couldn't help it. That's how she was. Determined. But also a realist. She knew the job was driving her into the ground with worry and stress. Reluctantly, because she had failed, Meg quit.

‘And then all of a sudden,' she states, ‘I was penniless, I didn't have a job and I felt like he was thinking that I'd given up my job because of who he is and that I was just going to stop work. But that isn't like me. I desperately wanted a job, so that's when I started doing the doors on clubs, just to show him that I was a hard worker.

‘Then he started work on
Morning Glory
, and I can understand when you're writing that you have to be cut off but at the same time I wasn't feeling strong.'

According to Meg, Noel, once seized by an image or something on the TV or in the pub, whatever it was that kicked off his antennae, would drop everything and disappear into their small kitchen and furiously write. It's how the lyrics for ‘Champagne Supernova' came about.

‘I bought this sugar jar which had a little man hanging on it nearly buried by sugar,' Meg says, ‘and then he just went into the kitchen and wrote that song.' That jar is to be found on the inside sleeve of
Morning Glory
(‘Someday you will find me / Caught beneath a landslide...').

But Meg was also finding it hard to get a reaction from Noel. He wasn't a tactile person nor was he one for sitting round discussing his feelings. He was brilliant at entertaining people and his humour was contagious. But go deeper and the barriers snapped up. And that threw her. In Meg's world, if the two of you sit down to watch the TV, you do so on the sofa, cuddling. That's what lovers do. Noel sat in his chair, alone. Self-protected.

‘Sometimes I used to think he was like that with just me, but then I sort of got to know that he's like that with everyone, his friends, people close to him, everyone. I'd hear him on the phone or talking and he never gave anything, never expressed himself.'

But he did. It all went into the songs. And he knew it more than anybody. In ‘Hey Now' he wrote, ‘And time as it stands / Won't be held in my hands / Or living inside of my skin / And as it fell from the sky / I asked myself why / Can I never let anyone in?'

Which is why when his dickhead brother moaned at him about the money, how the band were all on wages but Noel was filthy rich, he could never see his point of view. Didn't Liam have an inkling of the work he put in? Did he not also hear the voices in Noel's head telling him that he was nothing more than a piece of dogshit? Did he not see that Liam was one of the very few people on the planet Noel could totally trust? And that if he wanted money all he had to do was ask. Damn right, Noel took the money. And as much of it as he could.

And it was in this frame of mind, that Oasis regrouped at the Rockfield Studios in Wales to make the album that would first break, and then make them.

Noel first heard him in the corridor of a rehearsal studio. His playing was so clear it made the songwriter stop in his tracks and ask, ‘Who's that on the drums?'

The answer was Alan White and, like Noel, he had a brother named Paul. He also had a third brother whose name was Steve who was undoubtedly fast becoming the best drummer in the country.

The brothers White had grown up in Eltham, South London. Paul, the eldest, had little aptitude for a musical instrument. He went off to do a variety of jobs: bricklaying, plastering, cab driving.

But Steve was different. At ten years of age, he had persuaded his parents to buy him a drum kit that cost £30. Steve set it up in the front-room and then hammered away on it. That noisy arrangement couldn't continue, so their father turned the loft of their house into a practice room, hung a few curtains up to muffle the noise, and then said, all yours, son.