BBC Interview with Noel and Gem
Oasis on Lamacq Live!

Steve: In the Live Lounge here at Radio 1, we welcome Noel and Gem from Oasis. Thank you very much for coming in.
Noel: Good Evening.

Steve: You're spending most of your days at the moment rehearsing, is that right?
Noel: Yeah, rehearsing and doing interviews.

Steve: It's still a bit strange for me seeing Gem in the band, from this side.
Noel: It's really strange for him.

Steve: Is it just sinking in?
Gem: I'm still waiting for the Monty Python foot to come in!

Steve: Cause how many bands have you been in before?
Gem: Forty.

Steve: That's a bit of an exaggeration.
Gem: It's not!

Steve: What was it like, the first time, the rehearsing?
Gem: The rehearsing? Erm...
Noel: It was weird cause we didn't have a bass player at the time, we rehearsed about five or six and it was like a different one each week. We hadn't rehearsed with him. He'd already got the gig before we rehearsed with him, because we knew the stuff that he plays and the stuff that he likes, so that was sorted, and then there was this procession of 'Stars in Their Eyes' hopefuls.

Steve: Were they people who thought they looked the part?
Noel: To be honest with you, they were people who were in current bands - who have sworn us to secrecy, because they've probably gone back to the bands - and they were going, "Listen, if anyone finds out I'm here, I'm going to get kicked out", so we had to keep it schtum. Probably the one you'd know about was Potsy [from Monaco], but other than that we're not allowed to say.
Noel: For me personally, it's like being in a new band, because I think we'd come to the end of the road. At the end of the last tour, at the end of '97, I was fed up with the band and what it had become and the people that were in it. I wasn't really enjoying it and I was maybe being a bit moody on the road with other people.

Steve: Do you think you'd almost lost your sense of purpose for a while there?
Noel: I was treading water since, really, the recording sessions of 'Morning Glory', because I'd written 'Definitely Maybe', and that album out of the lot of them had its own direction and stuff like that. It was a young person's sort of rock 'n' roll album, and after that, I was waiting for flashes of inspiration to come along, and they came in fits and bursts in Morning Glory, with the likes of 'Some Might Say' and 'Don't Look Back In Anger'. 'Be Here Now' it was just like, if you don't know what to do - if I'd give any young bands advice - it's like if you're in a recording studio and you don't know what to do, it's best to do nothing, just pack the gear up and go home.

Steve: Why do you think you carried on? Was it just that the momentum was there?
Noel: I don't know. We'd got back off that Morning Glory tour, and I'd walked out of the tour, the plan was to do one more album and then call it quits. But I suppose you're just not brave enough to say, you know, "what am I going to do after this?" So we just went into the studio and out it came. And then before you know it, your manager's booked a load of gigs and you're obliged to go on the road. It's not that I particularly wanted to do it, it was the thought of just being sat at home not doing anything was more frightening than going on the road.

Noel: It's like being sat on a spinning top and just going round and round and round and round, and the more you go round, you just keep going round the same old path that you've laid for yourself really, and it just became a little bit boring for me.

Steve: But did you seriously consider packing it in?
Noel: I did on a number of occasions. After that Morning Glory tour was one occasion, and after the 'Be Here Now' tour, I probably didn't consider packing it in, but if we hadn't have had that two year space - I had to argue a long long time to get those two years off, people were going "naa, what's up with you, blah blah blah." Liam, being Liam, was constantly mad for it. But I needed just to get away from it all, because we'd just come to the end of it. It was just really stale. You can hear that on the like of 'All Around The World' for instance. It's just like a band in the studio going round the same old chords, and it was just getting a bit naff for me.

Steve: Do you think you're extra harsh on it now, with retrospect?
Noel: To be honest, I didn't really think that it deserved...initially the reviews it got were fantastic...and I didn't think it deserved the eight out of ten it got in the NME and stuff like that. And subsequently after that, I didn't really think it deserved the kicking that it got, so, you know, it was alright. I do remember at the time saying it was a load of pub rock, and people were going, "aah, what's up with you?", but I stand justified on that.

Steve: Don't you think a lot of that's down to people who don't quite know when you're being sarcastic or not?
Noel: Yeah, but we'd been in the band together for eight years and we had the same producer, and it was back to the same old studios, and it was the same old nonsense going on. It was just a lack of inspiration, you know what I mean?

Steve: You sound bored now, talking about it! It's almost as if we've just gone back there. But this is where we were last time you were in, and it needed some sort of period of revaluation or something.
Noel: I don't remember the last time I was in.

Steve: We prefer not to around here.

Steve: You wouldn't be able to do this though, would you, because you write a lot of songs? All the quotes I read in the press are about how prolific you are. If you were sitting at home, sitting on your hands...
Steve then plays 'Let's All Make Believe'.