Liam Gal­lagher: ​‘What we did in three years took the Bea­t­les eight’

Ini­tial­ly I was asked about mak­ing Super­son­ic through one of the film’s pro­duc­ers, Simon Hal­fon. He rang me to see if I was a fan and my first ques­tion was, ​‘Who’s doing it?’ From what I knew, if Noël’s doing it, Liam’s not doing it, but as it turned out they were both keen. When it came to meet­ing Liam I was absolute­ly shit­ting myself because every­one says don’t meet your heroes and I’d read all the sto­ries. He imme­di­ate­ly want­ed to know what the angle was, whether the film was going to have a vil­lain and could it be him. That wasn’t my inten­tion at all – it’s a cel­e­bra­tion of what hap­pened to the band dur­ing those ear­ly years, but also a film that doesn’t pull any punches.

White­cross: How did the band’s ini­tial suc­cess affect you? You were only like, what, 19 when you got signed?

Gal­lagher: I don’t think it affect­ed me man. I was already pret­ty fuckin’ wonky. I mean the drugs got bet­ter for a start cos’ I had more mon­ey – actu­al­ly they were free most of the time y’know. I could always take things with a pinch of salt y’know what I mean. Even with the press, it was like y’know if you’ve done some­thing that’s a bit shifty they’re gonna find you out and all that non­sense but then 99 times out of 10 they’ll be writ­ing absolute bol­locks y’know what I mean. It made me a bit more savvy in that way.

I remem­ber your mum say­ing that…

I’m still the exact same fuckin’ per­son with­out a doubt. I’ve still got the same sense of humour. I don’t give a fuck, I do give a fuck, and that’s the way it is. I pret­ty much wear the same fuckin’ clothes. I wear me heart on my sleeve, I did back then, I still do to this day and I will tomorrow.

There was a feel­ing in your fam­i­ly, wasn’t there, that you were always gonna be a star. It could have been act­ing, it could’ve been football…

It reck­on it would be some­thing to do with openin’ my mouth and let­tin’ peo­ple have it, y’know what I mean.

What’s your fond­est mem­o­ry of those ear­ly years with the band?

I guess get­tin’ a record deal was the one for me cos’ you can do all your gigs till the cows come home y’know but actu­al­ly I want­ed to know what we sound­ed like in a fuck­ing stu­dio y’know what I mean. Get­ting the chance to work with a prop­er pro­duc­er, spend­ing a bit of time craft­ing your songs and all that was a big thing for me. When we were at Mon­now Val­ley record­ing that first album, livin’ togeth­er and all that… it was like camp­ing only with gui­tars and a bit of drugs. Like some­thing out of a Car­ry On film but with a bit of rock’n’ roll. It was fuckin’ top mate.

The orig­i­nal cut of the film was about sev­en or eight hours long, and there was a whole sec­tion on Mon­now Val­ley where Bone­head man­ages to con­vince you that the place is haunt­ed, that your bed­room is haunted.

Yeah, some­one had moved all the fuckin’ mir­rors and I’d come in and be like, ​‘The mir­rors have fuckin’ gone.’ And then we had the [Stone] Ros­es comin’ over – cos’ we’d work through the day and they’d come in to record at like 12. I’d wake up and they’d have moved our shit or fuckin’ robbed all our lit­tle bits of weed. I thought the ghost was a fuckin’ stoner.

And there was a sto­ry with some fish­ing wire?

Right, I’m stoned watchin’ fuckin’ Match of the Day and someone’s attached some fish­ing wire to the fuckin’ paper and the pages would start turn­ing. I was very close to losin’ my shit.

Is there any­thing you’d change about that time? Those three years?

Noth­in’ what­so­ev­er. If you’re gonna change one fuckin’ thing you might as well change the fuckin’ lot. And if you change the lot, I might as well not fuckin’ be here y’know what I mean. I might as well be in a fuckin’ freak show, or a cobbler.

When did you first realise you want­ed to be a musician?

I think it was after see­ing the Stone Ros­es play. I was more into foot­ball and fuckin’ about back then. Any­one with a gui­tar I thought was a bit odd y’know what I mean.

Who took you to that gig?

I went with me mate Dave I think. Or maybe it was me mam. Fun­ny thing is it was the same place me mam used to go danc­ing when she first come to Man­ches­ter when she was like 15. And I was hav­ing my epiphany how ever many years watchin’ the Stone Roes in the same build­ing. It’s fuckin’ weird.

Dur­ing the film you say you’re the best band in the world. When did that change for you?

We’re still the best band today even though we’re not togeth­er. No one’s fuckin’ come near us. Musi­cal­ly we were fuckin’ great. Noël had the best songs, I had the best voice. We had atti­tude, we had flair and we didn’t give a fuck. Like it or fuckin’ lump it. There was none of what’s hap­penin’ in today’s music where everyone’s just a fuckin’ sop­py lit­tle bas­tard sit­tin’ there going, ​‘Ohh I can’t swear, I can’t say how I’m fuckin’ feel­in’ in case I don’t get me down­load at the end of the week.’ Do one.

That part­ly answers my next ques­tion… What are your thoughts on rock ​’n’ roll in this coun­try today?

It’s rub­bish mate. It’s rub­bish and I’ll tell you why, cos’ everyone’s got their fuckin’ cam­era out all the time so every­one has to behave them­selves. There’s no rock ​’n’ roll antics any more and that’s impor­tant to me cos’ it’s not just about the music y’know what I mean. Every­one just seems real­ly fuckin’ mis­er­able. It’s like the music indus­try is being run by a bunch of nuns. All the bands just seem to be in it for a career. That’s not me hav­ing a pop at ​’em, I just think they should fuckin’ be ashamed of themselves.

You still had the tabloids camped out­side your house, it wasn’t like you weren’t being filmed.

Exact­ly! If some­one had put a mobile phone in my face back then I’d have fuckin’ stuck it up someone’s arse­hole or I’d of ate it or some­thing. That’s what peo­ple want from their rock ​’n’ roll bands. If you like The 1975 or what­ev­er that’s fine but come on man, they’re just in it for the fuckin’ mon­ey mate.

What was the last gig you went to?

I don’t tend to go to gigs at my age, it get a bit man­ic y’know what I mean. I’m not good in crowds and that. The last gig I went to was the Stone Ros­es ear­li­er this year.

Do you have any unfin­ished busi­ness with the band?

With­out a doubt. Being out of Oasis has been like a big fuckin’ hole, but that’s life. And I’m deal­ing with the fuckin’ guy that likes to be in fuckin’ con­trol so I’ll have to wait for him to light­en up. Or for his mis­sus to let him join a rock ​’n’ roll band again. I’m ready to go, my fuckin’ suit­cas­es are packed. I know for a fact I could still whip me arse out of them songs. If it hap­pens it hap­pens if it doesn’t it doesn’t. In the mean­time I’m doing a fuckin’ record on me jacks. And that won’t be near­ly as good or as important.

What’s the last movie you saw?

I saw that Bea­t­les: Eight Days a Week one, that was pret­ty good. I shouldn’t have gone to the pre­mière though, I’m not good around loads of peo­ple y’know what I mean. Actu­al­ly the last film I saw was that Elvis and Nixon one on a flight. It was fun­ny man I liked it. Who plays Nixon?

Kevin Spacey.

He’s pret­ty good man! Who’s the guy that plays Elvis?

Michael Shan­non.

He’s good in it and all. I don’t watch a lot of films though. Doc­u­men­taries some­times, shit on cults and god­heads and all that. I like watch­ing fuckin’ weird bas­tards. Y’know, they believe in some weirdo, it all goes tits up. Shit like that.

What are you most excit­ed about right now?

Beady Eyes isn’t hap­penin’, Oasis ain’t hap­penin’. So I’m gonna go and do this fuckin’ solo record. That’ll be out next year, we’ve demoed about 11 songs so far. I’m gonna give it every­thing I’ve got and it’s gonna be mega. I’m also excit­ed about Oasis again with this film y’know. I know it means a lot to peo­ple and I’m lookin’ for­ward to get­ting absolute­ly off my fuckin’ nut at the pre­mière. Noël won’t be there though which is fuckin’ good cos’ he needs a bit of time off. He’s over­ex­posed man. Open up a sick bag and he’s in it.

How do feel when you look back at Kneb­worth now?

To be hon­est before this film came about I hadn’t thought about it since I stepped off stage. The whole ​’90s nos­tal­gia thing, I don’t mind it man. It’s a lit­tle trip down mem­o­ry lane y’know what I mean. It’s 20 years so that’s why we’re doing it, but it’s nice to remind peo­ple that we’re not just a bunch of sil­ly old men call­ing each oth­er ​‘pota­to’. At some point along the way with Oasis some­one got the rule­book out and decid­ed what the band was and what we could and couldn’t do. In this film, there was no rules. It was fuckin’ full steam ahead. The fun sponge brigade hadn’t come in yet. But even the shit bits after were good y’know what I mean. Even when the band was breakin’ up it was still fuckin’ good. We were good at breakin’ up y’know what I mean. There’s bands out there that just fuckin’ limp off. We went out with bang man.

Peo­ple have maybe for­got­ten that you went from being signed to play­ing those Kneb­worth gigs in such a short space of time.

What we did in three took the Bea­t­les eight. Good, y’know, fuckin’ right­ly so. I thought we were the bol­locks and I thought we’d be doing that all over the world. I thought Amer­i­ca would buy it, every­one would buy it… But that my friend is cocaine for you.

Why do you think it didn’t real­ly hap­pen for you in Amer­i­ca in the same way it did in the UK?

I don’t know man, they like all the razzmatazz don’t they and we weren’t giv­en them any of that. They thought we were cunts and they didn’t know how to han­dle us so it was move along boys y’know what I mean. But I’m fuckin’ glad about it. We could’ve gone over there and mar­ried an Amer­i­can actress and got a house in Mal­ibu and start­ed wear­ing bik­er jack­ets and pointy shoes and all that shit.

We orig­i­nal­ly had a coda about going over to Amer­i­ca and delib­er­ate­ly fuck­ing it up, but it just felt like a sour note to end on.

Yeah but again it was a love­ly fuck up y’know what I mean. I’m glad we end­ed on Kneb­worth though cos’ we had a laugh man and we’ve not had that for a while. It’s nice to remind peo­ple that we had a crack and we had a good time togeth­er because that’s what I loved about it.