He was once a member of the biggest British rock band of the 90s, at their peak playing to 125,000 people at Knebworth. Next week Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs will be on stage with his new band The Seers in a Nottingham club that can hold just 150. He spoke to me about life after Oasis.


He may have only written the odd early Oasis tune but strumming a guitar earned Bonehead the riches one would expect from being in a rock 'n' roll band at the top of it's game.
According to The Last Party, John Harris's in-depth book on the britpop phenomenen, Bonehead even surprised himself with his swollen bank balance.
"I was out with a mate once and I said 'Can we stop at a cash machine?' I pressed 'display balance' and it said 'Your balance is £480,000'. He was like 'Is that right?' I said 'Look at that! Check it out!'"
Sounds fanciful.
"It's true," laughs Bonehead. "We were going for a pint and I said 'I'll go to the cash machine'.
He siad 'no, it's all right - I'll give you a sub'. I didn't know what was in there but I said 'no, it's all right I'll grab it out, we're passing it anyway'.
"Of course, I looked and it was like 'check this out!'. When we got in the pub the drinks were on Bonehead."
If he did it now how much would it be?
"Well, I was £1,500 overdrawn last week but I sorted it out. Did a few transfers here and there. If I did it now I don't know - I'd be all right put it that way."
Seems he was sensible with the Oasis dollar and invested it "here and there".
"I was too sensible actually but that all comes from having a sensible wife. If it was down to me I would have blown it."
Still he has a "large" detached house in Bowden, Cheshire, and drives a Porsche Ferrara 4.
It was family responsibility - he has two children, aged 9 and 7 - that stopped him joining in with the Gallagher boys' excesses with cocaine.
"Going on tour when your baby's two days old - well you can't. I never did it anyway. It was always alcohol for me."
During 1999, after 8 years, he walked out of the band. "I'd taken it as far as I could. There was no fun in it anymore. The vibe in the camp was no one is enjoying it anymore and if there's no fun then there's no point in hanging around. I thought 'get out now while the going's good.' I could have stayed and toured the album but I thought 'well, do I want to?'
"when I left there were the phonecalls from other band members saying 'don't go' and I was just like 'no, but you lot carry on, have it'."
Doesn't he wish the band had felt the same and ground the Oasis machine to a halt for good to preserve the reputation?
"Not at all. I wished them the best. I still watch them very closely. And outside the band I am still their number one fan."
Though he wont see them play.
"That'd be a bit close to the heart."
After facing 250,000 over one weekend at Knebworth, eight years on he is playing clubs like Junktion 7 in Canning Circus, which holds 150 people.
That's a comedown, surely?
"Not at all. I think I speak for everyone in Oasis here: After Knebworth, if we could have woken up the next morning and said 'right, that's it, let's call it a day, we've reached the pinnacle, how far can you get?' I'm sure they all would have agreed. But nobody said it."
"That was certainly my thinking. You know, we've brought it further than i ever imagined it would go."
Getting back in at base level, he says, is exciting.
"They were always the best gigs for me anyway when we started out. And we were sort of slipping about in a Transit van and doing the small gigs and trying to guage people's reactions. It's simply a case of going back to doing that again, which is great fun, you know."
Liam Gallagher agrees.
Two weeks ago he turned up to watch The Seers playing at Alan McGee's Notting Hill club Death Disco- which, like Junktion 7 can't hold too many punters.
"He was at the back watching me and i was on stage watching him watching me. Afterwards he said '******** **** it'd be brilliant to do this'".
He's still matey with Liam but hasn't seen Noel in two years.
"There's no problem there I just don't see him. I don't really see Liam often. We never did anyway, we didn't get on the phone every night. We'd see enough of each other."
"Besides I live in Manchester and they're in London so we don't get the chance to bump into each other. Though i do see Alan (White, ex-Oasis drummer) and Guigsy (Paul McGiugan, ex-Oasis bassist)
After walking out of Oasis he had a couple of years off.
"I built a studio at my house and I was writing and recording. Just for myself really. I had no real plans for getting a band together but you get itchy fingers. It just got to the stage where I needed a vocalist. The band came together from there. It just sort of happened."
The Seers includes Bonehead on guitar and backing vocals, Johnny Evans (former member of Happy Mondays offshoot Buffalo 66) on lead vocals and guitar, bassist Levi Damarell and ex-Ladytron and Bentley Rhythm Ace drummer Keith York.
"It's a big guitar sound. Anthemic, melodic."
Not a million miles from Oasis then?
"Not a million miles, no. But it's different. We've set our own sound up."
He adds "We'll take the band as far as it will go. We have no grand plans for world domination or anything like that. We've got a single coming out in September on a small independant label in Manchester. We're just going to get it out and tour it. Get people into it. Have some fun, you know."
He concedes that trying to out-do Oasis would be a masterplan of gross stupidity.
"It can't be done. That level of success was beyond all our wildest dreams.
"And i have to say I've got great memories. They were the best years of my life."