May 22 2005

Wales on Sunday


LIAM and Noel Gallagher have revealed the recording of their greatest album at a Welsh studio ended in a massive bust-up with a cricket bat and Liam nursing a broken arm and leg!

Oasis laid down the tracks to What's The Story Morning Glory at Rockfield near Monmouth exactly 10 years ago this month.

But the record that went on to sell 15 million copies and become Britain's second-biggest selling album was more Wonderbrawl than Wonderwall.

Singer Liam ended up brawling on the grass with Noel after returning from a drinking session in Monmouth and just a day earlier, Liam had infuriated Noel at dinner by bouncing Brussels sprouts on his brother's head.

And guitarist Noel - trying to finish a track in the studio - saw red when Liam held a drunken party and started fighting with members of another band for labelling the new tracks 'A Beatles rip-off.'

A fire extinguisher was let off and the studio trashed as the brothers came to blows, and Liam threw a dustbin at Noel's car windscreen as his elder brother fled to London to escape the mayhem.

"Guigs (bassist Paul McGuigan) always had a cricket set around. He was an absolute cricket nutcase," Noel told this month's Mojo mag.

"He could pull up statistics from Glamorgan v Hampshire, 1983. The bat was just there and I thought I'd better grab it before Liam did.

"It turned into this monumental barney between Liam and Noel," added former band member Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs. "The house is demolished. There's doors kicked off, the kitchen wrecked, fridges overturned. Guigs is locking away these air rifles we've hired, terrified they are going to get used.

"Meanwhile, Liam and Noel are rolling in the grass, hitting each other with a cricket bat."

"It did turn scary," added Bonehead. "Noel was just screaming at Alan McGee to drive him back to London. As the car flew up the driveway, Liam threw a dustbin at the windscreen. It bounced off, luckily."

As Noel fled, Liam needed hospital treatment.

"When I went home I had plaster casts on a broken arm and a broken leg and an air rifle on me back," he said. "I knocked on me mam's door and she looks at me and goes (Irish accent): "Bejasus!

What kind of ******* record have you been makin' down there!"

The rumpus would have finished most groups, but Oasis, managed by Ebbw Vale's Marcus Russell, are no ordinary band, hitting each other and hitting the No1 spot in equal measure.

Noel said: "So I ***** off for two weeks and finished off the lyrics to Champagne Supernova. Then we came back and it was all right."

nWELSH Oasis fans will next week get the chance to hear the band's sixth studio album Don't Believe The Truth.

The band is giving fans a preview of their new record at 20 venues ahead of its May 30 release.

Entrance to next Wednesday's 9.30pm playback at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff is on a first come, first served basis.