AIDAN SMITH

NINE years ago, Oasis had the world at their feet and the future of rock’n’roll in their hands. And in Glasgow’s Hilton Hotel in the summer of 1996, after playing to 80,000 adoring fans at Loch Lomond, they also had Scotland’s hack-pack sticking to their shoes.

Picture the scene: 20-odd tabloid reporters in a foyer, trying to blend in, hoping to pass for conference delegates on a rest-day, peering over the tops of magazines held upside down, sniffing ashtrays, scouring toilets, counting the empties and doubling the total, fighting each other for that what-the-bellboy-saw exclusive... 20-odd reporters "reviewing" the post-gig wind-down, no less than five of them from a single publication. I know this because I was one of them.

That yardstick is as useful as any for measuring fame and, back then, every boast by the Gallagher brothers was front-page news. Every brawl and every belch, too. Back then, they were massive and we were mad for it. And now?

Nine years ago, I was waiting for Oasis to go to bed. Today, I’m waiting for the elder Gallagher to tell me why, post-Britpop, post-Laddism, Oasis still matter.

Leather jacket over his Lacoste polo-shirt, Noel strolls into the pub with little of the monkey-boy swagger that "Our Kid" displayed in 1996 and, for all I know, still does today. Originally, it was proposed that both Gallaghers would do the interview. Then it was decided I’d get a better chat out of just Noel. One proviso: don’t mention (his ex-wife) Meg Matthews.

And, over the next hour and a half in Marylebone, London, Liam isn’t missed because Noel speaks his lines for him, such as in the exchange that followed a Noel-instigated scrapping of the original sessions for the sixth Oasis album:

"So Our Kid says: ‘Where you been?’

Me: ‘On holiday.’

’im: ‘You what? Where?’

Me: ‘Ibiza.’

’im: ‘You write any songs?’

Me: ‘I didn’t even take a guitar with me.’

’im: ‘You lazy git!’"

The way Noel tells it, Liam hasn’t changed a bit. But Noel has. He loves sleeping. Then he gets up and does absolutely nothing, and he loves that, too. When Noel is an old man he will look like Parker, Lady Penelope’s chauffeur in Thunderbirds. He’s 37 now and sometimes he feels it.

"Up here, in me head, I feel great, but I’ll take the Les Paul off and ... me f****n’ back! There’s a self-pity that comes with approaching 40. When you’re 24 you’re immortal, but hangovers last two days now, and when nine o’clock comes, you turn into a stupid, tired old man and look forward to bedtime."

Rock and, er, roll. But his lazy days are (temporarily) over. Oasis are back on the road and playing Edinburgh tonight in advance of a summer stadium gig at Hampden Park.

That sixth album eventually got finished. And the Gallagher who calls Oasis "my band" - not to be confused with the other one, who refers to them as "my band" - is pleased with it.

He flicks through Oasis’ back pages to recall where he was, who he was, and what he was trying to say as each one was released: Definitely Maybe - "Unemployed, broke." What’s the Story? (Morning Glory) - "Same." Be Here Now - "The soundtrack to my bloated, cocaine, alcoholic madness." Standing on the Shoulder of Giants - "Another soundtrack... semi-addicted to downers, still drinking loads, feeling a bit sorry for myself." Heathen Chemistry - "The youth club album featuring the new boys and I was in love."

The new album is called Don’t Believe the Truth. It isn’t their best but it’s far from their worst. It probably won’t win them new fans but should satisfy old ones and entice back some who gave up on the band. Noel sums the record up: "It’s me feeling a bit cheeky, a bit psychedelic and a bit chuffed with myself."

Don’t Believe the Truth started out life with the dance duo Death In Vegas producing, but with the Cornwall sessions done and dusted, Noel woke up and realised the songs simply weren’t good enough.

Did the others agree? "The thing about my band is, they speak English, they speak in sentences, but they don’t say nothing. They wait for me to say something so I told them: ‘These songs won’t last six weeks in the public’s consciousness. We need to go back and write some belters.’"

As principal songwriter, Noel had to shoulder most of the blame, and most of the pressure. One more flop record for the ‘Live Forever’ guys and the scenario might have gone like this: a Gallagher bust-up to rival the one which followed their mum Peggy casually inquiring ‘Right, who’s having the top bunk?’ and ending with a two-fingered wave from Noel as he takes his favourite, battered acoustic round the working men’s clubs of Manchester, strumming ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ every night until last orders.

Did he feel that pressure? "No, I didn’t panic. I didn’t go home and have a sleepless night and the next day steam into the studio. After that band meeting, I didn’t write anything for two months."

That’s confidence for you. Of the kind, no doubt, that 15 million sales of What’s the Story? inspires. But since the apotheosis of The Lad, Noel has struggled to come up with an anthem to rival his flag-waving best. Those old morning glories have proved difficult to recapture.

In that time, his Beatles obsession has become a weakness, same with his swaggering assertion that he’d only ever read one book in his life. Everyone is allowed the odd moment of self-doubt, I say. "Well, I don’t get them," he replies. "I do in my personal life, I do as a dad, but this situation [the trashing of more than half of a crucial album] just fuelled my confidence.

"Look," he says, in a confessional whisper, "there’s no bigger critic of this band than me. Whatever people have said about us, I’ve thought worse."

The old Noel, or rather the younger one - the immortal one - would have "got twatted and just started writing and the songs would have been f****n’ brilliant". The more reflective man he has become took his Edinburgh-born girlfriend Sara MacDonald to the Ibiza villa he purchased from Mike "Tubular Bells" Oldfield and stared at the sun for two weeks. The chilling-out process itself inspired a song, ‘The Importance of Being Idle’, and others followed.

But then comes possibly the closest you will get to a Gallagher admitting that, after all this, they’re merely mortal.

Acting up: the Gallagher brothers have had a stormy relationship, but it’s five years since their last bust-up. Inset, Noel with his girlfriend Sara MacDonald

‘I was showered with magic dust back then’

"I was blessed back then," says Noel. "I was showered with the magic dust. Now? I think [long pause] I’ve got to work at it more. There are other things in my life now, my kid and my relationship."

Noel has a five-year-old daughter by Matthews and Anais pops up in conversation when I ask whether, with the benefit of hindsight, he would have done anything differently. "Professionally, you mean? I wish we’d taken two or three years off after Knebworth [the zenith of all that flag-waving, in front of 250,000 fans the same year as Loch Lomond] but we went straight back in the studio and tried to do it all again. That was incredibly stupid. We were having such a good time that we couldn’t possibly have made a great record out of it - everyone was doing too many drugs and eating too much KFC. We thought we were invincible, then [The Verve’s] Urban Hymns came out and we had to take the slap in the face of, like, we’re not.

"And personally," he continues, rolling with it now, "I wish I’d never got married. Apart from my lovely little daughter, that was a complete f****n’ waste of time. I feel sorry for her [Anais] because she’s estranged from me and that’s kind of difficult and it’s affected her and she’ll probably continue to be affected by it as she grows up. I just hope she doesn’t feel any resentment.

"Right now, we get on great." Then his face creases into a huge grin. "My kid is my weakness but as a dad I’m a bit of a blagger, you know what I mean? She’s starting to realise this. She’s looking at me funny, as if she’s thinking: ‘You’re an idiot, you are.’ I reckon that by about the time she’s eight or nine she’ll suss out that I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing."

There is no doubt, too, that the love of a good Scottish lass has contributed greatly to the oasis of calm that surrounds the Oasis leader. "The fantastic thing about Sara is that’s she’s not a fan of the band at all," Noel says of his PR girlfriend. "But, I’ll tell you, she bloody obsesses over Franz Ferdinand.

"She’s always saying to me: ‘You can’t dance to Oasis’, so she got quite excited when we hooked up with Death In Vegas and she went absolutely nuts for a song called ‘Lord Don’t Slow Me Down’. She says it’s the only bloody song of ours that made her want to dance and she’s annoyed it hasn’t made the final cut.

"I bought the Franz Ferdinand album but at first I thought ‘Disco music for birds, I’m not havin’ that’ and gave it to Sara. She dragged me to see them play and I’m standing there on the balcony with my pint of Guinness and she’s disco-dancing away. I thought: ‘Well, if they have that effect on my missus I’ll give the album another go and now I love it.’ I’ve met them and they’re dead cool. I love Bob [Hardy] the bass player, he looks like a really tall baby."

This year’s big hype, Babyshambles, don’t even have a record to their name but Noel was sufficiently intrigued to check out Pete Doherty’s new combo.

"Our Kid was like: ‘Did you go and see Babyshambles last night?’

Me: ‘Yeah.’

’im: ‘What for?’

Me: ‘What for? Because this guy’s just out of jail and he’s the new anti-hero and I wanted to see what all the fuss is about.’

’im: ‘But he’s a smackhead!’"

Noel talks some more about the importance, every now and again, of doing flip all. "A typical day, when I’m not writing, is getting up with the missus, then when she goes to work I’ll turn on the TV to watch the news and I’ll sit there shaking my head going: ‘Nah, don’t believe that, and I don’t believe that either - it’s just lies.’"

At the height of Britpop, at a Downing Street reception, he supped with Tony Blair - and he reveals he stuck with Labour at the last election. "Take Iraq and Dr David Kelly out of the equation - are you seriously telling me anyone could have run the country better? One thing that’s amazed me is the minimum wage, I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime."

In the afternoons he might take a trip up town to Denmark Street - Guitar Central. "You can hear the sigh of relief from the shop assistants: ‘He’s bored, he’s here and he’s got his credit card with him.’" At the last count, Noel’s axe collection numbered 99. "Sara reckons I spent so long on the dole looking in store windows that now I can’t stop buying them."

Noel and Sara met on Ibiza, in a club called Space. The first words he said to her were "Hold these" before handing her two bottles of beer and nipping to the loo. Initially, she didn’t cope well with the attentions of the paparazzi but now he says she’s oblivious to them. "It amazes the press that we live in the West End and are often seen in Waitrose or down the pub or arm-in-arm in the park. They’re like: ‘He’s far too happy. There must be something going on ... ’"

So what, then, is the most unrock’n’roll thing Noel Gallagher does these days? A chuckle. "No way, man - how could I sing ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Star’ if I told you that? All them folk at Hampden would be like: ‘Live Forever’? My arse. I read about you in Scotland on Sunday, you with Marigolds on.’ Not that I wear them... "

Right now, though, it’s time for some rock’n’roll. He’s due at the studio for rehearsals for a tour that, after the Usher Hall in Sara’s home city tonight, will take Oasis to America, where 20,000 tickets for New York’s Madison Square Garden sold out within an hour.

The psychedelic, cheeky and really rather chuffed Noel Gallagher emphasises again his delight at how the new album has turned out, despite his girlfriend’s misgivings.

But he insists: "It would be kind of sad if a bunch of 30-year-olds were required to inspire the youth of Britain - it’s other bands’ time now."

And does Our Kid share this viewpoint? "Does he f**k. He thinks he’s the most important star in the country.

"Me: ‘Liam, you’re nearly 35.’

’im: ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

Me: ‘Well, remember when you were 19 and you said everyone in music who was 35 should be shot? Say hello to yourself.’"

As final proof that Noel, at least, marches to the beat of a different drum these days, he reveals he hasn’t had a fight with Liam for five years.

"The last time was in Barcelona. Arguments about music and the direction of the band are valid, but when he gets on to me about stuff that doesn’t concern him, that’s when I’ll deck him and I’ll always win.

"But it takes a lot to rile me now. I mean, I would have quit a long time ago if I wasn’t related to him and I could have walked after Morning Glory. I told him a few times: ‘What did you write? I’m off.’ But Our Kid is one for bringing you right back down again: ‘You’re just a f****n’ idiot, you can’t do it without us.’ And then I’d have mum on the phone: ‘Don’t speak to him like that. Now restart the band, come on’.

"I would have got twatted and just started writing and the songs would have been great because I was blessed at that time."

And now? "I think ... you have to work at it. There are more things going on in my life now - my kid, my relationship, stuff."

Don’t Believe the Truth (Big Brother) is released on May 30 and the single ‘Lyla’ is out tomorrow. Oasis play the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, tonight and Hampden Park, Glasgow, on June 29


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