Thought the below was a good read. It also answers some questions previously asked on this forum about the ecoding of the Definitely Maybe DVD and The Real People inerviews.
News:
The Realies discuss their current plans, as well as giving an insight into their influence on Oasis, in an interview with Mojo Magazine.
Your role in the Oasis story has been well documented, but a lot of people remain unaware of it. How did you first meet them and what happened?
Tony: We met Noel on an Inspiral Carpets Tour in 1991 and he said he had a band with our kid. We tried to get a guy called John Bryce, who was working for our publisher at the time, to give us some money and take them into the studio. He couldn’t, so we recorded them on an 8-track at our place on the Dock Rd in Liverpool in 1993.
We recorded about 20 tunes; out of them a few turned out as B-sides and a few turned out as the demo of the album tracks (later known as the Live Demonstration tape: Rock n Roll Star, Strange Thing, Bring It On Down, Fade Away, Columbia, Cloudburst, D’You Wanna Be A Spaceman, Married With Children) but we did do a load more and I think I’m the only one with the actual demos.
Chris: Liam was a star from the first day you saw them; without him it wouldn’t’ve been the way the way it was; Liam made the band.
We went to see ‘em at a an early gig at the Boardwalk, then they came down to our prackie room and we started recording them. They used to stay over our flat weekends.
Tony: It was a bit like the Monkees’ house, our warehouse on the Dock Road. We had 24 hr access, pool tables in there and all kinds of things; at the time we just all having a really good laugh, all night sessions jamming, you can imagine. In fact it cost me my relationship 'cos I was spending all me time in the studio with this unknown band from Manchester and leaving me girl in the house. She ended up moving back to London, so I blame Oasis for that.
The impression I get is that they hadn't really been in a recording studio, prior to working with you?
Tony: You’d never believe it now 'cos they’re so experienced, but Liam had never really sung with headphones on; It freaked him out! The reason that people say Liam sounds like our Chris is because what we originally did was Chris sang the vocal and then we gave Liam another track and got him to sing along to that.
Then we took Chris’s vocals off and got Liam to double track to himself, so he got hold of all of our kid’s phrasing. The most musically talented of all of them was Bonehead. He was really good on the piano and stuff and Noel was quite good on the drums.
You ended up coming to an out of court settlement with them. How did that come about?
Tony: We were working with ‘em for three months, as mates, and the next minute we can’t even get on the guest list for their gigs. I don’t really blame the lads, it’s just as other people, like management and publishers, got involved they got taken away from us. It was a shame we had to go down the legal route, but we just wanted recognition for all the hard work we’d put in.
You wrote the lyrics to 'Columbia' with Liam, Chris?
Chris: Yeah, that is the truth, but I don’t know how much I can say about it because I don’t know what the actual out of court settlement is and all that. Put it this way, ‘Columbia’ was an instrumental piece they came into the studio with and they went out with a full song. I came up with the melody and the verse words really, Liam wrote the chorus.
Any others?
Chris: I heard one of their B-sides a few months later (“Rocking Chair”) and it was more or less the same as our tune “Growlin Old”. T hey’d just lifted a few little chords, a few little words and a bit of the melody. There’s a few others that I just thought that’s a bit too out of order now.
Were they famous tunes?
Chris: Yeah, yeah; there’s one called “Don’t Go Away” which is very similar to a song we had called “Feel The Pain” but I dunno how much I can say about that, la, you know what I mean ?
Tony, yourself & Chris are interviewed on the 'Definitely Maybe' DVD, but it seems like you've been edited to suit the party line?
Tony: Yeah we thought that on the (Definitely Maybe) DVD we’d get the full story across, but when we watched it it just looked like we were licking their arses, y’know what I mean?
What did you think of Oasis when you first heard them?
Chris: “Definitely Maybe” was the start of the new generation of music, it turned everything round d’you know what I mean? With them being the same as us and being into the Beatles and into strings and this, that and the other, the first album was very rock n’roll. Then once you’ve then got the budget to have a big live orchestra you’re gonna do it, aren’t you ?
What do you think of what Oasis are doing musically, now?
Tony: We haven’t seen ‘em for years. The band they’ve got now, musician-wise, is fantastic. They all look great, and the songs have gone from strength to strength.
What have The Real People been up to?
Tony: We’re just in the studio now and in the process of making a new album and setting up a new website an’ just getting everything up and running again. We’ve been writing and producing for loads of other people for the past few years and we just got really bored with it.
The last major hit we had was with a band called Rooster with a song called “You’re So Right For Me” which got to No.8, and a top 40 hit with this Icelandic girl band Nylon.
The reason we got fed up working on all these other projects is we were getting messed around by record companies and publishing companies. We’d do one song & they’d ask us to change it and do it in a more Gary Numan-esque way or whatever.
We were just going round in circles so it felt like the right time to put a new album out. We’ve just got all these great new songs like “FaceBook” about internet nerds about people not even knowing you but they know you through your Facebook.
It’s over 10 yrs since we last had an album and we’ve got a great set-up with our studio. We’ve never stopped working. The only thing I know how to do is music and talk shite… I’m good at that !
How do you feel now about the whole Oasis story?
Tony: We feel really proud to have been involved in their story. It’d be easy to feel jealous of their success but we’ve got our own fish to fry.
With the utmost regards,
BigUn.