Noel Gallagher has been looking back on ‘Definitely Maybe’ ahead of the album’s 30th anniversary next Thursday (August 29).
The former Oasis man spoke to journalist John Robb at Manchester’s Sifters Records, telling the story of the band’s iconic debut, ahead of new limited edition versions being released.
“It was only through Liam [Gallagher] getting together with Bonehead that they asked me, that I joined – and when I joined, ambition took over,” he said of his start in Oasis. “In fact, it was only, I think, the second rehearsal with Oasis our kid said, ‘Yeah, you’ve got some tunes.’
“I was just like, ‘If you play this, I’ll play that and you play that,’ and once everybody joined in the fucking bomb went off and I was like, ‘Fucking hell, this is amazing.’”
He explained that it was difficult to get a job when he was younger, so music was, as he put it, “The one thing that could get us out of the situation where it – it worked. There were good tunes and good bands, but the [Stone] Roses had disappeared, the [Happy] Mondays had fallen apart. There was nothing that was inspiring everyone.”
Gallagher called Oasis a band “made by the people,” saying: “To say to somebody in 1993, ‘Where’s guitar music going?’ They’re not going to go, ‘Right, we want this fucking band from Manchester with a fucking singer who’s 19, lairy, he’s writing the songs, he’s ripping off everybody who’s fucking dead. But the other three lads look like plumbers – you couldn’t invent it, you know? Who knew?”
Gallagher described Oasis songs as inclusive rather than elitist, taking inspiration from the “communal feel” of acid house, and explained that the journey from making demos in Liverpool – on the band’s 1993 cassette ‘Live Demonstration’ – to recording ‘Definitely Maybe’ with Oasis wasn’t something they’d consciously planned, particularly as they’d only played around 14 or 15 shows beforehand. Rather, it just happened.
He looked back on the band’s recordings from Monnow Valley, near Monmouth in Wales, too, saying: “We didn’t have the equipment, we didn’t have the Marshalls. Monnow Valley had a Vox AC30 and a HH amp, and then by the time we were at Sawmills, we had a Marshall and a fucking WEM Dominator – that’s the sound, you know?”
You can watch the full 30-minute interview here:
The new limited edition versions of ‘Definitely Maybe’ will be released on August 30, a day after the album’s 30th anniversary. There are 4LP and 2CD formats as well as versions available on coloured vinyl, cassette and digital, with all formats including the 2014 remastered version of the album. They also include previously unheard and abandoned versions from the Monnow Valley session as well as outtakes from the Sawmills sessions, both mixed by Gallagher for the first time recently.
Also included is brand new artwork by original art designer Brian Cannon for Microdot and original sleeve photographer Michael Spencer Jones, as well as new sleeve notes from Alan McGee of Creation Records. You can pre-order here.
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