Oasis: The Truth

by Tony McCarroll

  The next morning, completely knackered, we were picked up and headed for Portsmouth. It seemed we weren’t the only ones. Bonehead was not happy at all. He had returned home in a lubricated state and had been awoken by a wrenching sound. It was two-thirty in the morning and his girlfriend Kate slept soundly beside him. He rolled out of bed and like an angry bear he pulled back his front curtain and looked out onto the rain-soaked street outside. He spotted a group of students removing his front-door knocker. In his normal muddled state, he grabbed two things: a baseball bat and his missus’s dress. He stumbled down the steps at his front door, swinging the bat around in the pouring rain, dressed like a woman. He then chased the students up the street. He was beside himself with shame.

  2 MAY 1994. THE WEDGEWOOD ROOMS, PORTSMOUTH

  We arrived, very tired – for different reasons – in Portsmouth. Not the most attractive of places at the best of times, never mind a dark, wet and windy Monday afternoon. We checked into the hotel and noticed the swimming pool located immediately next to the bar. I thought that this was a disaster waiting to happen and the smile across Bonehead’s face suggested he was thinking the same. We dropped our gear off in the hotel rooms. Bonehead and me were together, as was the norm, with Guigs and Liam sharing, while Noel had a room to himself. We scooted around the seafront, where the sea air blasted all and sundry. Our gig at The Wedgewood Rooms that evening was a sell-out. It seemed all our shows had turned into sell-outs. How times change, I thought. Less than six months previously, we had entertained an empty room in Leeds. That evening, we delivered yet another polished performance and the crowd lapped it up. Not only had the size of the audiences changed, the intensity and fervour had increased to match. There seemed to be a mild hysteria wherever we went, with most of it being directed at young Liam. After we finished, we headed off to find some goodtime at a party we had been invited to. Having located the house, and then the drugs, we all left and headed back to the hotel and the safety of the residents’ bar. When we arrived, we noticed it was unusually busy for a Monday night. That was when I spotted a group of lads who had overdone it with the ‘street’ look. Their oversized jeans were tucked into chunky-heeled beige boots and were in direct proportion to their oversized overcoats. They all wore hats of various styles, even though we were indoors. It was then that I recognised them as East 17. They had played the Guildhall in Portsmouth earlier that night.

  I realised I was staring when one of them asked me, ‘Are you in Blur?’

  Liam overheard this and immediately asked, ‘Are you Take fuckin’ That?’ This led to a barrage of insults thrown at each other. The barrage from our side intensified.

  ‘You silly cockney cunts. What’s that hat on yer head, you twat?’ Even Noel was having a pop. In Brian Harvey, he’d finally found someone his own size. The smiles on East 17’s faces quickly faded when they saw our party shuffling together as if to make our attack physical, and so the mood changed. We had the usual mob with us and they were keen to sort it out there and then. Fortunately for them, East 17 backed off towards the lifts and the safety of their own rooms. It wasn’t to end there, though.

  In due course, Brian Harvey and his girl reappeared at a balcony, looking down on the hotel foyer. After a few minutes, during which Harvey simply stared down at us, Liam had taken enough and shouted up, ‘What the fuck are you looking at, dickhead?’

  Harvey gave back straight away, as if he had been waiting for it. ‘You what? You fuckin’ what?’ As he shouted away, his girl stepped back… and opened her dressing gown so we could all see her ample breasts. She put a finger to her mouth and tried to look coy as she paraded. Priceless. We all enjoyed the show as Harvey ranted on. Finally, Liam told him that his girl was showing us her breasts. He whipped his head round as she pulled her gown shut, her face the picture of innocence. As he turned back to Liam, the gown opened once more and the show went on. Again Liam pointed them out and again Harvey turned to see his re-clothed girl wearing an innocent look on her face. After a minute or so of this hilarious routine, we have had enough and headed back to the bar, leaving an angry man in a funny bobble hat frothing at the balcony.

  3 MAY 1994. TJ’S, NEWPORT

  I liked TJ’s. It is rumoured that this was where Kurt Cobain proposed to Courtney Love, so I reckoned the alcohol must be dangerously fuckin’ potent. We arrived to yet another packed-out house. The Welsh crowds were always that little bit less stable than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. There was always an edge.

  4 MAY 1994, THE WHEREHOUSE, DERBY

  Another packed performance. We stood and stared at each other in disbelief.

  5 MAY 1994

  Day off.

  6 MAY 1994. THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, LEICESTER

  We always had an entourage with us. It had been the same for the last two years. And it was always a noisy and boisterous one. The attitude that we gave off on stage ran right though the group, so it was always adventurous, to say the least. The mentality was that of a Manchester City ‘away day’, which would inevitably lead to a right load of mither. Noel had started to lay down laws concerning behavioural requirements, which mainly fell upon deaf ears. ‘Stop fucking thieving, will you?’ he would demand of the group, but to no avail. With Noel, though, that meant most of the entourage were living on borrowed time.

  We were stood on stage at the Princess Charlotte in Leicester, setting up for our soundcheck, when Noel noticed that BigUn was already leaving. We had arrived earlier than the rest and had already left our belongings in the dressing room. BigUn had only been here two minutes and he was already heading back to the van. Noel ordered him to stop. Through the microphone, his voice boomed around the large and empty room. BigUn turned to face us with a look on his face that screamed, ‘Shit I’ve been caught.’ He also looked pregnant, due to the fact he had obviously stuffed some ill-gotten prize under his shirt. We hadn’t even soundchecked and he was already grafting. Noel was not going to be happy.

  ‘What the fuck have you got under your jumper?’ Noel asked the sheepish-looking BigUn. In response, he pulled out a couple of dodgy silk shirts that Noel had brought down to change into after the gig. I presumed that BigUn had not been listening when Noel had told everyone to calm down – and not only that, he had actually grafted two of Noel’s own shirts. Things couldn’t get any worse for him.

  But they could and they did.

  In a vain attempt at a defence, BigUn now raised the two shirts in front of him and said, ‘Look Noel, it’s only two girl’s blouses. They’re shite, but our Kelly could wear them to college.’

  Our ring of laughter was drowned out by Noel ordering him out of the venue over the microphone. This act of BigUn’s signalled the end for the majority of the Entourage, though – ironically – not for BigUn himself.

  7 MAY 1994. THE OLD TROUT, WINDSOR

  We now had a new team member. Paul Slattery was a photographer who Mark Coyle had known from his time as the sound engineer for The Stone Roses. Slatts followed us around for the next year or so and would become an entertaining member of our set-up. We were quite insular as a group, but Slatts’s personality and humorous outlook on life had crowbarred him in. After a gig that left him well impressed, we all headed back to the hotel. Bonehead was head on and knocking them back. When he spotted the Jacuzzi across the far side of the lobby, he was off, leaving the hotel and returning 10 minutes later. After a toilet break or two, we sat and drank while the receptionist glared over, keen for us to retire. It was 4am. Suddenly, I noticed a large tidal wave of suds erupting from the Jacuzzi. When Bonehead had nipped out, he had bought a litre of bubble bath, which he had dropped it in the bubbling pool. He sat with his eyes wide and roared his head off like a child. Reception declared it an emergency situation and began to evacuate. Only Bonehead.

  9 MAY 1994

  Day off.

  11 MAY 1994. THE BOAT RACE, CAMBRIDGE

  The meat of the whole rock ’n’ roll image that the band had become famous for lay firmly at the fee
t of Bonehead. I know this, for it was normally me who sat there and handed him the furniture. We were sat in a hotel room in Cambridge.

  ‘I love the sound of lightbulbs smashing. Pass me that lamp.’

  I passed him the lamp.

  ‘That’s a least two hundred quid so far, Bone,’ I informed him. I was keeping a running account for him.

  ‘Just another fifty quids’ worth and I’m done,’ he replied, wearing an insane grin. I just had to laugh as the lamp left the hotel room via the window.

  12 MAY 1994

  Day off.

  13 MAY 1994. THE VENUE, NEW CROSS, LONDON

  After another barnstormer we were met in the dressing room by a pack of music journalists. Few people could have had any doubts about who the hottest act in town was. There was now a real intensity surrounding the band. Each gig was more and more frenzied. From clamouring fans to admiring journalists, we all understood that something had definitely changed. We towelled down and The Man who Can arranged for us to be whisked across to Browns, the nightclub. I was thinking that that was not a good idea, as Browns represented everything we were not – the club was suited more to the likes of Spandau Ballet and Rod Stewart – but nevertheless, off we headed. When we arrived, we settled down and order drinks. Within minutes, Noel stood up and ordered everyone to move. The bar had told him we were sitting in Prince’s area and sure enough, the wee fella – who was dressed in a colour that was similar to the colour of my helmet – duly arrived. We started protesting, but Noel glared at us and we had to move off. I laughed as Liam pointed out that Prince was actually taller than Noel.

  14 MAY 1994. THE LEADMILL, SHEFFIELD

  Outside the Leadmill stood a doppelganger. It’s me good self, but a foot taller. Curly hair, Burberry shirt, desert boots. He was just missing a set of drumsticks.

  ‘Hiya mate, my name is Tony McCarroll,’ he said to me, hand outstretched. ‘How you doing?’ he asked, following his introduction with a number of tales concerning the fucks, drugs, free rides and drink he had managed to blag over the previous few months. I laughed and asked him if he could possibly help me find some.

  We played a solid gig. Afterwards, as I was winding down the staircase at the Leadmill in Sheffield, he was busying himself in some girl’s mouth. As I passed behind them she opened her eyes; the look of passion soon turned to disbelief as she recognised me. She pushed him away and made a beeline for me. I rushed out the doors, to the sound of my impostor’s laughter ringing through the stairwell.

  4 JUNE 1994. THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON

  ‘We’ve really made it,’ said Noel, with a laugh.

  He was excited about the prospect of his own first solo performance. Not sure why he said ‘we’. The band were at The Royal Albert Hall for a Creation ‘Undrugged’ night. Liam refused to sing acoustically and so handed the baton to Noel, who took it with both hands. We moved out front and sat in the crowd. Noel and Bonehead completed an admirable job.

  Liam watched them performing on the same stage as the great Arthur Lee and then looked around The Royal Albert Hall, which was filled to capacity. He was overcome by it all. We had only just released our first single but we all already knew our destiny. Or so I thought.

  ‘I can’t believe this. It’s too much,’ he whispered to me, as he used his sleeve to dry his eyes. One of the few nights I saw Liam so openly emotional.

  20 JUNE 1994. ‘SHAKERMAKER’ RELEASED. REACHED NO.11 IN THE SINGLES CHARTS.

  And so our second single hit the shops. We were working at releasing a single every three months, just as The Smiths had. As Johnny Marr had advised, ‘They can’t ignore you if you keep releasing records.’

  ‘Shakermaker’ owed a lot to the song ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing’. It was done in such an obvious way, though, it became immaterial. I’d loved the lazy feel of the song when I’d first heard it and to me there’s still something special about it to this very day. NME applauded it:

  Predictable, maybe, but even in a fantastic week for singles, inevitable. Which just goes to show that, as starts go, Oasis has been pure Ben Johnson at the 1988 Olympics. Fortunately there are no urine tests in pop, so this almighty second single will undoubtedly grant the brothers Gallagher access to mass adoration. They deserve it, too: for in much the same way that my entire life has been a tawdry dress rehearsal for ‘doing’ the NME singles, one suspects that Oasis’ entire existence has been leading up to this moment. By rights, ‘Shaker-maker’ should lack the colossal impact of ‘Supersonic’, but from the second they unapologetically strike up a crunching, gob smacking twelve bar boogie, you know this is going to be one unspeakably cool record. And, by the time Liam’s vocals loll out of the speaker with ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’, you know you’re dealing with greatness. The three other tracks are more formulaic (especially the hey let’s write a B side ‘D’yer wanna Be a Spaceman?’) but sod it, it’s A sides that matter. Even minus ‘that’ line, this is a Coca Cola classic of a record.

  Mark Sutherland

  21 JULY, 1994. WETLANDS, NEW YORK

  We were suddenly halted in our tracks and told of a change of plan. We were to fly to America for a showcase for Sony at New York’s Wetlands.

  ‘Right, here are your tickets.’ A very studious-looking lady called Maggie Mouzakitis was standing in front of us. Bonehead had been relieved of his duties organising our tours and Marcus had installed Maggie instead. She was a beautiful girl, young yet very driven and a sisterly figure to us all. It had taken Liam some time to warm to Maggie, but then again it took Liam a while to warm to anyone. She was originally from Greece and had soft Mediterranean looks that disguised an American soul as tough as old cowboy boots. When she first arrived, we thought it a mad decision to employ her as our tour manager. She looked about 12 with her American accent, baseball cap and ponytail. But Marcus had been right. A sisterly touch would be just the thing to keep control of five young men.

  She took a deep breath and then told us that we didn’t have working visas. There was no reaction from us, because we didn’t know what this meant. She then informed us that this meant we had to enter the country illegally. And if we got caught trying to enter the country illegally, we would be sent to an Illegal Detention Centre. Sounded like a right laugh.

  We were all given an instrument to carry and told that, if quizzed, we were to state that music-making was our hobby, not our living. I had been given an item from Noel’s prized guitar collection to carry, and he stared at me with a look that could kill. ‘Do not fuckin’ leave a mark,’ he said, just as I pretended to drop it. Although this tickled Liam, who was standing next to me, it didn’t seem to amuse Noel.

  Guigs asked Maggie if we would be kept in solitary confinement in an Illegal Detention Centre, or would we have to mingle with the rest of the inmates. I didn’t think ‘mingle’ was the appropriate word, and I told him. He gave me the dictionary definition to prove his choice of word was correct. I suspected that if he took that attitude into prison, the only thing that would be mingling around the prison block would be his battered arse.

  The flight went without incident and we all entered America illegally. I was surprised that our record company, always in search of a story, hadn’t already rung the authorities to let them know what we were doing. It would have made a great headline. I headed for the gig in a yellow taxi with Bonehead and Slatts. I liked New York: the constant blur of traffic and people; the city orchestra playing taxi horn and whistles. Slatts was clicking and whirring away, capturing time on celluloid for posterity. We arrived at a dressing room that had been staged to look like an old dusty storeroom full of empty beer crates and cardboard boxes. There was one beer box that was not empty, however, and instead housed 36 ice-chilled bottles of lager. We greedily sucked away, as the warm, thick evening air had everyone looking flushed. Then again, maybe it was the bugle that The Man who Can was throwing around.

  We played a storming gig which, was well received by the ‘Americans’
– though the crowd must had been 90 per cent British. It was a fantastic night and, on a high, the band started the aftershow. Liam asked if I wanted to come to some apartment. I looked over to see a girl we had met earlier that evening. We called her Mary Poppins, due to her high-class English accent. She was a model from Britain who had decamped to New York. She was also an addict. Drugs, fame, alcohol, money, sex and danger. These were a few of her favourite things. She lived in an old converted warehouse in Manhattan, which – like her – had been around the New York scene since the mid-eighties. That night, she only had eyes for Liam, who for once actually seemed captivated by a woman. We duly headed to her loft apartment and Liam vanished into the bedroom for a few minutes, where he sewed his rock ’n’ roll seeds and then re-entered the main room, looking flustered and agitated.