Excerpt
Supersonic
Liam Oasis was definitely like a f*cking Ferrari: great to look at, great to drive. It would spin out of control every now and again when you go too fast. I’d have that any day over the old Volvo—being in a band like that didn’t interest me one bit. We just wanted to f*cking take it to the max, every day, have a great time, every f*cking day, and then if it ended tomorrow, it ended tomorrow.
Noel I would go back and f*cking do that journey again in a heartbeat.
Liam I just wanted it all f*cking there and then. The beginning, the middle bit, and the end, right now. I just wanted it. Whatever the ending was I wanted it now, and whatever the middle bit was I wanted it now, and whatever the beginning was . . . I just wanted it all to happen in one big f*ck-off explosion of madness.
Noel Everybody used to say, “We are the best band in the world.” I am not sure anybody truly believed it. I actually f*cking believed it. And I still believe it to this day. There was a period where we were f*cking untouchable. It was only short—eighteen months, maybe two years—but we were up there with the greats.
Growing UpNoel I was born in Longsight in 1967 on 29th May.
Sgt Pepper came out on 1st June and I do believe on hospital radio they were playing Sgt Pepper as I was born into the world and if that’s not f*cking true, that’s the story I’ve been sticking to for the past forty-eight years.
Peggie Gallagher Paul arrived ten months after I was married, then Noel arrived a year after that again and everything was fine, it was going alright, or so I thought it was.
Paul Gallagher We had bowl heads, knitted jumpers, little shorts. She used to knit our clothes. Imagine, you’ve got no choice, you couldn’t say, “I don’t want that, Mam,” ’cause she’s just spent four years knitting you a jumper. We were dressed identical, maybe it was cheaper to do two instead of one.
Peggie Liam arrived five and a half years after. I don’t know, I think there was always that bit of jealousy with Liam and Noel, because there was only Paul and Noel for so long. I idolized Paul and Noel because I had only the two of them. Noel was absolutely beautiful when he was a baby. Then, of course, Liam comes along, takes the limelight. You could tell the disagreement was there with them.
Noel We lived off a busy main road; Longsight Market was across the road from our house. It was a busy Mancunian suburb maybe two miles from the city center. I don’t romanticize my childhood, but it was alright. We had an outside toilet. It’s grim up north and all that.
Peggie It was great, that was the best time with the kids. Everybody knew everybody, I knew hundreds of Irish people. If you went out shopping with the kids on Stockport Road, you’d always run into friends that you knew when you were young and their families. Going to church, going to school, everybody knew everybody. It was a great community for the Irish people then. I was down Longsight in a two-bedroom house—two up and two down—and that was demolished. We got rehoused to a place called Burnage, which was further south. Compared to Longsight, this was like f*cking the Cotswolds. You had a front garden and a back garden instead of an alleyway and a front door that opened onto the street. But if you’d seen my rooms upstairs—you couldn’t swing a bloody cat in them.
Paul You’ve got a three-bedroom council house, there’s not a lot of space. You’re going to get friction. That’s what people don’t understand, you know, since Liam was ten till seventeen, he shared a bedroom with Noel.
Noel Our Paul’s always had his own room, bastard. It’s something I’ve never quite forgiven him for. I got to share with Liam, which wasn’t really a problem until we were teenagers and then he was just a pain in the arse . . . and has remained that way ever since.
Liam Paul had his own room, I shared one with Noel. Yeah, it was alright.
Noel I didn’t hang around with Liam until I joined the band. Although I shared a room with him, five years is a generation apart. All his mates, when I was fifteen, they are all ten, you know, so that’s massive. I’m leaving school at fifteen, he’s ten years old. You’re f*cking smoking weed at fifteen, he’s just out of short pants, so there is no relationship.
Liam I think we got on, I think. He was a bit of a stoner, a bit of a loner, one of them people that you’d throw stones at. He had a guitar so he was copping for it, you know what I mean? One of them, walking round with his guitar with his weird mates. Our Paul was a mod so he had a bit more about him, he wasn’t so weird like Noel was.
Peggie Always very quiet, Noel. He would go upstairs and bury himself. Always strumming a guitar. Many’s a time I went up and I knocked at the door and said, “Bloody guitar, you get on my bloody nerves.” “You leave my guitar alone,” he said. I used to do an awful lot of knitting and he’d be always drumming with the needles when he was young. It was in him. I used to go, “He’ll put that bloody knitting needle in his eye yet.”
Paul Noel was quiet, moody, skinny, withdrawn, he kept himself to himself. Then you’ve got Liam who is a livewire. Imagine Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout versus, I don’t know, Mickey Mouse? You got a lot of noise.
Liam Noel’s definitely a bit cagey, I’d call it shifty.
Noel I don’t know why me and Liam would be so different, we both had the same childhood, do you know what I mean? I am more of a loner. I genuinely like my own company. I’m not a shy, can’t-really-speak-to-anyone person . . . I’m very outgoing and f*cking love my circle of friends and all that, but I don’t need them . . . A few years in nick, in solitary confinement, that wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.
Liam Anyone who could do a stretch, I would watch out for them. Anyone who says, “Yeah, I could do f*cking time,” that’s scary. I couldn’t do that. He definitely keeps himself to himself. He’s a funny c*nt without a doubt. He’s great and all that, but he’s a bit of a dick as well.
Noel Liam is a f*cking major pain in the arse . . . there isn’t actually a word that could adequately sum up his f*cking buffoonery.
Liam Our kid’s more a thinker, I wasn’t a thinker, I didn’t have no time to think. It was just, “Let’s get straight into this f*cking day.” I’d never sit there and scratch my chin and go, “How am I going to play this Tuesday afternoon?” There was none of that. It was like, “Let’s f*cking have Tuesday, full on, let’s freak Tuesday out so it doesn’t come back again. Let Tuesday tell Wednesday, “F*cking hell, you’re in for it tomorrow, mate.”
Peggie He was a devil, Liam, full of it. Many’s a time, I swear to God, if I caught him I would have broke the brush across his back, because he used to torment me in the kitchen.
Liam I used to have too much Weetabix, a lot of energy. Three in the morning, three when I get in from school, and three before I go to bed. I was just f*cking bouncing off the walls, man.
Peggie Liam was a mammy’s boy, always with me. He’d always come looking for you to see where you were. They were all close, but I suppose Liam was always closer to me, because he was the youngest. Everybody loved him round here because he had a lot of time for older people. You’d be coming back from the shops there and he’d say, “Let me carry that bag for you.” He used to go up and down Burnage Lane waving to everyone. The big wave. Everybody loved him round here.
Noel Liam, I would suggest, needs an audience. He is an ideal frontman.
Paul Total attention seeker, robbing your clothes, robbing your records, robbing your this, robbing your that, robbing your money.
Liam I was pretty confident all the way through life, you know what I mean—f*ck knows, I guess just looking in the mirror and seeing what your reflection is, you kind of, if you look like a knob you’re going to act like a knob, I guess, you know what I mean. I kind of dig the way I look so went for it. I’m definitely a bit of a show-off and that, always loved the attention and that and still do, but not to the point where it’s like f*cking Bonnie Langford or one of them little f*cking brats with jazz hands.
Peggie I used to go to the school plays and he’d always look to see if he could spot you in the audience. Liam always wanted to be top of everything, from a small little boy. If he didn’t get the main part, he didn’t want to be in it. Noel was a different kettle of fish altogether.
