Supersonic: The Oasis Interview (1996) + Brats, Cormac McCarthy, Reviews, & More!
Issue 39: Cormac McCarthy on Writing, Roger Federer, Brats + How Music Got Free, & The Oasis Interview (1996).
Hi friends,
Hope your week is off to a great start! We’re excited to announce that Season 2 of You Had To Be There has been greenlit, and production begins tomorrow! If there’s any specific moments or events you think we should cover, let us know. If you haven’t listened to Season 1 yet, now is the perfect time to catch up before Season 2 debuts in early fall! We’ll have more news about upcoming Hi Barr podcasts and one-of-a-kind collaborations very soon. Here’s a hint: Make art, not merch!
This week’s vintage interview takes us across the pond to 1996, featuring rock superstars (and top-tier banterers), Liam and Noel Gallagher of the legendary Britpop1band Oasis. As an unabashed Oasis fan who celebrates their first two (and a half2 albums as some of the best music of the 1990s, I’ve been devouring all the social media buzz over the last few weeks as Liam Gallagher tears it up on his 30th Anniversary Definitely Maybe Tour. It looks biblical.
With all the buzz surrounding Liam’s tour, it seems like it’s either yet another cruel tease of an Oasis reunion (see: Talking Heads’ 2023 Stop Making Sense speaking tour—presented by A24) or Liam setting the stage for a (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? 30th anniversary tour with big brother in 2025. Could an Oasis reunion be on the horizon? Will one of the brothers Gallagher suck it up and pick up the phone please? Let’s make some (more) history at Knebworth in 2025!
Onto this week’s issue!
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Looking Back
How Music Got Free (Paramount+): Nostalgia is a helluva drug. How Music Got Free is one of the rare documentaries that I actually wish were longer, especially since it largely omits Napster’s origin story. Personally, I found the interviews with music execs Jimmy Iovine, Steve Berman, and Steve Stoute, as well as Eminem and 50 Cent, on the immediate impact of file sharing/piracy on the music industry more interesting than the inside story of how music was leaked—though the latter has the ingredients for an epic Soderbergh-style adaptation. Read the book!
Rating (out of 5): ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Brats (Hulu): Andrew McCarthy’s Brat Pack documentary wasn’t at all what I expected. While it didn’t send me into nostalgic nirvana like these types of documentaries often do, I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it a lot since watching it on Friday. Normally, that’s a good sign, but this time… probably not. Ultimately, I found the ‘collateral damage’—both real and imagined—from David Blum’s New York Magazine profile, where McCarthy and his acting cohort were deemed the ‘Brat Pack,’ to be the most interesting aspect of the doc. Even with the passage of 38 years, fame and, perhaps even more so, missing out on fame can be brutal.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Yet another entry for the ‘Nobody Knows Anything’ file in Hollywood.
Looking Ahead!
Federer: Twelve Final Days (Prime Video | Thursday, 6/20/24): As a card-carrying member of Club Fed for over 20 years, I’m excited to see this documentary on Roger Federer’s career through the lens of his final twelve days on tour. I’ve heard it’s a tearjerker!
The Bikeriders (Theaters | 6/21): Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, and Jodie Comer in a movie about a 1960s motorcycle gang? Sold! I’m excited to see how Jeff Nichols adapts a photography book into a movie (a first for me). Remember, IP can come from anywhere!
Source Material: The Bikeriders, Danny Lyons (photography book)
Copa America (Fox Sports | Thursday 6/20-7/14): I still can’t believe that ESPN doesn’t have the rights to the World Cup, Euro, or Copa America.
Utah! Get Me 2 3…Recommendations!
Cormac McCarthy Did Not Talk Craft, Except With Roger Payne (New York Times. 6/15/24)
“IF the material is innately gripping—which this is—it is counterproductive to try to jazz it up or make it ‘exciting.’”
“This is poorly said. It has the sound of something spoken. Writing is different.”
“If you assume a low level of intelligence in the reader you will be left precisely with that readership. Is that really what you want?”
- ’s best-in-class history podcast is back with a season on Alexander the Great. If the first episode is any indication, we’re in for some of his best work yet. Listen here.
Let SNL’s 50th Anniversary Promotional Tour Begin! (New York Times)
Listen to our You Had To Be There episode on Saturday Night Live featuring an interview with SNL’s ‘Cue Card Guy’ Wally Feresten, who shared incredible behind-the-scenes stories about Sinéad O'Connor, Ashlee Simpson, Garth Brooks, & more!
Conversations from the Past.
The Oasis Interview (1996)
INTERVIEW BY JIM SHELLEY
MELODY MAKER
APRIL 27, 1996
JIM SHELLEY: What have the last couple of years been like, how would you describe it?
LIAM GALLAGHER: Mad. It's been hard. But it's gotta be done. There's nothing else to do is there? It's our band, and if we want it to be as big as we want it to be, then we've got to keep on doing it. Keep plugging away.
SHELLEY: Has it surprised you, what's happened to the band?
GALLAGHER: No not at all; and that's not arrogance, it's just that I'm not here to be surprised. I knew, as soon as we had the first single out, what was gonna happen. Suede were the only big band in Britain at the time and although we weren't doing gigs - we were stuck in a room all day, getting better and better, and I just knew that if we did a few gigs and got a bit of interest, that'd be it. It would just go fookin' mad. And as soon as Supersonic come out, it did.
SHELLEY: How have you changed since Oasis started?
LIAM GALLAGHER: I don't think I've changed at all.
SHELLEY: You must have.
LIAM GALLAGHER: I haven't. I've got a better singer. I've got more into me own little world, in there, in me own little world, which is alright. And I feel at one in me own little world, and that's what I've always wanted. Simple as that.
SHELLEY: What about fame though, Liam?
LIAM GALLAGHER: Signing autographs doesn't change ya. Just me writing 'LIAM'. I wouldn't not be in a band, never. No matter what the price of fame was. That's what I'm here for - to play music. When I go on, at a gig at night, all that shit, fame and stuff, just goes out your head.
SHELLEY: What can you tell me about Noel?
LIAM GALLAGHER: He's just got right into it - he's got right into being a guitarist, and a songwriter. After the first lot of success, you know it's for real then, and he got really focused, got wised up, really serious. Stopped smashing things up. You've got to do it right. And I'm just totally into being a singer now, and that's what I'm about. I don't want to be a lyricist, I don't want to be a fookin' songwriter. I just want to be a singer. Not a frontman, not work the crowd or jump up or down and all that shit. That's not what I'm about. Elvis never wrote a song in his life, did he? I don't reckon he was the king, though - I reckon john Lennon was the King. I just like Lennon's rawness, but then again McCartney wrote Helter Skelter which was a top fookin' tune. I'm on that, me. Totally. The Beatles talk to me totally. I mean they don't talk to me, the music just channels in though, especially Lennon.
“If you want it, you gotta get right into it. Gotta let it suck you right in.”
- Liam Gallagher
SHELLEY: Do you ever feel like slowing down, taking it easier?
LIAM GALLAGHER: If you want it, you gotta get right into it. Gotta let it suck you right in. I had a month off and it did me head right in.
SHELLEY: Have you really got a masterplan?
NOEL GALLAGHER: Nah. Anything can happen. I literally don't know what's gonna fookin' happen next week.
SHELLEY: You're where you want to be though?
NOEL GALLAGHER: Oh, yeah. All the goals we set when we started the band, we broke 'em so fast.
SHELLEY: Is there a price to pay for becoming so successful, so quickly?
NOEL GALLAGHER: I wouldn't say I envy bands who've not had the success we did but...I still liked it better when we 'ad to go and prove ourselves to people and didn't have a Number One album, when that was something to reach for. Everything seems to be coming really fookin' easy at the moment. I've only got to fookin' fart and it gets into the Top 10. It stifles the interest at times - you what's going to happen to it before it comes out.
SHELLEY: How would you describe the last couple of years?
NOEL GALLAGHER: Erm...[15 seconds pause]...for me, personally, I was mouthing off to every c***, saying we were the dog's knackers. Man, everyone was so fed up. But I'm quite proud that everything I said was quite justified and came true. Other than that, just like fookin' mind-blowing, and a total and utter fookin' laugh, just takin' the piss, all the wind-ups. We read all the old interviews and just laugh our heads off. From Supersonic to the first album, we were seriously fookin' out of control. People at Creation and managers of other bands were all saying ‘These guys aint gonna last a year. They're either gonna die or kill each other.’
SHELLEY: What do you think you'll end up being or doing?
NOEL GALLAGHER: I don't know. I wanna realise the band's potential. I wouldn't want to call it a day when we could've done more but didn't do it. You've gotta fulfill your potential. Have a go. Pulp said to me: 'Only twats play stadiums.' But you know...
SHELLEY: Can you keep the quality up?
NOEL GALLAGHER: The Smiths and The Jam didn't split up early. The Smiths did five albums, high quality, same line-up. That's impressive. Their timing was good in terms of quitting.
SHELLEY: Can you last five albums though?
NOEL GALLAGHER: I always said it would be three. Like the Jam, they never waited around long enough to be shit. I'd say realistically it will be five. I'd rather it was three.
SHELLEY: What would it do to him if tomorrow you just said, 'That's it, I've done it.
NOEL GALLAGHER: I'm going to write songs for other people, be a producer, open a trout farm.'? "Oh, he'd be devastated. the only reason I don't, the only reason I keep it on, is that me mam would bollock me. Cos he can't do anything else. Ionly keep the band going for me mam's sake. So he can pay me mam the rent.
It Belongs in a Museum.
Cormac McCarthy On Writing. 1975.
I’m pretty sure I hate the early to mid-1990s term ‘Britpop’ because, while Oasis were popular, they’ve always been more rock than pop, both sonically and in terms of attitude. Attitude & antics are key for a rock band and ‘pop’ bands don’t write songs like Rock ‘n’ Roll Star. I don’t feel this way about Blur, who’ve always seemed more pop than rock, which is why I don’t really get the debate between the two bands. Oasis has always been far and away better. Could Blur have sold out two nights at Knebworth in 1996? No chance. Case closed. Plus, Damon Albarn’s best work was with Gorillaz.
I say “half album” because Oasis’s collection of b-sides, The Masterplan (recorded during the Definitely, Maybe and Morning Glory era) is pretty great. Recently, Noel admitted that they should’ve released The Masterplan as their third EP rather than Be Here Now. Alas, superstardom, egos, and cocaine can quickly change a band’s best plans!