Oasis: The Truth Read online

  For Willie O’Donnell and Mark McCarroll.

  Sleep tight, boys.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  PREFACE

  1 HE BANGS THE DRUMS

  2 CONTEMPT BREEDS FAMILIARITY: A MANCUNIAN CONCEPT

  3 A DEFINITE MAYBE

  4 ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL

  5 BONEHEAD THE VIKING: UK TOUR

  6 OASIS ADULATION AND THE BASSIST REVELATION: JAPAN TOUR

  7 MAKE SURE YOU HOOVER BEFORE YOU REACH VANCOUVER: US TOUR

  8 A FAREWELL TO ARMS

  9 ARISE SIR NOEL, THE LORD MAYOR OF LONELINESS

  APPENDICES

  1 THE PERFECT BEAT

  2 AND SO TO THE SPARTANS

  GIGOGRAPHY

  Plates

  About the Author

  Copyright

  PREFACE

  It was the winter of 2008 and I was back in Levenshulme, Manchester. My old friend BigUn thrust a copy of The Sun towards me, with an instruction to turn to the ‘Bizarre’ showbiz page. I did so, expecting the usual. And I wasn’t let down. Noel Gallagher was blessing the pages again on his promotional drive for what might possibly be the final Oasis album, Dig Out Your Soul. I had been a founding member of the band.

  He was rattling on about my unsuitable haircut and piss-poor drumming once more, but by now I was accustomed to those insults. Over the previous six albums, my hair had been a major marketing tool for him. I’d had 15 years of such treatment. I looked at the photo of Noel in the paper and realised he was shaping his own hair upwards in an attempt to gain a little extra height. Some things never change. I was not sure why he was so fixated with hair. I wasn’t even in possession of my mop any more. But it was time for Noel to flog an album. And that’s where I get involved.

  My name is Tony McCarroll and I was one of the original members of the rock ’n’ roll band Oasis. I formed this group with my childhood friends and spent five years in it. I am often referred to as The Nearly Man, a Mancunian Pete Best, The Stupidest Man in Pop Music, alongside a host of other derogatory terms. Time to put the record straight I guess. Hopefully, this insight into my life, the Gallaghers, Oasis and the well-oiled machine we all know as the music industry will go some way towards putting those insults to bed; then again, maybe not. That, I suppose, is for you to decide.

  What I can state with absolute certainty is that the story told by Noel Gallagher – be it through him, the other band members or sycophantic rock journalists – will not tie in with my version of events: that he stepped in and took control of a hopeless band of misfits, armed with a bag that contained hit record after hit record. It will not tally with his being the voice of an underclass, the working-class generation. And it certainly won’t tally with his story of the events that surrounded my unceremonious exit.

  Now I hear your alarm bells ringing. But don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a vicious swipe from a rejected band member. Hopefully, you will find it an honest overview of the formation of Oasis, and a reflection on the pitfalls of life – in particular, the ones that litter the music industry. It is also a recollection of times past, which I hope you will be able to relate to and enjoy once again. But most importantly: it’s the truth.

  Tony McCarroll

  October 2010, Manchester, England.

  CHAPTER 1

  HE BANGS THE DRUMS

  I was born at seven o’clock, on a typically grey Mancunian morning, in the summer of 1971 at St Mary’s Hospital, Hathersage Road, Victoria Park, in Manchester. My parents are Tony and Bridie McCarroll – Irish immigrants and dream-makers both. I was their first child, and as my dad held me aloft on the ward he was already making plans for my musical upbringing. Whether to pass times on long cold nights across the water or to commemorate a fallen hero or freedom fighter, the Irish have always held musicianship in high regard. Guitars, accordions, keyboards, whistles and drums were like toys in our house. Combined with a record turntable constantly on the go, it made for a great place (and time) to grow up.

  I was the first of three boys. All three of us would become addicted to playing and enjoying music. We lived in a traditional red-bricked two-up two-down on Wetherall Street, Levenshulme, 3 miles south of the centre of Manchester. The city had become a second home for many Irish since its rise as an industrial power. My dad ran a construction business, which left my mother to chase us around the house. I had a very loving and happy upbringing – though if we stepped out of line, there would be the whoosh of the brush to dodge. I guess it’s easy to look back on bygone days in a misty, wistful kind of way, which can be misleading, but I can honestly say I enjoyed every challenge or dare that came my way. I was that type of kid.

  My first challenge in life came early on, when I was only five years old. An old wooden World War II demob hut still stood on Chapel Street in Levenshulme. The building had been turned into a dole office first, then a nursery. I was busy minding my own business at this nursery one day when I was plucked up and sat in front of a television camera. The cameras had arrived, along with a group of oddly dressed strangers who didn’t dress and talk the way my mum and dad did. They laid in front of me an array of toys and games and a very nice young lady told me I could play with whatever I wanted. I immediately grabbed a pair of wooden drumsticks that lay on one side and began to hammer away on anything within striking distance. The film later appeared on a flagship BBC children’s programme called Playschool: when the camera shot through ‘the square window’, I was revealed clutching that pair of drumsticks, banging away. A spark had been lit.

  The sun beat down on the street outside my house, transforming the tarmac to a warm, pliable liquorice. It was the summer of 1976 – famously, a scorcher. I was using the melted tarmac as paint to daub my name on the baking pavement when I first heard the noise. Boom-boom-thud. Boom-boom-thud. Boom-boom-thud. The noise came from a very large drum strapped to a teenage member of the Boys’ Brigade who was ferociously beating out his rhythm despite the blistering conditions. Behind him came the rest of the boys, marching in time while completing rolls on the snares. I was amazed. A Boys’ Brigade band, kitted out and in full uniform, and marching down those tight Mancunian terraced streets on such a hot day – did they actually want them to faint, or what? The sight of that large bass drummer had left me captivated, though. Each blow delivered to his skins directed and drove the other musicians wherever he wanted to lead them. Like the Pied Piper, he would speed up the tempo when they were marching through some of the area’s more dangerous spots, then slow down if the route was lined by the more senior citizens of the community, who would wave and reminisce around the days when the British Empire still meant something. I ran behind the drummer and shot questions at him: ‘How can I play the drums? Who taught you to play? Will you teach me?’

  Now, I understand that the combination of the pressure of leading the band and trying to stay hydrated – not to mention staying conscious, and keeping in time – can lead a person to become somewhat short tempered. But still I don’t believe it justifies cracking a six-year-old kid in the face with a fucking drumstick! It stung, but funnily the main thing I remember now was that he never lost the beat; he simply slipped the assault into a break in the music.

  Despite this potentially off-putting attack, I was totally transfixed. The love affair had begun. I immediately raced home to tell my mother and father that I had abandoned my ambition to become the Six Million Dollar Man and instead was intent on forging a career as a drummer. I reminded them of my first TV appearance, as if it had been destiny. They smiled, as they always did when I came up with one of my grand schemes, but after a few days they sat me down and counted out the jam jar money that sat on a shelf in the kitchen. With just enough to cover the deposit, we made our w
ay towards Manchester city centre, where I was to choose my first set of drums. Although this gift meant nothing at that time to an excited six-year-old, it was a sacrifice for my mother and father: after all, they were giving up any ‘spare’ cash they might have set aside.

  Peggy, an Irish friend of my mother’s, stopped us as we made our way to the bus stop. After being told the details of our impending journey she seemed very happy for us to take her son’s old drum kit. (I’m not so sure her son was as happy.) The joy on my father’s face seemed to light up the whole street. In those days, the Irish community in Manchester was a very strong one and the offer was gratefully received.

  Such generous moments notwithstanding, times were extremely hard back then. Levenshulme was a very poor working-class suburb of Manchester. The Irish had descended upon it in their droves during the fifties and sixties, to the extent that it had acquired the name ‘County Levenshulme’. By the seventies, as in most deprived areas, crime was rife; you learned fast to take care of yourself. I was no exception. I guess the drum kit was my parents’ way of trying to keep me away from the violence and crime – and to be honest, at first it worked. The drums became an obsession for me and I played morning, noon and night. This led to the inevitable complaints from the rest of the street and eventually to the police visiting and enforcing a curfew: no drums after 7pm or I’d be lifted. So: during the day, I would attend St Mary’s primary school on Clare Road, across from Errwood Park, where I spent more time running drum patterns through my head than learning maths or English. Each evening, I would sweat until the appointed hour, banging away on my kit like a little man possessed. Afterwards, as instructed by the police, I would stop hitting those skins and see just how much trouble my friends and me could manage to find. I guess that was proactive seventies policing for you.

  My musical Mancunian life was brought to an abrupt halt in 1979, when I was told that I would be moving to Ireland. No arguments. No negotiations. My dad had landed a contract there. At first I simply refused. I could not understand why I could not stay in Manchester and take care of myself and the cat. I had a really strong set of friends there, and the thought of leaving filled me with dread. After nearly 10 years in my rainy northern city, I found myself suddenly transported to a remote corner of County Offaly. It was as far removed from the tarmac streets of terraced Manchester as I could get. For the next two years I would spend most weekends beating out the pheasants for visiting American tourists, or ploughing fields and delivering livestock. One constant throughout, however, was the music. I loved the fact that music can translate all languages and connect all cultures. Every evening people would gather around the peat fire in the cottage where we lived, with an assortment of instruments. My brothers would sit with their guitars while I would sneak off to a caravan at the end of the garden, where my old drum kit from Manchester sat waiting. I would listen to the distant sounds and shiver. The cold soon left, though, after I started to drum along. I taught myself to play songs by lots of different artists, The Beatles and Johnny Cash to name but two.

  The village was situated at the bottom of the Slieve Bloom Mountains, the oldest mountains in Europe. They were covered by caves and log cabins and their slopes were lush in a carpet of beech trees that reached towards the sky. Naturally enough, they became our playground; it was paradise for an adventurous young boy and his two brothers. The sort of place, in fact, that Roald Dahl is probably much better qualified to write about. From trying to catch rabbits with pepper and rocks to shooting foxes at midnight with my Uncle Patsy, it was all one crazy adventure – and I loved every minute of it. The only thing that brought me down to earth was the fact that I had to attend the local school. We were taught only in Gaelic, and the Mancunian twang of my previous classroom was soon gone. I struggled with my own version of the language, as it didn’t exactly sit well with my accent, but I had enough to get by.

  For two years this was my home and I loved it; I had almost forgotten Manchester. Then, one evening, my mother and father announced that his contract had ended and we were to return to the city. I still remember the dread that filled my stomach at this announcement. Funnily enough, the last time I’d had such a feeling was when I left Manchester, and this took a bit of the sting out when it came to saying goodbye. I had grown to love the village and the simple way of life that it offered. But we live our lives in the city. There ain’t no easy way out. I made myself a promise, though, that one day I would return to this place for good.

  By the summer of 1981, I was back in Levenshulme. We moved into a new house on Lonsdale Road, just up the road from where we used to live. My timing was impeccable: the first night of our return saw the beginning of the Moss Side riots. The riots were Manchester’s turn in a Mexican wave of violence that had the people standing up, arms raised, in Brixton, Liverpool and various other parts of the country. As an act of support, Levenshulme decided to have not so much a riot as a profitable tantrum. My mum and dad had decided that such an event probably wasn’t the place for me, so I was confined to my bedroom. I watched enviously from my window as my friends made their way down the street armed with hammers, bricks and pieces of wood. The solitude and tranquility of the Irish midlands had been well and truly banished. In the distance, over the terraced houses, I could see a faint orange glow emitting from Stockport Road, where the people did not need much encouragement to start fires and cause general unrest. I waited by the window for the rest of that evening until, a few hours later, I saw my friends returning, with shopping trolleys full of goods removed from now windowless shops. They waved at me as I watched, their faces lit with the intoxicating activities of the evening. I’ve always thought that those riots heralded a change of culture in Manchester. Afterwards, everything seemed to become that little bit more dangerous. Reports of knife and gun attacks in the city began to appear in the evening papers and gang names were whispered on the streets. These events would lead to the organised formation of armed gangs, which went unchecked by the police for the next couple of years. It would also lead to a feeling of distrust against the forces of law enforcement, and a belief that if we were bold enough we could get anyway with anything.

  After my return to Manchester, old friendships had been resurrected and after a month or so it felt as if I had never been away. That was when I first spotted him. I didn’t know the fella’s real name. I just made sure I stayed out of his way. Everybody did. He was five years older than us and he was huge. ‘He’s a fuckin’ psycho, he kills cats,’ whispered my mates.

  I had finished my evening session on my old drum kit and wandered across to catch up with my friends in the park. On the way, I had found a dog-chewed golf ball, which I was bouncing and catching, rather clumsily. As I reached the park gates, I hurled the golf ball as far as I could. I watched as it sailed gloriously through the golden evening summer sky. It landed on a piece of concrete that the council had recently sunk as foundations for a new six-seater, state-of-the-art, horse-headed see-saw. The concrete threw it back up in the air at a ferocious speed and over towards the swings. This was when I first noticed the Cat Killer, who was pushing his luck there with a local schoolgirl. As he sat next to her on the swings, the golf ball arrowed towards them. Ping. Like a microwave oven – a new sight back then – that announces when its work is done, the golf ball connected with the psychopath’s head. I was confused by the metallic sound. Was he a fuckin’ robot? His head slowly turned and his angry eyes focused on me. First my legs started to shake and then, as he released a guttural roar, the rest of my body followed. I managed to pluck up all the courage I had and ran towards home as fast as I could. I was approaching the bottom of my street, only to realise that the Cat Killer had raced around to the top end. As I turned the corner, I spotted him 200 yards in front of me. We stopped and stared at each other, like two gunslingers in the Wild West, weighing each other up for potential weaknesses. I was 11 years old, 5ft 4in and 8st if fully clothed with bricks in my pocket. The feline slayer? Sixteen years old, 6f
t 4in and a trim 16st. Taking these statistics into consideration, I decided to make a run for it. The only problem here was the fact my house and safety was a hundred yards away in the direction of the raving lunatic. I pondered the dangers of the situation in which I found myself until, with another roar (he liked roaring), he set off towards me. In a state of panic, I decided to make a dash for home. Who knows what went through the Cat Killer’s mind as he saw me hurtling towards him, rather than away? He slowed at first, and then picked up speed again. As he neared me, the anger on his face became more apparent. I could see the spit on his screaming lips. He was at full charge and full volume as he tore towards battle. I kept running at him until we were less than 10 yards from each other. Then, with a nervous smile and an almost apologetic look, I darted to my right up the garden path and through my front door, which was slammed shut behind in one movement. ‘DAAAADDDDD!’ I slid to the floor behind the door, happy to have made it safely home.

  It was a Saturday night and, as usual, my mum and dad were on their way to the Carousel Club on Plymouth Grove in Longsight, Manchester. This is where those who had made the journey across the Irish Sea would congregate to enjoy themselves. They would sit in large groups normally defined by county of origin and dance to frill-shirted show bands that reminded them of home. With my mum and dad would be Peggy and Tommy Gallagher, who had travelled over at the same time from Ireland.