Lars Ulrich of Metallica

In 1994 I was browsing through an issue of a magazine called Select, and there was a story about a band from England, with some unusual looking fellows, that I’d never heard of. I skimmed across the article, and was quite amused by the fact that every other word was either “fuck” or “cunt”. There was a pretty detailed description of a conversation between one of the guys in the band, Noel Gallagher, and Paul Weller, that was particularly off-colour and very, very funny. It reeked of attitude and not giving a fuck, which at the time – at the height of the shoegazing-I-can’t-handle-being-a-rockstar attitudes that were becoming mainstream – was very refreshing.



A few weeks later I was driving in my car, listening to radio station Live 105 here in San Francisco, when a song came on unlike any I had ever heard before. The attitude, the aloofness, and the not-giving-a-fuck vibes were pouring out of the speakers, and by the time the first verse/bridge/chorus cycle was done, I was convinced that whatever I was listening to had to be that band that I had read about in Select a few weeks back. And sure enough I was right. It was Oasis and the Supersonic single. Thus began a long and very rewarding relationship with a sound, an approach and a way of looking at the world that has had a huge impact on me and helped shape who I am today … for whatever that’s worth.



Lars Ulrich … ‘Oasis has been the soundtrack to my life for the last 20 years.’ Photograph: Michael Stewart/WireImage

If you didn’t live in England at the time, it may be difficult to truly understand the cultural impact and significance Oasis had on all things English in the mid 90s. Wherever or whoever you were when it was going down, you felt it … in the streets, in the pubs, the music press, on the radio, in the gossip rags, the concert halls, and affecting everything from the way people dressed, the way they cut their hair, what football team they supported, the way people communicated, one’s accent … the list goes on and on. The Oasis phenomenon cut across all shapes, sizes, boundaries and classes. Everybody knew Oasis, and in some way were impacted by them. And if they didn’t love them, it was often the polarising opposite. But most importantly, nobody didn’t care. Everyone had an opinion. Everybody had a thought. Nobody ignored them. No one.



Oasis has been the soundtrack to my life for the last 20 years on this wonderful planet. I have stories and pictures in my mind that go along with everything, from the first time I heard particular songs and read certain articles, to hearing about the band’s shenanigans and festivities. And fortunately, I have enjoyed my fair share of crossing paths and sharing space with the fellas over the years. But most of those stories are probably best left for a night of tall tales, half truths and vivid imaginations. However, I will say that doing the lights for them at a club show in the spring of ’95 at some God forsaken hole in the wall in Nowheresville, New Jersey, was a distinct highlight of my early encounters. They didn’t have a crew guy to run the light board, and I was the only one in the building that knew the songs …



Go figure how things changed.



Felix White of the Maccabees

The conviction of delivery in everything Oasis did was very convincing for a 10-year-old. They had such an effect on me that before I’d even heard one, I could tell anybody for 100% fact, with my hand on my heart, that synthesisers were rubbish. Synthesisers were rubbish and guitars were the best. And Oasis were the best at playing them.



It provoked me to religiously watch Top of the Pops, clapping guitar bands and booing anyone that wasn’t. I asked my parents if we could get chairs like the ones in the Wonderwall video. I put my hand up in class, with over exaggerated sense of urgency, to ask Ms Morris what a Champagne Supernova was. I don’t think she really knew.



The White Album was already my favourite record, but Oasis opened up music to me like a failsafe guide to rock’n’roll – the La’s, the Smiths, the Stone Roses, Love, T. Rex, Slade, the Small Faces, Neil Young – and it opened all kinds of possibilities about music and what was outside school. I set the alarms off on HMV Oxford Street carrying Hatful of Hollow and Forever Changes out through the doors because I saw Noel leaving and chased him to tell him “I’monlybuyingthesebecauseyousaidtheyweregoodandOasismeaneverythingtome.” Being escorted off by security in front of him is not my most graceful memory. Most importantly though, I decided that I wanted to be in a band, because Oasis made it seem like that was the best thing to do in the world.

Felix White … ‘You either believed in it or you didn’t, and I did.’ Photograph: Lorne Campbell/Guzelian

In hindsight, the most rewarding part of the age I was when I discovered Oasis was that I was culturally totally unaware of it. I was too young to care about wearing Kangol hats, hating Blur, Cigarettes and Alcohol, flicking V-signs at people or Manchester City and I was way too young to go to gigs. It was a strange revelation that singing jibberish as if your life depended on it was incredibly empowering. There was something in the music that I just trusted instinctively and without cyniscm. It’s the strength of that feeling, as well as the strength of the songs, that makes those early Oasis records stand up so well 20 years on. Music has changed, but you can still just trust it. There was no point in analysing it, you either believed in it or you didn’t, and I did. There probably hasn’t been a better time to be getting into music since.



Our band don’t sound anything like Oasis, in fact we probably sound as far away as a guitar band can get from Oasis. Enlighteningly, I don’t still believe there is only one type of music worth listening to. We used synthesisers on our last record a little bit. A little bit. I like to think my 10-year-old self would reconcile that with the fact that Oasis were about being yourself, and if being ourselves is 5% synthesiser and keyboards, then I hope he could have lived with that.



(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? Deluxe Edition is out now on Big Brother

