FEATURE:
Possibly, Definitely Maybe
The Beginning of Recording on a Classic Album Approaching Its Thirtieth Anniversary
_________
I have it on…
good authority (well, a few websites!) that Oasis began recording their seminal debut album, Definitely Maybe, on 7th January, 1994. Camping out in Monnow Valley Studio in South Wales, the embryonic touches happened. Those early discussions and noodling. The infant notes that would start the process of a masterpiece. Definitely Maybe turns thirty on 29th August. There will be celebrations around the album’s thirtieth anniversary closer to the time. The first single, Supersonic, is thirty on 11th April. Oasis’ lead, Liam Gallagher, has said he will tour the album this year to mark its thirtieth. I am going to bring in some features around a seismic album from one of our greatest bands. Produced by Owen Morris, Oasis, Mark Coyle and David Batchelor, Definitely Maybe was released through the Creation label. A number one success in the U.K., you can read more about the recording and aftermath here. No doubt one of the biggest and most important albums of the 1990s, I often think of it in context of the ensuring Britpop battle that would form between Oasis and Blur. Blur released their debut in 1991. Their third, Parklife, came out on 25th April, 1994. That album too will get a load of love on its thirtieth. There was this media-stoked rivalry between the band. The truth is that they both released their genius albums in 1994. A brilliant time to be alive! If Cigarettes & Alcohol, Slide Away, and Supersonic were not enough, the album starts with one of the best trios of songs ever: Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, Shakemaker and Live Forever. The band meant business and came swaggering onto the scene.
There are a few interesting articles and bits I want to bring in. I will celebrate Definitely Maybe again closer to its thirtieth anniversary in August. As the band started work and were in the studio in January 1994, it is a good time to look back and how those shoots and early ideas led to something supermassive. TIDAL paid tribute to Definitely Maybe on its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2019. The album still sound so vibrant and essential:
“Just a few months after Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994, Oasis released its debut album, Definitely Maybe, and offered up a no-holds-barred slice of good, old-fashioned rock & roll that changed the face of music almost immediately.
“People always go on and on about the past being this magical, wonderful thing, but that early period really does seem like the last golden period for music,” Noel Gallagher, the former leader of Oasis, says of the earliest days of his band.
The Oasis formula — adding a large dash of the Sex Pistols and T. Rex to the obvious Beatles/Stones/Kinks influences that most British bands wear as a badge of honor — created a turbo-charged sound that’s as urgent today as it was in 1994. But the album had a difficult birth.
Demoed and recorded multiple times over the course of 1993 and 1994 at no less than two major recording studios — and under the tutelage of two producers — Definitely Maybe is a lesson in perseverance and artistic self-assuredness, even as it stands as one of the last great moments from a bygone era in the music business.
According to Oasis’ original drummer, Tony McCarroll, English rock band the Real People initially invited the band in 1992 to record a demo at the group’s Liverpool studio as bait for the record companies. And the demo worked; Alan McGee of Creation Records signed Oasis soon after, sending them back to the Real People to record what was going to be their first single, “Bring it on Down.”
“For whatever reason, it wasn’t coming together,” McCarroll recalls. “I was doing a sound check with the bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat, over and over, and the doors kicked open, and Noel said, ‘Keep that going, keep that going.’ That night he wrote ‘Supersonic.’”
The band went on to tussle with the likes of Dave Batchelor, who’d worked with legendary groups like the Kinks, but their styles didn’t mesh. “He had us all separated, when we were used to being in a small rehearsal space, looking in each other’s eyes,” McCarroll says.
“It’s just wasn’t sounding right,” agrees Oasis founder and guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs. “So we had to have a rethink.” The band then decamped to Sawmills Studio down in Cornwall, England, to work with producer Mark Coyle, the man responsible for their live sound. He recorded the band together, in the same room — and the result was electric.
Noel Gallagher was also on a serious songwriting roll. McCarroll and Bonehead recall that he was writing at a furious pace, with each song seemingly better than the last. “At first a lot of them were just long jams that turned into songs,” McCarroll says. “But there were fully formed songs, too. And they were all amazing.”
“I’ve said this before, but the day he brought in ‘Live Forever,’ I didn’t believe he’d written it,” Bonehead recalls. “I was sure it was some obscure ‘60s B-side. It was just so good, and fully formed. But he just kept churning them out, one after the other, and they were all priceless.”
For his part, Gallagher recalls those early days fondly. “You’re only in that position once,” he says. “You’ve had your whole life to get to that point, and the only expectation people have is that you’re going to have a good time and maybe make a single. But by the time I’d written ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ and ‘Supersonic,’ I did feel a bit unstoppable.”
Oasis had cut its teeth on gigs to small, rowdy crowds on the relatively quiet early ‘90s Northern England music scene, honing their individual skills, and working the kinks out of Gallagher’s already formidable songs. But without a great front man, they would have been nothing, says Bonehead. For that, he turned to Noel’s brother, Liam.
“Even when we were teenagers, and he was passing us by on the football pitch, Liam had the swagger and look,” Bonehead says. “It almost didn’t matter what he sounded like, because he was just born a front man.”
“I have fond memories, because that’s when we started out, when you don’t know which way it’s going to go, even though you think you’re the balls,” Liam Gallagher recalls. “You don’t know how people are going to take you. And then it takes off! So those are fond memories.”
By the spring of 1994, when Oasis made its first rumblings on the U.K. music scene, guitar bands seemed to be becoming a thing of the past. The Smiths and the Stone Roses had both called it a day, Cobain had killed himself, and Primal Scream was struggling to replicate their landmark achievement, 1991’s Screamadelica. Oasis stepped into that breach with big plans.
“I could tell right away that they weren’t aiming to be some little-known indie band,” says Gary Crowley, the legendary UK DJ. “They had tunes and charisma, sure, but they were really funny and enjoying themselves at a time when most other bands seemed to hate being interviewed. Noel wanted them to be the biggest band in the world”.
In 2019, Rock Cellar got together those involved in making Definitely Maybe. Liam Gallagher, Noel Gallagher, Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, original drummer Tony McCarroll, plus the man who signed Oasis, Creation Records’ head Alan McGee, the legendary D.J. Gary Crowley, and host of The Oasis Podcast, James Corcoran, told the story and shared their memories of the mighty Definitely Maybe:
“25 years after Oasis announced its arrival to the world, Noel and Liam Gallagher, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, Tony McCarroll, plus Creation Records head Alan McGee, DJ Gary Crowley and the Oasis Podcast host James Corcoran, tell the origin story of the band’s groundbreaking debut album.
The Oasis formula — adding a large dash of the Sex Pistols and T. Rex to the obvious Beatles/Stones/Kinks influences — created a turbo-charged sound that’s as urgent today as it was in 1994, twenty-five years ago, when Definitely Maybe, Oasis’ debut album, hit record store shelves.
Rock Cellar gathered together interviews with lead singer Liam Gallagher, guitarist and principal songwriter Noel Gallagher, guitarist and Oasis founder Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, original drummer Tony McCarroll, plus the man who signed Oasis, Creation Records head Alan McGee, the legendary DJ Gary Crowley, and host of The Oasis Podcast James Corcoran, and the end result is the story about the greatest debut album ever made, and what it still means, all these years later, a key part of Oasis’ impact on the world.
Liam Gallagher: It was the beginning, and all that, that was obviously exciting.
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: It doesn’t feel like twenty-five years ago. That’s the scary fucking thing. Twenty-five years in anyone’s life is a long time!
Liam Gallagher: Yeah, our goal was getting a record deal. Then having the fucking brains to go into a studio and put my fucking life on hold to go and make some music. Not getting into a silly 9 to 5 job like all the other dickheads there. And not be caught wearing leather trousers.
If I get out of this life without turning into a knob head and being photographed with leather trousers on I think that would have been a bit of a success.
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: We started off as the Rain, but that was just a bit of fun. I’d always played guitar. I had a drum machine. I had a bass guitar. And it was just a case of not having much mood to go out and drink every night. I was friends with Guigs, and it was just a case of us chatting and me saying, “You know what, Guigs, why don’t we start a band?” And Guigs was like, “Well, I can’t play an instrument.” And I said, “Well, you know what, I’ve got a bass guitar, and a bass guitar, all you’ve got to do is hit one note. I’ll show you.” So that was it, really.
Then we had a drum machine, and Chris Hutton, who’d sing, but he wasn’t the best singer in the world. And we didn’t have the best songs in the world. But it was a bit of fun, playing and making noise with the drum machine in the garage. That’s how that started.
Tony McCarroll: We were well aware of each other from 10, 11 upwards. I was invited down to watch them one night, he they a drum machine in the corner. They were good. Bonehead was always impressive on an instrument, whatever it was, whatever he played. I joined Rain that night, probably early nineties; 1991.
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: The Stone Roses were the big influence. That was in the late eighties. We used to go to Hacienda. On a Tuesday night, they used to have what was called the “local band night.” I think it was a one-pound in then. There’d be eight bands. So we used to rehearse and then after rehearsals we’d go to Hacienda for local band night. It was fucking brilliant, because you’d see these bands and it was cool and retro. We saw Nico playing there, she was living in Manchester at the time.
Tony McCarroll: We definitely had a Manchester vibe. But we had aspirations from that point on. Yes, we want to be famous. Yes, we want to be successful in the music business. We put our hearts into it from that point. I do credit Bonehead. That big wall of sound? That beefy, big, dangerous wall of sound? That carried over to Oasis.
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: Liam was always that kid that you’d see on the street. He always had the coolest clothes. He always had the coolest haircut. He always had the coolest walk. If you didn’t know him, you’d take one look at him and think, “That guy’s got to be in a band. He’s definitely in a band. I’ve just got to find out what band he’s in.”
He just looked the part. He didn’t look like a footballer. He didn’t look like a guy who worked in an office. He looked like a guy who was made to be in a band. He just had that whole charisma about him, which he still does. So Liam had never sung before, but he was inspired by the Roses, and that’s what he wanted to do. He came over to mine and sat on the floor and played along to a couple of demos I’d made. His voice came out and it was like, wow. It’s nothing like the Liam we know now. He was a lot more angelic. Melodic. I don’t know how to describe his voice. Upbeat. But he certainly had “that” voice.
Tony McCarroll: The sound was always getting better and crisper. Everyone bang on the notes. We free-formed band songs.
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: As soon as Liam came in, we got really going with the singing. We were like, “We’ve got to change the mood of the tunes. We can’t stay as the Rain.”
Tony McCarroll: I was unaware of what he could do. Obviously, his voice has had a battering since then, but he had very clean-cut, high notes, and he was hitting those high notes. You’d never believe Liam Gallagher could do it like that, but yeah, he was there. And I do remember, because I worked with him when he was 16, 17, and he was always saying, “I am going to be famous. I am going to be famous.”
Lo and behold, he kept to his word and made it happen.
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: Noel came back off tour with Inspiral Carpets, and asked, “What’s new?” We said, “Liam’s in the band.” He said, “What? Liam’s what? Doing what?” We said, “We’ve got a band, we’re playing down at the boardwalk.” Noel went, “I’ve got to come down to see this.”
Noel came down to see us. And I think he thought, yeah, there’s something there. You look like a band. The songs aren’t there, but you look like a band doing it on the stage. And he was like, “What about if I come down to the rehearsal room where you rehearse? I’ll come down and bring my guitar and bring my amp and we can have a jam.” And we were like, “Yeah, cool.” Which he did. He came down and that extra guitar,
Noel’s guitar, lead guitar, just jamming, had an immediate effect. We knew we had to bring Noel in. But then of course, Noel being Noel, while he was on tour with the Inspiral Carpets, he’d been writing songs. We all knew he wrote songs, but he started playing these songs that he’d written, and it was just like, wow, fucking hell. We were like, this guy’s got to be in the band. “Noel, you’ve got to be in the band and write the songs.” And he joined.
Tony McCarroll: Noel came down to check out what was going on. And I asked him to join, in front of Liam. At first, I believe he wanted to play bass. Or I think Liam wanted him to play bass. That was uncomfortable.
Alan McGee (Creation Records): They played four songs the night I saw them for the first time, and signed them: “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” “Up In The Sky,” “Bring It On Down” and a Beatles cover. They played great. Liam sang great. Noel played great guitar.
Liam Gallagher: I just remember just being, like, alright, cool we got a deal. It’s our chance to fucking make it happen and sort it out, you know what I mean? You know, let’s not fucking blow it. Fuck Knebworth. Fuck Maine Road. Fuck all that. The best part of it was getting a deal, getting in the studio, and getting out of shitty little venues.
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: When McGee signed us, then we got a manager. We didn’t have a manager at the time. We found Marcus Russell, because Johnny Marr recommended him. And we just went out. We gigged and gigged and gigged. Every night. I was driving the van, and the band were in the back of the van, and we just went out and we gigged, and we gigged. We were so fucking tight”.
I am going to finish up with some reviews. The final one related to a reissued version of the album, complete with demos. The sort of sketches that were being made around this time thirty years ago. They would form into their timeless songs that soundtracked a generation. The BBC reviewed Definitely Maybe in 2007. I think that this is an album that will be talked about for generations. You can see the legacy of Definitely Maybe. It inspired a legion of bands. It continues to influence and compel artists to write and pick up guitars:
“In August 1994, just a few months after Kurt Cobain killed himself (and the grunge movement that he'd become the reluctant figurehead of), Oasis’ debut Definitely Maybe was released.
To put this seismic attitude shift into perspective: Kurt’s working title for the final Nirvana album, In Utero, was I Hate Myself And I Want To Die. Definitely Maybe’s most popular song is called Live Forever.
So how did two punters from Burnage, an unremarkable area of Manchester, become so famous? Despite the fact that the second album, (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory, sold more copies and propelled them to tabloid superstardom and 10 Downing Street, the answers are all here.
The album kicks off with Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, which Noel has since said was the end of everything he wanted to say as a songwriter. He’s right in a sense, as it’s easily one of the greatest songs about being up on stage ever written. On arguably Liam’s greatest ever vocal performance he goads all-comers with: "You’re not down with who I am / Look at you now you’re all in my hands tonight." And that’s without even considering the attendant guitar riffs that snag your brain like barbed wire on your best jumper. If you’ve got a mate or relative who’s having a bad time of it, play them this, then watch them grow 10 feet tall and walk down the street like they rule the whole world.
Although at this point it’s easy to imagine the faces of every other British band of the time sadly searching the classifieds for a new vocation, there are still 10 more tracks left. How about Supersonic, a sky-scraping anthem about individuality adopted by the masses? Or Cigarettes and Alcohol, a brash T Rex paean to hedonism? Or Bring It On Down, a non-stop, no-messing punk stomp to certain death or glory?
It’s easy to trot out the tired argument that these Mancs don’t have the power of The Stone Roses or The Smiths because the songs don’t have the wistful, melancholic air that one comes to expect from songs emerging from that rainy Lancashire city. Is it true to say "It’s just Beatles songwriting with Sex Pistols attitude"? Maybe. But have these songs transcended the Conservative-greyed and Britpop-glossed years in which they became public property to become heroic, gigantic pop monuments in their own right? Definitely”.
In 2014, TIME reviewed the twentieth anniversary edition of Definitely Maybe. I remember when the album came out in 1994 and the excitement in the air. It was the year I started high school. In fact, I started in September 1994, so it was this transition period where I was being kept up and positive by music. Definitely Maybe was a huge revelation:
“When Definitely Maybe dropped in August of 1994, it wasn’t out of the blue. Oasis had steadily been releasing singles for a few months prior, beginning with “Supersonic” on April 11, 1994, six days after Cobain’s suicide. Though “Supersonic” was the first official single released by Oasis (and it even charted in the UK Top 40), the group had been passing around a ‘white label’ demo of their track “Columbia” for a few months prior, but with little interest generated. With the deluxe reissue of Definitely Maybe, that white label demo version has been included, as well as an alternate mix of “Columbia”. Not only does it show that the band was on to something, but also how easily the band could have been written off (especially when listening to the third version of the song included on disc three).
Usually I am not a fan of overloaded box sets with all sorts of multiple versions of songs that barely differ, but in this case I actually find it somewhat interesting to go back and hear what Oasis sounded like before they got a proper producer. For the most part, the demos represent a band that had good ideas and were on the right path, but that something was just not quite all the way there. In John Harris’ book Britpop!, Creation Records label head Tim Abbott summed it up perfectly: “[We] had a great sesh, and we listened to it over and over again. And all I could think was, ‘It ain’t got the attack.’ There was no immediacy.” Consider the two versions of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”, the album version and the demo. Though it is still filled with swagger, the demo lacks the braggadocio of the finalized product, yet in a weird twist, actually highlights Liam Gallagher’s voice better. I have never been one to idolize Liam or his style. In fact, I think his voice is rather lackluster, minimal in range; and though he has been heralded as a cross between John Lennon and John Lydon, he’s far more nasally than either (and when you consider how Noel stood in successfully for his brother during the group’s Unplugged performance, it almost relegates Liam to desired but not necessary for the band’s success). But listening to Liam on these demos, dare I say that there is a bit of range in his singing? It almost begs the question as to what happened to it in mixing.
The most obvious thing taken away from the demo versions of these songs is that though Noel had the songwriting chops and vision, he was missing the objectivity that comes with an outside producer, in this case Mark Coyle, Dave Batchelor (a friend of Noel’s from his days working with Inspiral Carpets), and Owen Morris, an associate of Johnny Marr and an engineer-turned-producer trained in the ways of Phil Spector and Tony Visconti. It was Morris who would be instrumental in putting the balls on Definitely Maybe. In fact, it would be fair to say that without Morris, there would be no Definitely Maybe; at least not in the way we’ve come to know. One of the first things he did was effectively ego-check Noel when he stripped off all the guitar overdubs that Gallagher had layered over the album’s material, and as John Harris stated, “remoulded [the album] into something positively pile-driving.” Morris would go on to produce the first four Oasis albums.
Think about the band’s third single, a song described by Noel as “the tune that changed everything,” and the first that really woke people up to Oasis’ potential: “Live Forever”. In addition to cutting out part of Noel’s guitar solo to tighten things up and make it sound less like what he described as “Slash from Guns n’ Roses,” Morris excised the demo’s acoustic guitar intro to give the song a bit more weight, and instead had drummer Tony McCarroll play a beat that not only solidifies the song but helps give it a boost in becoming the monumental track it would eventually become known as. It’s almost a twisted irony that McCarroll played a part that almost immediately identifies the song but was later fired from the band by Noel for not having the skills to do the job.
In spite of Noel’s objections to an album having five singles, if one were to include both the white label release of “Columbia” and the US single for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”, Oasis plucked six songs out of 11 from their debut album, four of which were released before the album, and three rather successfully. And that certainly does not suggest that the non-singles were not worthy of release. “Slide Away”, the last rocker on the album, and a love song on par with “Wonderwall” but with more “grr” and less “ahh,” was originally slated for release until Noel objected. Easily one of the strongest tracks on the album, it has gone on to become a fan favorite and I can only imagine that it’s amazing live. Every time I hear Liam wail that refrain, I see pyrotechnics going off all around.
In spite of everything that Oasis would become on record, on stage, in the tabloids, Definitely Maybe stands above it all. It came before the drama and the bullshit that fed into the media’s desire for conflict. Be it the interpersonal conflict between the brothers Gallagher or the inter-band conflicts with Blur and others, this album remains unscathed. Yes, the brothers fought prior to and during this album’s creation, release, and tour, but not to the point that it was overwhelming or distracting to the fans. That would come later. As would the “Battle of Britpop,” so labeled by the press when Blur’s label intentionally released their single “Country House” the same day as Oasis was set to release “Roll With It”. (Blur may have won the battle, but Oasis most certainly won the war.) And of course, the press’ obsession with the band’s antics, especially Liam’s, rather than the group’s music, wouldn’t overtake everything for another couple of albums. At the time of Definitely Maybe, there was nothing but hope and promise for Oasis. For a band that set out to take over the world and be the greatest rock and roll group since the Beatles, they were well on their way”.
Go and get Definitely Maybe if you can. You can also read about the creation of Definitely Maybe and why it is such an important album. When Oasis were at Monnow Valley Studio and started work on their debut album on 7th January, 1994, could they have known what would come?! How it would be received and how their career would take off?! In one of music’s best years, Oasis’ debut album might be the defining statement and biggest event. They would follow it a year later with an album perhaps even better regarded: (What's the Story) Morning Glory? It all started with the epic Definitely Maybe. If the title hints at uncertainty and modesty, Oasis’ debut album made a confident and emphatic statement about their quality and importance. Absolutely no…
QUESTION about it!