Oasis. Tony McCarroll

the whole band thing to come to a halt there and then. I thought it was the end, yet funnily enough it was only the beginning.

      We’d arranged for Liam to come and audition at my place on Ryton Avenue in Gorton, on a summer’s day in 1991. The audition panel would consist of myself, Bonehead and Gemma, my one-year-old daughter. We were sitting eagerly in my front room, waiting. Liam normally entered a room like a storm. He’d be blowing insults and compliments, throwing out opinions and judgements. It was just humour and a little insecurity, though, nothing dangerous. As I already knew him, I had given both Bonehead and Guigs a rundown; they had both seemed impressed. Bonehead walked through the door, his eyes red and still slightly askew from the previous night’s exertions. Then a rather nervous-looking kid appeared – Liam – but shit, he looked the part. Pair of brown cords ripped at the knee with a denim shirt loosely flowing. Desert boots and smart haircut. Liam had a talent for wearing clothes from Debenhams and still actually looking cool. I waited for the verbal onslaught. But it seemed the belligerent attitude had been left behind in Burnage. He stood rather sheepishly at the living-room door. Then, all of a sudden, he jerked forwards into the room as BigUn put his hand in the small of his back and pushed firmly.

      ‘Let’s get this fuckin’ show on the road,’ BigUn said, with a smile in his voice. He stood there, rubbing his hands together, as Liam threw a playful punch at him. I had warmed to BigUn. There was a spark about him. Never one to settle for his allocated lot, he was always on the lookout for an opportunity or opening. And he had a big heart.

      A successful audition was guaranteed from the start, I suppose. The way I figured it, we hadn’t got anyone else. Bonehead hadn’t brought a rhythm guitar, so picked up a battered, out-of-tune bass I had lying in the back room. My drum kit was at the rehearsal room, so I made do with a set of bongos. Me and Bonehead started to bang out some old tune that was unrecognisable to us, never mind Liam. In turn, Liam hummed a tune that was also completely unrecognisable to us. During all this, BigUn danced from foot to foot, displaying all the rhythm of a rusty robot. It had to go down as one of the most unprepared, unprofessional and useless auditions ever. But then again, we finished with one Liam Gallagher as our frontman. So maybe it was the best.

      After a few rehearsals, in which Liam introduced some songs that he had been working on, we started to get a feel. It was strange at first with Huts not being up front, but we all recognised the fact that Liam had something about him. It might have been menacing and slightly evil, but it was still ‘something’.

      We had all now decided that we were going to ‘knock fuck out of anything in our way’. This mission statement wasn’t exactly hung on the rehearsal room wall, but we all understood and suddenly the confidence started to show in our performances. We were still rehearsing at the hotel, although we had been warned that we would have to be gone soon. It seemed the money pit had been sold and was soon to be demolished. When the time came for this move, we temporarily took up residency in The Grove in Longsight. This was a snooker hall turned Irish club, the same kind our parents had visited a generation before, though the frilled shirts had now been replaced by cowboy-style equivalents. Paul Gallagher had ‘sorted out’ our tenancy with the owner. We were never quite sure of the terms; we just gave the cash straight to Paul. This was where we would finally gel and begin to feel like a real act. Rehearsals had once again turned into an alcoholic free-for-all, with the bar being raided regularly. BigUn would be on lights and the PA desk and our rhythm section really started to come together; gradually, we began to create our own distinctive sound. Unfortunately, although we really enjoyed our time there, the discovery of our alcohol theft led to us being told to move on. From The Grove we headed to The Greenhouse Rooms in Stockport. This was a purpose-built rehearsal studio and had its own backline (gear, amps etc.). We were developing original material now; ‘Life in Vain’, ‘Reminisce’, ‘She Always Came Up Smiling’ and ‘Take Me’ were the stand-out tracks. Lyrically, these songs were a collaboration between Liam and Bonehead. Guigs’s bass playing was still basic, but he was steadily improving and the rhythm section of the band had developed quite a unique sound. And then there was the way Liam delivered the songs. The rest of us almost seemed to fade into the background; all our audiences seemed to be transfixed by our lead singer. Even at rehearsals. His nasal delivery and fighting stare would leave people enthralled and threatened, both impressed and nervous.

      From the start, I didn’t think Liam was happy with the name The Rain. I guessed as much when he said, in one long breath: ‘It’s a dogshit name. Any ideas, anyone? No? Right, we’ll call ourselves Oasis.’ The whole dynamic of the group had changed with him joining. Why not the name? It later transpired that BigUn had spotted the name on an Inspiral Carpets poster hanging on Liam’s bedroom wall the previous evening. It sounded good to me.

      And so Oasis the band was born. We rehearsed and rehearsed for the next eight months or so, during which time we all got to know Bonehead better. Most of his friends we already knew through BigUn and this was when the Entourage was formed, a group of mates and acquaintances who would provide us with back up and support.

      The band would always maintain a positive spirit and quickly developed an ‘us against the world’ kind of attitude. We knew that we had a distinct sound as a rhythm section and everyone in the band thought that Liam had the charisma and natural personality to take it somewhere. Everyone except Liam, that is. He wanted to invite his brother Noel to join the group. Liam had already played a demo of Noel in a band called Fantasy Chicken and the Amateurs to us. In truth, it was not very impressive, but he did know a lot of people in the industry so we put him on a back burner.