Getting High (41 page)

Around them are various Oasis reference points, such as the pictures of Burt Bacharach, Rodney Marsh and George Best. George Best? But he's United. Ah yes, Noel replied, but he was first and foremost an Irishman.

As the band nonchalantly laze around this flat with its potted plants and wooden floor, the impression given is one of tasteful restraint. Now put on the record and feel the opening track, ‘Rock ‘n' Roll Star' leap right out of the speakers and throttle your ears.

Brian Cannon, not surprisingly, was a big fan of the group so when the chance to go to Los Angeles to shoot the picture for their next single and to see them play arose, he happily accepted. He had no idea that on that trip he would see them fall apart. Nor did the country he left behind.

Britain was now besotted with the group.

All the talk was of Oasis. They were everywhere.
Top Of The Pops
had let them play an album track, ‘Rock ‘n' Roll Star', on the show, the
Daily Star
had now run a page feature, where they called Oasis, ‘The wildest and most outrageous rock band since The Who,' and in
Vox
magazine, Noel endeared himself to every serious music lover by saying, ‘I realise that without them [the band] I'm nothing, in the same way that without me they're nothing. The money won't last forever and we'll all end up broke one day, 'cos bands like us always do. But in ten years' time, when we've got a few albums in the shop, my name will be in brackets by the songs. That's something that will last forever and it's all I want from this.

‘I'm not mithered [bothered] about being on the cover of this or that, or being a sex symbol or a voice of a generation, all I'm arsed about is going down alongside Ray Davies, Morrissey and Marr, Jagger and Richards, Lennon and McCartney, Pete Townshend, Paul Weller and Burt Bacharach.'

Over at Creation Records, the company's money problems now wiped out in a stroke by Oasis, McGee had turned his obsessional nature towards healthy living. He now worked out every day in the gym. He refused all alcohol, drugs and tobacco. His high came from activating the endorphins in his brain through regular exercise. He now weighed eleven stone and he'd never felt more positive in his life.

Similarly, but in totally different ways, Tim Abbot was seriously enjoying life. He was working and playing with the most sensational band of the decade. Which is why, when he was woken at five in the morning by a call from Noel in America, he was initially pleased to hear from him. But when Noel said, he'd come over and see him tomorrow, Abbot got confused. Oasis had just started their first proper US tour.

‘He said,' Abbot recalls, ‘that's it, the fucking band's over. They're all fucking pricks. They don't deserve it. Can you arrange to get me guitars and me baggage back, and can you phone Marcus and apologise, and tell him I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused but I can't go on.'

Five hours later, Abbot was on a plane bound for America.

They didn't like it, this strange land with its neon lights and funny ways. America threw them. There was an underlying falseness everywhere. People flew American flags in their back garden and said things like ‘Now have a nice day' as if they meant it.

Then there were the others, like the record company people, who would come up and say, ‘Hi there, Loam, where's your brother, Nile?'

In their hotel rooms they would switch on the TV and just as they were getting into some dumb cop-show, it would suddenly switch to these really stupid, false adverts that treated the viewer like he was some retard.

It would annoy them so much, they'd change the channel only to find a religious nutter talking about God and asking for millions.

But the real killer was that they had landed in a country that didn't know them. For the past year, Oasis had been the kings. They'd known nothing but success and huge attention. Everywhere they went in Britain, people stopped and stared. In the US they were barely known. It was like going back to the fucking Boardwalk or something.

Marcus had warned them about this and Noel knew the score. But it got to the others.

They started in a small club called Moe's in Seattle, Nirvana's hometown, on 23 September, and the next night played the Satyricon in Portland. The next day they travelled to San Francisco, where they were booked to appear on a radio station called Live 105.

The DJ had secretly invited Blur to the session thinking that the bands would be overjoyed to see each other. Wrong. Blur walked in, Damon said, ‘Hello,' and Liam called him a wanker. It was pretty much downhill from there.

On the 27th they played what Marcus refers to as their first hicksville gig, Melarky's in Sacramento. The crowd gave them a good reception, which was encouraging.

Then, on their day off, they arrived in Los Angeles where they discovered crystal meth, the most potent form of speed known to man. Use it and you don't sleep for days. Then the comedown kicks in, guaranteed to depress and tire you to the point of such exhaustion that you lose patience with everything and everyone around you.

The first mistake some of the band made was to sample the drug and then stay on it, all day and all night, searching as always for the high. The second was to attend a party that Epic had unwisely thrown on the roof of the band's hotel on the afternoon of their debut gig at the Whiskey.

Epic splashed out $50,000 on the bash, and Noel was moved to ask Marcus, ‘What the fuck is going on? We haven't even put a record out and they're treating us like fucking Bon Jovi or something.'

Noel was starting to feel the pressure. This was an important show for the band whose rule on drink and drugs is simple. If you can handle it and play a gig to the best of your ability, then fine. If you can't...

Of all the band, Noel not only knew his limits but would never test them when a gig was at stake. The best high in the world was playing your songs and watching an audience go ballistic.

He was also determined that Oasis would be the first British band in years to crack America. That's why he'd kept schtum that first night in New York when his brother had gone off at the Epic guy. He had seen how things worked in the States when he was with the Inspirals. Like it or not, you needed these people on your side, because that way you could achieve something far greater than simply telling a record company guy to fuck off.

Anyone could do that. But to succeed in the States meant you could actually help change the musical climate of the country. How top would that be. Your songs having such effect. Of course, in doing so you made enough money to last several lifetimes and that little fact wouldn't have escaped Noel's attention either.

Like it or not, the Whiskey was a prestigious show. All of the LA music scene would be there, including Epic who, despite their generosity, had yet to be convinced that Oasis weren't one of these two-bit Brit bands with loads of press and little talent or stamina. This gig was Oasis's first chance to prove they were a cut above the rest and, of course, they blew it horribly.

Liam came on wired-up to the eyes and spoiling for a fight. Behind the amps he had racked out lines of crystal meth and every now and then he would disappear for a hit.

Noel apart, the rest of the band's playing was sluggish.

And as it went on, Noel got angrier and angrier. Then he saw Liam go behind the amps and when he reappeared, he shouted at him and Liam turned and hit him with his tambourine.

Standing in the audience, watching the debacle, Marcus flew into a temper. When the gig finished he marched into the dressing-room where Liam and Noel were sitting, locked the door, and went berserk.

Noel, equally as angry, then went to hit Liam, and Marcus had to step in between them. Meanwhile, outside listening to the crazed and angry shouting, Guigsy, McCarroll and Bonehead waited to get in. They stood there with their Epic employers.

The door finally opened after an hour. Noel marched out and found tour manager Maggie. ‘How much money have you got on you?' he demanded. She handed over about $800 and Noel returned to his hotel.

‘If you are an instigator,' Marcus points out, ‘and you don't feel people appreciate what you instigate, you get hurt. Noel was really hurt bad and he didn't know where to turn to or
who
to turn to in a country that you feel very alienated in very quickly, in a city, let's be fair, that isn't exactly fucking reality. And you add it all together and you very quickly come to the conclusion, as Noel obviously did, that there's better things to do in life.'

In his hotel room, Noel phoned a girl he knew in San Francisco and asked if he could come and stay with her for a while. Then he found out the time of the next flight, and off he went to the airport, without a word to anyone.

At the girl's flat he called two people in England. The first, of course, was Peggy.

‘He was going on and on about Liam,' she recalls, ‘and that he was on his way home. I said, “Noel, you'll probably work it out, why don't you talk it through with him?” He said, “No, Liam is this and that,” and then he said, “After all you've sacrificed for us.” I said, “Noel, I didn't sacrifice anything for you because you were mine, it was my duty to bring you up.”

‘He said, “I know, but you put everything aside and you had to do without things.” I said, “That was my job, Noel.” You see, Noel would be thinking, she sacrificed everything, but as I've always said to him, “Noel, while I'm here this is your home. It doesn't matter what you do or what you don't do, this is your home.”'

His second call was to Tim Abbot who, after putting the phone down, organised his flight to Los Angeles (‘cost three grand, the bastards') and then flew out to LA to meet up with a band that was now devastated by Noel's disappearance. None more so, in fact, than his younger brother.

‘Liam,' Marcus says, ‘was going out of his mind, absolutely. He was sitting and staring at the wall. He just could not contemplate Oasis not being together. It really showed me how together they are. Most bands would have gone crying back home, but I said, “Fuck it, stay here, there's a chance Noel is going to come back and we'll carry on with the tour.”

‘But the worst bit for everybody was the first two or three days when he was out of contact. We were really worried for him. We didn't know if he was in fucking Manchester, Ireland, Canada, Colombia. It was horrible.'

After two days of waiting and worrying, someone suggested getting hold of Noel's telephone bill for the room. When they looked at it, the only digits that seemed strange was a San Francisco number.

Abbot dialled it.

‘This girl answered,' he says, ‘and I said, “It's Timmy Abbot, a friend of Noel's, I believe you might know of his whereabouts.” She said, “Call me back in a minute.” I went up to my room and called again. She answered and then put me on to Noel. He went, “All right? how are you?” I said, “What the fuck is going on, man? Everybody's really fucking worried. Where are you?”'

Noel, believing Abbot was still in London, refused to reveal his whereabouts until Abbot told him he was with the band in LA and asked to come and see him. Noel agreed to that. But he still wouldn't give the address.

‘Call me from the airport tomorrow,' he told Abbot.

‘I thought, fucking hell, how can someone have a number-one album, have all this at their fucking feet and throw it all away. Everything had been achieved. The album was the biggest, fastest-ever-selling debut album. Number one, Beatlemania in Japan, what else do you want?'

At that precise moment Noel Gallagher wanted out of Oasis. The next day Abbot flew to San Francisco, phoned Noel from the airport, who gave him the directions and an hour later he was being deposited in the Chinatown section of the city.

He rang a bell, and a pretty Asian girl answered and led him into her darkened flat, full of antiques.

‘I was expecting to find this absolute, strung out, wasted, dishevelled fucking kid who I hadn't seen in weeks and who had lost it Brian-Wilson-style, and there he was in a beautiful ski jumper and we like hugged, and then he held up a big bag of coke and a bottle of Jim Beam and said, “Fancy one?” Fancy two, mate.'

Assured now that Noel wasn't cracking up, far from it, they spent two days shopping, hanging out and generally relaxing. The bonus was that the girl whose flat they stayed in owned a great record collection, full of the music they dug.

‘Then after about day three,' Abbot says, ‘I thought, I've got to get him away to have a real chat with him because two's company, three's a crowd. I said, “Look, I've got a credit card, where shall we go? Have you ever been to Las Vegas? Let's get out, me and you, and have a crack.”'

The idea appealed to Noel and the next day they departed.

Meanwhile, Abbot was making secret phonecalls back to the band. They, especially Liam, had demanded that he keep them informed as to Noel's state of mind, a request he couldn't refuse, but which totally divided his loyalties. He knew that if Noel caught him phoning the band the slight chance he had of getting Noel to rejoin would instantly vanish. Oasis really would split up for good, and Abbot wouldn't only lose a friend but gain a lifelong enemy.

‘I didn't want to break his trust,' Abbot points out, ‘but I'd go out and phone the band and Liam would be saying, “I'm not bothered about anything as long as he's all right.”

‘I said, “I don't think he's going to talk to you to be honest but he's all right.”'

Noel and Abbot booked into a Las Vegas Hotel and shared a room. In the morning, they began talking about America and Noel kicked off, stating how he found it all so false, so alien.

‘So I told him, it's part of the plan, part of the masterplan. America was always the thing in my head with Creation. I'd just been through it with Primal Scream, and we nearly made it but we didn't deliver. Yeah, they ain't gonna understand you, so don't let it get to you.