“Life’s too short not to forgive/You can carry regrets but they won’t let you live/I’m here if you wanna call/Staring at this spot on the wall.” So sings Liam Gallagher on ‘Kill For A Dream’, the eighth of thirteen tracks on Beady Eye’s much anticipated debut album. You get the feeling that he might just be addressing Noel Gallagher, his brother and former cohort in the biggest Brit band of the 1990s, Oasis...
Throughout their highly turbulent, sometimes drug-fuelled, musically patchy, and entertainingly egomaniacal 18-year history, Oasis had always been a band beset by volcanic sibling rivalry, but on August 28th, 2009, backstage at the Rock en Seine festival near Paris, Liam and Noel Gallagher had the motherfucker of all bust-ups. Following this particularly serious fight, which reportedly resulted in Liam petulantly smashing up his elder sibling’s favourite guitar, the group’s beleaguered manager announced the cancellation of the show, along with the rest of the European tour.
A couple of hours later, Noel released a statement on the band’s official website: “With some sadness and great relief... I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”
“Great relief”? Did Noel, as has been suggested, provoke the fight in order to have an excuse to quit? Who knows? Whatever happened, the other band members have subsequently gravitated towards Liam. (“How many cunts were there in Oasis?” Liam asked Stuart Clark, in last issue’s Hot Press cover interview. “Here’s a clue – it was more than zero and less than two”). Within less than a month, it was announced that Gem Archer and Andy Bell would be continuing to work with the younger Gallagher. Oasis live drummer Chris Sharrock was also recruited, and the birth of Beady Eye was announced soon afterwards. In yer face, bruvva!
It’s taken more than 18 months, but their debut album – recorded last autumn at London’s RAK Studios with Steve Lillywhite on production duties – has finally arrived, carried on a high tide of mouthy press interviews. As the title Different Gear, Still Speeding suggests, this is basically Oasis II. Or Oasis III, if you factor in the departures of Bonehead and Guigsy in 1999. Or Oasis IV if you consider that, although Noel thought up the name, it was him who joined Liam’s band, not the other way round.
Songwriting duties have been shared amongst all the band members, but it’s safe to say that Liam penned the blistering opening track, ‘Four Letter Word’ (actually one of the heaviest moments on this fast/slow album). Something of a statement-of-intent, it opens with a blaze of chiming guitars, Liam sounding truly menacing as he sings, “Nothing ever lasts forever.” Beady Eye might be in a different gear, but the attitude obviously remains the same.
As do the influences. This album changes gear regularly, but its heart remains the same – and is unashamedly worn on the sleeve. The mostly acoustic, zither-driven ‘Millionaire’ follows, which sounds like an average Beatles number, and then ‘The Roller’, which sounds eerily like John Lennon. Lyrically it’s not exactly ambitious (“So you been crawling through a maze/An alcohol lemon haze/I’ve been watching you for days/You’ve been outta sight alright, alright, alright”), but the impassioned vocals qualify it as a great song.
Beady Eye are fairly straight up in their ambitions. Originality is not the name of their musical game. On ‘Beatles And Stones’, Liam proclaims, “I’m gonna stand the test of time/Like Beatles and Stones.” From ballads to blues rockers, there’s probably nothing on this album that touches either of those legendary bands’ finest moments, but there’s nothing either act would have been ashamed of either.
In another recent interview, Liam stated that Different Gear, Still Speeding is “better than Definitely Maybe.” It’s definitely not that, not even maybe, but it’s still a damn fine rock ‘n’ roll record. While the lyrics are nothing to write home about, he sings with the brilliant arrogance of a cocksure star, the playing is as tight and assured as you’d expect from a seasoned crew of talented pros, and the production is, well, by the great Steve Lillywhite.
Noel’s verdict will be interesting. After all, more than anything else, it’s a love/hate letter to him from both his brother and his former bandmates.