In the early days of 2000, Noel Gallagher spoke to Total Guitar about the Oasis album he had just finished working on - Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants.
With characteristic bluntness, Noel said straight off the bat: “The new album is very good but not great. I think we can do better and probably will.”
But the big reveal came when he talked about the challenge of recording pretty much all of the guitar tracks for this album, following the departure of founder member Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs. “I never really wanted to play lead,” Noel said. “I’m more of a rhythm guitar player. That’s how I write.”
At the time of this interview, Bonehead’s replacement was already confirmed - Gem Archer, formerly of fellow Creation Records band Heavy Stereo. But Archer hadn’t joined Oasis in time to play on the new album, and as Noel revealed, a famous friend had been willing to help out if needed.
“Johnny Marr offered his services to the band,” Noel confessed. “He said, ‘If you can’t find anyone I’ll step in for a while.’ And we said, ‘Fine.’ But then we recruited Gem. Johnny was just gonna save us if we didn’t have anyone.”
Noel also said that the main guitar he used for Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants was in fact a gift from Marr.“I got this Les Paul from Johnny,” he said. “There were really modern pickups in it and I didn’t like it. So I tossed the pickups out, took some from another guitar and put them in this.”
He concluded with a wry smile: “It’s a better guitar now, so he’s not getting it back!”
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