John Robb tells us about his new Oasis book and the importance of Manchester

Author, journalist and musician John Robb has spoken to NME about his acclaimed new Oasis book, his years of knowing the Gallaghers, and the importance of Manchester for the band.

• READ MORE: Oasis live in Cardiff review: a supersonic reunion for a new generation

Robb recently published Live Forever: The Rise, Fall And Resurrection Of Oasis – featuring a new and exclusive interview with Noel Gallagher. After the returning Britpop legends kicked off their Live ’25 reunion tour in Cardiff last week, tonight (Friday July 11) sees the band continue with the first of their homecoming residency nights at Manchester’s Heaton Park.

Robb, himself a Manchester native, told us about the importance of the city in shaping the band and a vibrant music scene.

“There’s an attitude in Manchester. It’s there in the music scene as well,” he told NME. “The bands that were key stepping stones to Oasis were all Manchester bands: The Smiths, The Stone Roses, that lineage. What you have to think about Noel is that he’s almost like Johnny Marr’s younger brother in a way; they’re very similar. I always found it odd that Johnny Marr didn’t end up being their producer.”

He also described the Gallaghers’ Irish lineage as “an important part of the story, as it is for a lot of stories in music: from The Beatles, Roses, Morrissey, The Smiths, so many”.

“‘Irish Blood, English Heart’, you know,” Robb continued. “Both countries get so much from each other. What we get from the Irish changes us and makes us better people. Speak to Irish musicians and they all talk about there always being music in the house and loads of sing-alongs. England wasn’t really like that in the ‘60s and ‘70s, it was a bit more starchy, but the Irish just had more fun and had the music.

“There’s lots of great stuff about England too, but you mix all two cultures together and you get a really interesting point in the Venn diagram that’s proved endlessly by these bands.”

Check out our full interview with Robb below, where he tells us about his years of knowing and watching the Gallaghers grow, surprises in putting the book together, and what he thinks the future holds for the band.

NME: Hello John. Your book is pretty definitive, comprehensive and all-encompassing. You can’t be accused of throwing together a last-minute cash-in project…

“It was a pretty intense period of writing, with six months of 15-hour days. But then again, I’d already done the research in having being around from the beginning. I was next door at The Boardwalk and at the early gigs. I’d seen Noel around town when he was the Inspiral Carpets’ roadie. I knew what the vibe was around town and at gigs, so it was quite easy to describe.

“I didn’t have to interview anyone else for that stuff, I just had to remember.”

What are your memories of the Gallaghers in those early days? Did you sense that something special was going on?  

“Noel was just this young lad that would turn up at gigs; he’d turn up at everything. It wasn’t this elite group of hipsters, but there were people who were just dead into music and you’d see everywhere. There were only about three venues in Manchester back then, so very quickly you’d get to know everyone who went to everything.

“I remember him working with Inspiral Carpets and the running joke was, ‘What does he actually do?’ He was too cool to carry the amps, he couldn’t drive, but it turned out he was very important. He was on the phone all the time. He wasn’t the manager but he did a lot more than just roadie. Every Manchester band had to have a cool mate with the right haircut if they weren’t in the band.”

It was interesting when your 2024 interview with Noel ran just days before the reunion was announced, and his attitude towards Liam appeared to have visibly softened…

“Well it’s interesting, actually. That interview was filmed three months before. It looked like it was done with the reformation all in one block, but it was done back in June at Sifters [Records, Manchester]. I did put down a stipulation that it would be nice if he said nice things about Liam. The banter is funny, but it kinda gets in the way of the band sometimes.

“The stuff he said about Liam was great, and it was really heartfelt. At the end of the day, brothers fall out and they fight, but they still love each other. Siblings have complex relationships. The only problem is when you’re that famous, it becomes your only story. Everything about Oasis gets reduced to a tabloid story. I deal with that in the book, but the point is that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s something far more creative and interesting going on underneath the bonnet.”

But at the time, you had no idea the reunion was coming?

“No, but I did notice during the interview that the attitude wasn’t hostile, and I was quite surprised. What I do know was that the venues had been booked out from January 2024. I don’t know if anyone knows when the button was pushed. For a band that big, you’d think this would have been organised 10 years in advance, but it seems to have been done almost off the cuff. One afternoon, Noel goes, ‘OK, I’ll do it’. You can imagine that.”

Have you seen the online theory that there was always a ‘masterplan’ for the band to have split up and eventually return like this?

“I think there was definitely animosity between them. Not always – Liam calling Noel a potato is just funny, isn’t it? There were a lot of amusing quips, but I’m sure there were years where they didn’t speak to each other. That’s not unusual for brothers either. Was it a master plan? Without being on the inside you can’t know 100 per cent, but I don’t imagine so.

“I know Noel is really pop culture savvy, so when they didn’t reform for years, I thought that was because he’s a fan of The Jam and The Beatles – two bands who stopped at the right time. The temptation for both of those bands to reform must have been massive, but they didn’t ruin it by coming back. I was saying for years that Noel must have been thinking, ‘I don’t want to blemish this thing by coming back and being rubbish’.”

Pulp and Blur have both pulled off very impressive records as more mature bands. You can’t help but wonder what ‘old man Oasis’ would sound like….

“Yes, it’s intriguing. Liam still feels like the eternal teenager. You don’t buy into Liam for songs about getting old. Maybe they could be the introspective Noel tracks and Liam’s could be raging against the light?

“It’s brilliant that Pulp got a Number One album [with ‘More’], but there’s a pressure on Oasis because they were so much bigger. People always forget that the last Oasis album got to Number Five in America, and they were getting quite big over there towards the end of their career. You don’t want to blemish that either. I was just hoping there would have been more gigs, weren’t you?”

There are rumours of European shows and Knebworth gigs next year…

“Knebworth would be the way to finish it, just to go for [breaking] the records. I interviewed Noel and he’s not arsed about the records. Why not be the Number One? That’s partly what Oasis were about, but Noel’s not that bothered. I know he’s going to do another solo record at some point when all this is over. He’s quite happy with that because there’s no pressure and it’s his thing.

“It’s like Johnny Marr, you don’t have to have a set career. Just do all the things you want to do. So Knebworth could be a good spot to finish on. Maybe seven Knebworths, so that no one could ever take that record. Noel said they could have done over 20 Wembleys from the ticket orders. That’s insane. I said, ‘Why don’t you? He said, ‘Five is enough’.”

When you interviewed Noel, why did he say he’d chosen to reunite with Oasis? 

“Well, he’s not going to sit there and say, ‘I’m doing this purely for the money’. He’s going to be more cagey than that. Money is obviously a factor, but for every band I’ve ever met – and people don’t understand this unless they’re in a band – but the magic of when you get the right people in the right room at the right time is worth millions. Liam showing up to rehearsals and starting singing would have sent shivers down your spine. ‘Woah, that’s what that song is meant to sound like’. No matter who’s in his solo band, it’ll never sound the way it does when Noel is playing it.

“That weird chemical magic you get between people is really special. That’s always a factor when bands reform.”

What’s great about your book is how much time is dedicated to even the pre-Liam days of Oasis and how it all came to be…

“It’s important to have that lineage. Bonehead, the pubs, the whole Irish-Manchester thing. Bonehead forced this band together and they were a little bit more than just another local band. I didn’t know this, but Andy Rourke was going to demo with them. They actually got a member of The Smiths on board before Noel did. Andy lived round the corner from them in Levenshulme.”

Is there an alternate universe of Liam in another band or pre-Oasis band The Rain without Noel, where anyone would have had any kind of success? 

“The Rain without the Gallaghers would have stayed a local band. There were bands that did the Manc thing pretty well, but never got more than a few hundred mates following them around town. The Rain would have been that, and that’s why they got Liam in. A mutual friend said, ‘You’ve gotta get this kid in’. To me, that’s punk: you don’t even know what this person sounds like, but they look cool so they must be a singer!

“He turned up and he had the right clothes on, attitude – everything. So he was perfect. Then he said, ‘My brother can come in and manage us’. The weird thing is Noel doesn’t know exactly when he joined the band.”

How do you think they might have fared without Noel?

“That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Because obviously Liam’s got something and would have stood out once he worked out his ‘stillism’ thing. In the earliest days, he was a bit more Ian Brown. You would have had to have the two of them, because the hurdles they faced were a lot bigger than just being a good band. At that point, the London music business was really down on Manchester. The vibe was, ‘No other band is going to make it from Manchester, it’s had its turn’.

“Oasis turn up and they would have been seen as just another version of The Roses. ‘That’s already happened, we’ll wait for The Roses’ second album’. You have to give it to Alan McGee, that was an incredible signing. He just got it straight away.”

Alan McGee says in the book that there was no need to develop the band as they had it all already. There’s that other quote that “the arrogance was genuine rather than cosmetic”… 

“It was genuine. Liam was going to work with that walk when he was 17, saying ‘I’m going to be the biggest star in the world’. It’s not arrogance, because he was. He had that star thing since he was a kid. He looked great, he had the attitude, and it’s not being big-headed. Noel grafted and became a really good songwriter. That’s the thing: they worked really hard. They weren’t a couple of chancers. They were in the Boardwalk every day rehearsing. I remember them just playing one riff over and over.”

People might just look back at the champagne years of Oasis and forget what came before. You describe it really well in your book as this perfect storm of working class lads, the Manchester spirit, Irish worldview, and everything that came from how Noel and Liam’s childhood shaped them… 

“It’s like they were at war with the world. What really resonates is their songs about escape. That’s an international language. It’s not a political manifesto, but it’s a powerful one. In pop culture, not everyone is that eloquent, but just hinting that there’s a better life and you can get there is quite a powerful message to get out there.

“A lot of people analyse them and forget how good they are at connecting with people’s emotions and feelings. Not even deliberately. They haven’t lost touch with what they were when they started.

“One of the things I draw upon in the book is how similar but different they are to Nirvana. They’re both doing that ‘Sex Beatles’ thing. They’ve got the wall of sound and energy of the Pistols and the melodic nous of The Beatles. They both combine those things well, but you had Nirvana saying, ‘I hate myself and I want to die’ and Oasis saying ‘We’re gonna live forever’. They’re coming out with completely different answers to the same question.”

As an Oasis biographer, how do you feel about the band’s post-2000 output that a lot of people see as a decline? 

“I think their later albums are really underrated and overlooked. By the time you get to the last album [‘Dig Out Your Soul’, 2008], they’re doing something really interesting – it’s like an art-rock record. They would never say that, but they’ve got drum’n’bass loops, backwards guitars and bits of kraut-rock. A lot of people would just say, ‘Oh, they’re just doing The Beatles again’, but they’re not really. There’s a lot of different stuff on there. Rock’n’roll isn’t a fashionable form of music, but when bands are good at it, it’s really good.

“Put all that through the filter of pop, and no matter how off-piste they go, it’s always going to be a good record.”

In interviewing Noel, did anything take you off guard or take you by surprise? 

“We’ve read all the interviews and there are no secrets. If you ask them a question, then they give you an answer. There aren’t many massive surprises left. Noel has already owned up to all the bad stuff. It’s all contextual now. I like ‘Be Here Now’ as a really bonkers psychedelic record, but he really hates it. He’s so honest about his own stuff, and will give his own records worse reviews than The Guardian would. Oasis are honest, and that’s why people like them. You’re not going to read an interview with Noel Gallagher and go, ‘Fucking hell, I didn’t know that!’

“When you write their story, it’s all about re-contextualising it. What I wanted to say was, ‘There’s a lot more to this than the tabloid headlines’ and ‘a lot of their later records were really interesting’. They’re a lot smarter than people think.”

Last time you spoke to him, how was he feeling about the tour? 

“He’s not sat there going, ‘Oh I just can’t wait to get on tour!’ He’s very old-school Manchester. It could be the best thing ever about to happen and he’ll say, ‘It’ll be alright’. He’ll just be working out what needs to be done to get it right. Liam will be much more excited about the whole thing. At the end of the day, Noel’s a songwriter. On stage, he stands as far away from everyone else as he can. Whereas Liam will walk out there thinking, ‘I own this space’.”

John Robb’s ‘Live Forever: The Rise, Fall And Resurrection Of Oasis’ is out now. Oasis’ Live ’25 reunion tour continues at Manchester’s Heaton Park tonight.

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