Ruling Asses

Doesn't Noel feel it's an insult to be involved in litigation over stealing from an ad campaign? After all, advertising executives aren't exactly noted for their edgy content. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is such a thing as being too catchy. He disagrees.

"Look at Nirvana," says Noel. "They were the fucking best, and that guy [Kurt Cobain] was the king of the catchy fucking rock record. You could not write catchier tunes than him. So I don't think you can be too catchy. As long as you have your Marshall amps on ten and it makes people's eyes water."

It's the second day of the video shoot for "Champagne Supernova," and Liam has had enough. He springs off the bed he has been sprawled on for hours and storms off the set. "I can't be lying there and having a camera pointed at me," he yells. "I have a cold." The director Nigel Dick walks over to where Liam is sitting, kneels beside him and speaks softly. "No," says Liam, flailing his arms. "I can't be lying there, cameras right there in my face. No. He points toward his nose. I have a cold."

It's time for a lunch break. While Noel, White and McGuigan head toward the dressing room, Arthurs and Liam (miraculously cured of his malady) light out toward the pub. It is the standard scenario: Liam and Arthurs stick together, loudly; McGuigan and White stay close, quietly; and Noel spends much of his time alone or conducting band affairs. It is, after all, Noel's group in almost every sense of the word — music, lyrics, business decisions — and the other four members accept this willingly.

"It's better to have one person in charge than five," says Arthur. "It gets done a lot faster that way."

Liam sits next to Arthurs in the pub and explains his often-tumultuous relationship with his brother: "I don't think there is a difference between me and Noel. He's a cunt, I'm a cunt. Don't let him spin you; he's a cunt, I tell you. I'm the one who gets made out to be the cunt, but he makes me be the cunt. He pushes me into that cunt zone."

Liam and Noel may share the same zone, but that doesn't explain the distance between Noel and the rest of the band. One reason for this distance might be that while Liam and the band had never traveled outside of England before Oasis, Noel was more worldly, having circled the globe with Inspiral Carpets. "I'm a lot more levelheaded than the other guys," says Noel. "When we went to Japan, I'd been there five times already. It's too bad in some ways," he adds in a rare touching moment, "I would have liked to have experienced it with them."

In conversation, Noel is more relaxed and thoughtful than his brother. It's as though he has to strain to come up with the kind of obnoxious quotes that Liam spews naturally. Noel manages, of course, but it often seems as if he is battling his instinctively nicer impulses. When Noel's friends heard a tape of a fight between the two brothers (the obscenity-laced shouting match was released as a single and reached Number Fifty-two on the British charts), Noel says they were shocked that he could get so angry.

The Kinks' Ray Davies not only knows about battling with his band mate brother, Dave, he also presented Oasis with last year's Best New Band award at the Brits. "When you're with your brother in a band, it winds up a situation and makes things more prickly," says Ray. "You're pushed together more often. That aggravates things. But on the other hand, there's a certain amount of telepathy involved."

The Gallagher brothers' stormy relationship has received plenty of attention in the English tabloids lately, with stories about their drug intake and brawling now as commonplace as those on the royal family's bed hopping and divorces. "We've been on the front page of the paper, where it said, 'OASIS IN DRUG SHOCK,'" says Noel. "Shock to who? It would be a bigger shock if we all went to church: OASIS IN RELIGIOUS SHOCK."

Actually, only Noel and Liam partake in harder drugs (their narcotics of choice are cocaine and ecstasy), while Arthurs and White stick to alcohol, and McGuigan smokes marijuana, seemingly to the exclusion of staples such as food.

"I just like gettin' out of it," says Noel. "I like the feeling of lying on the fucking floor, being out of my head. I guess in the long run you think about your body, but until it happens, well ...As long as it doesn't affect the work."