What Noel Gallagher said when the hero almost joined Oasis

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In the early 2000s, 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 immediately said: “The new album is very good, but not great. I think we can do better and we probably will.

But the biggest revelation came when he started talking about the challenge of recording almost all of the guitar tracks for this album after the departure of founding member Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs. “I never really wanted to play the lead,” Noel said. “I’m more of a rhythm guitarist. This is how I write.”

At the time of this interview, it had already been confirmed that Bonehead’s replacement would be Gem Archer, previously a member of another Creation Records band, Heavy Stereo. However, Archer did not join Oasis in time to play on the new album, and as Noel revealed, the famous friend was willing to help if needed.

“Johnny Marr offered his services to the band,” Noel revealed. “He said, ‘If you can’t find anyone, I’ll step in for a while.’ And we said, “Okay.” But then we recruited Jewel. Johnny was just supposed to save us if we had no one.

Noel also said that the lead guitar he used on “Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants” was actually a gift from Marr. “I got this Les Paul from Johnny,” he said. “It had really modern pickups in it and I didn’t like it. So I threw away the pickups, took some from another guitar and put them in this one.

He concluded with a wry smile, “There’s a better guitar now, so he won’t get it back!”