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“The reason Oasis are accepting the BRITs Outstanding Contribution Award,” says Noel Gallagher, “is that I want to do it before I go bald. Simple as that.”

For a band of Oasis’ stature, it was always a question of when, and not if, the nod would come. The November 2006 release of Stop The Clocks, their most recent disc and a best-of compilation, provided the ideal moment to pause for reflection. When the BRITs invite came, it was accepted.

“My argument was, I’d like to do it before I’m 40,” says Noel. “I’m going to go there and still be young enough to legitimately wear a black leather jacket. Whereas there’s always the chance you could go there and look like one of Pink Floyd.

“I’m glad we’re getting it now. When footage is shown in the future of the lifetime of The BRITs, there will be fat old geezers accepting it,” the 39-year-old grins. “And there will be one f***ing super cool rock’n’roll band. We all still look pretty good.”

When the band ‘dress from the floor up’, match their guitars to their shoes, and stroll on stage on BRITs night, it will be a special moment for many of the show’s other stars, as well as Manchester’s finest. From Razorlight to Kasabian, The Killers to Corinne Bailey Rae, it was Oasis who inspired them to first form a band.

Noel says, “I feel incredibly proud that we had an impact. Arctic Monkeys were nine when Definitely Maybe came out. Oasis was their first gig. Kasabian were in the crowd when we played Earls Court in 1994. Now it’s all come full circle.” Before Christmas, Kasabian themselves sold out the same venue. “And they were on stage and I was in the crowd watching them. It bends my mind.”

And yet Noel is not ready ? well, not quite ? to take on the mantle of Yoda of rock. He’s still too much of a fan himself to think about that. “I won’t feel like an elder stateman until Paul Weller dies.” A huge influence, alongside the likes of The Kinks and The Beatles, the 48-year-old Jam legend has always been king in Gallaghers’ eyes. “He’s still in charge. Until he goes I’m only second in command.”

Oasis were formed in Manchester in 1991, when Noel, then an Inspiral Carpets roadie, joined his brother Liam’s band. In 1994, along with long-gone founding members Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan, and Tony McCarroll, they released debut album Definitely Maybe, which sold 7 million copies, and went on to shape the sound of the next generation.

The double BRIT-winning, 20 million-selling follow-up came just a year later. But, says Noel, “I wish I could remember recording (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?. Twelve days and it was done, then I mixed it.” He muses, “Three weeks work, maximum, and the next thing it’s the biggest thing since Sargent Peppers’. How did that happen?”

In fact, says Noel, “The whole of 1995 to 1997 or 1998 is an absolute whirlwind of s***! What happened there?” It was slap-bang in the middle of the Brit pop explosion, with war being fought between Oasis and Blur, and daily doses brother-bashing in the press. Noel says, “You go mad with success. We’re talking about kids from a council estate here.

I never went to f****** university. I don’t know what a paint brush is, I never went to art school. I never experimented in my f****** youth. I worked on a building site then I sold out Madison Square Garden. Get on that”.

Fame and wealth brought a freedom never before imagined. He says, “My madness lasted five years, and that’s great, brilliant. But you have to know when to stop,” Noel shrugs. “Either when your bank manager says you’re bankrupt, or when you’re in rehab, or when you’re in hospital with your liver beside you in a glass box.”

“Eventually you come back from it. There comes a point where you know that’s it now, I’ve had enough of this.” The last album conceived in the fray was Be Here Now (1997). “It was the one album we set up properly you know. But it made me realise you can’t set things up and force them.” Despite being the band’s fastest selling album, it’s not a Gallagher favourite. “But I’m allowed to say that, no one else can. We f****** p***** it up the wall on that one.”

More recent albums, Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants (2000), Heathen Chemistry (2002) and Don’t Believe The Truth (2005) saw experimental changes in mood and in line-up, but all of the band’s studio albums ? as well as eight of their singles ? including often overlooked post-millennium hits Go Let It Out (2000), The Hindu Times (2002), Lyla (2005) and The Importance Of Being Idle (2005) ? made UK No 1. In addition, they have sold 50 million albums, earned numerous accolades and, of course, picked up four BRIT awards to date.

Oasis in 2007 have a new regular line-up; Gem Archer on guitars and vocals, Andy Bell on bass and on a less official basis, Ringo’s son, Zac Starkey, on drums. However, it’s the mesmerising relationship between Noel and Liam, which Noel credits as being “the great achievement in itself”.

Playing in a band with his sometimes wayward, but now 34-year-old brother is, he says, “half the time amazing, half the time the worst pain in the a***.” The famed slanging matches, says Noel, are just the Burnage way of sorting things out. “Where we come from there’s a lot of straight talking. We call a spade a spade. I daresay in the Coldplay camp, a spade is a symbol of the working man’s struggle against the oppressor, the landlords, and tyranny of the Royal family. Well, it don’t work like that in our band.”

And in a straight talking, Burnage kind of way, he says he’s happy. “Most singers are idiots, you know. I wouldn’t be in a band with anyone else.”

Source: www.brits.co.uk

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