Oasis have been so popular for so long, it’s quite difficult to imagine Oasis struggling early on – just like every other up-and-coming band does.
During a recent interview with Q1043 New York, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr , who was promoting his new book, “Marr’s Guitars” recently shared an interesting memory of crossing paths with Oasis shortly after their formation (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar).
“I met Noel [Gallagher] first,” Marr recalled. “I’d seen Liam [Gallagher] around town – I had no idea. I didn’t even know he was in the band. I didn’t know he was Noel’s brother. My brother knew Noel. I met Noel and he was a young guy starting out with a band who had not yet heard when I met him. We went and had a couple of tea, ’cause my brother said he’s a really cool fella. And he was a young guy who is much like he is now. Me and him clicked. I liked him – I could tell he was on a mission.”
It wasn’t much long after Marr received an invitation to see the then-fledgling band perform live.
“And then they invited me to go see his band – they’d just called themselves Oasis. And it would be hard to exaggerate how few people were there. I know there was more than seven, but there was definitely not 20 – and they were all the band’s friends. So, let’s say there were 14 people there. And they went on at 7 PM – it was still bright outside – and I watched them.”
In addition to this, since Marr was well-established by that point, both career-wise and guitar-collection-wise – he offered some advice, and, a helping hand.
“He called me the next day or a couple of days later and said, ‘What do you think?’ And I said to him, ‘It’s great, fantastic, well done.’ But he seemed like he wanted some constructive criticism, so I just said, ‘Well, you take a long time tuning up before numbers – especially when there’s only like, 11 people there.’ So I said, ‘You need another guitar.’ Quite rightly, he said to me, ‘Well, that’s OK for you to say, Johnny Marr.’ So, I put the phone down and thought, ‘OK, he needs a couple of guitars, right?'”
“So, I loaned him a couple of guitars – one was a Les Paul that I used a lot in The Smiths that I got from The Who. It was owned by John Entwistle, but it was a ‘Who guitar.’ And so I sent that over to him and it blew his mind. And then very soon after that, I saw him using it, so I just said, ‘Keep it.’ No one had any idea that Oasis…it wasn’t because I thought these guys are going to conquer the world and write a song that everyone in America knows…well, maybe Noel thought that! And he was right. I could do it and I was able to do it, so I gave him that guitar. And then shortly afterwards it got damaged, so I gave him another one to replace it.”
