The Oasis member Noel Gallagher thought was pretty naff: “It’s like being in a new band”
None of the Oasis members claimed to be the best in the world at what they do. Even though they hyped themselves up as the greatest band England had ever seen, Noel Gallagher never proclaimed to be Slash on the guitar and would usually be comfortable playing chords rather than trying to make the most intricate solo of all time. He did have a certain standard for how everything should sound, though, and no matter how long he spent with the band, Guigsy was far from the bass player he envisioned.
If you really think about it, are there any real iconic basslines to come out of Oasis’ glory years? There might be some more intricate fretwork going on in the back half of their career, but the lion’s share of their early years just feature the bass sticking to the root notes of the chords and playing the bare minimum while Noel drives everything up the middle.
In that respect, the bass is a lot more felt rather than heard on a record like Definitely Maybe. There’s the occasional lift in the track or leading note to the next line, but sometimes, the best way to actually anchor the track is to have something that does more to serve the song than play anything too flashy.
And when you listen to some of the greatest bass tracks, like on ‘Wonderwall’, chances are people aren’t listening to Guigsy that much anyway. In the studio, Noel claimed to have overdubbed the bass on many of the tunes, so a lot of the more intricate and nimble lines tend to just be a case of Noel taking over bass duties, although he did allow Guigsy to play everything on Be Here Now.
After the group reassembled in the 2000s with a new lineup, though, Noel wasn’t shy about his former bandmate not cutting it, telling Mojo, “As much as I love Guigs, he was pretty naff on the bass, and that frustrated [drummer] Alan [White] because he had to sit on the beat all the time. Now he had this whirling dervish in the corner banging everything that moves. It’s like being in a new band.”
At the same time, some of the group’s more adventurous performances in the latter half of their career came at the expense of people like Guigs and Bonehead. Whereas the bassist never claimed to be the best musician and even was replaced midway through a tour after taking a break due to nervous exhaustion, his presence was a core part of Oasis whenever they played.
Because if the group didn’t have that calming presence, they probably wouldn’t have been a band for very long. What Guigs might have lacked in technical prowess, he made up for in calming Noel down from arguments with Liam, including a few instances during recording where he got Noel away from his brother.
Sure, the bass might not be exactly what people might have wanted in the 1990s, but it has the same kind of naivete that came from early Sex Pistols songs. It’s far from a masterpiece, but is that really a problem when all a song needs is the right mojo?
