The one producer Oasis hated working with: “It became frustrating”
It doesn’t seem like the hardest thing in the world to make Oasis sound good. The band have always been a fairly straight-head rock and roll outfit, and as long as they are on their A-game in the studio, it just comes down to capturing the sound they made whenever they played live. That’s easier said than done, though, and when the band were mixing Definitely Maybe for the first time, the band had fallen out with original producer Dave Batchelor before Owen Morris came in.
When the band first started, though, they were all about just performing their songs live. Noel Gallagher had only just joined after coming off the heels of Inspiral Carpets, so it was more about capturing the feeling of what they did in the rehearsal space half the time, with recordings either appearing on home videos or the occasional demo Noel would make on his own.
Once the band were in good enough shape to record, Batchelor was one of the first people that Noel called. He had already known him for his work with Inspiral Carpets, so there was no reason to believe they weren’t heading in the right direction. Then they descended on Monnow Valley, and it became clear that Batchelor didn’t know what he was doing.
As the band made their way through almost every song in their setlist, Batchelor constantly pushed them to do one take after another until it sounded right. If the problems in the control room aren’t fixed on take one, though, there was no magical spell that would suddenly make your hard work pay off by the last track.
It’s easy to hear what’s wrong when the demos are released. Although a version of ‘Slide Away’ from these sessions became the one everyone loves today, half of the songs sound like a local rock and roll band from down the street, not nearly having the kind of depth that they were supposed to.
When the band had gone through weeks of mixing it, Noel had come to the end of his rope, telling Supersonic, “I remember it becoming frustrating. It’s fucking easy. I’ve written all the songs, and I’ve come up with all the parts for everyone. Fucking hell, what else do you want me to do, make the tea? We had a producer in the room, it’s his job to make it sound good. I know what I’m doing. If everyone else knows what they’re doing, what could possibly go wrong?”.
Liam would also talk about the tension in the room when working with the producer, recalling that he was constantly being told he was doing something wrong. The sessions even ground to a halt for a few years when Batchelor fired one of the engineers after he recorded over one of the tracks, despite telling that same engineer to do it.
Batchelor was set in his ways, though, determined to record the album his way and deliberately sabotaging every single song they wrote. By the time the band played their latest album to Alan McGee, he even said there was no way they would get to make a second album if they had songs that sounded that crummy on the first go.
After washing their hands of Batchelor, Owen Morris would be brought in to put everything back where it belonged. Utilising his brick-walling technique, Morris gave the mix the push it needed, pushing every song into the red whenever he could and making it sound like you’ve landed at the greatest gig of all time whenever they came out of the speakers. Oasis were now on their way, but chances are, had they stayed with Batchelor, they would have either fizzled out after one album or broken up before Definitely Maybe got a proper release.
