The story of how Oasis got their name
It would take a miracle to get the Gallagher brothers on the same page. Although Noel Gallagher had always wanted the opportunity to play in a band, nothing fell into place until he heard his brother Liam’s “John Lennon-crossed-with-John Lydon” voice when playing in a band called the Rain. Though both brothers had a mutual love for music and shared a similar vision for their rock group, it took a long time before they finally settled on the name Oasis.
Before Liam became interested in music, Noel was already writing songs like clockwork. The only problem was he didn’t have anyone to share his material with. Since he had no opportunities in Manchester, Noel started out as a roadie for the group Inspiral Carpets, where he learned the trade of living on the road in a rock and roll band. On the same tour, Noel would also meet Mark Coyle, who would go on to do sound for most of Oasis’ gigs later down the line.
On a night off from touring, Noel phoned his mother back home and heard that his brother was putting a band together. Along with Liam were Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs and Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan, who had originally come up with the name the Rain. After trying out a few songs as Rain, the need for a new name became apparent. Perusing around Noel’s room, he noticed a poster for a show the elder Gallagher had been a roadie for in 1991 at a Swindon leisure centre. The name of that lowly Swindon establishment was Oasis Leisure Centre, and, as it appeared on the posters for the show with a unique boldness, it struck a chord with Liam Gallagher. After this moment, things for the band went from strength to strength.
As Oasis started to play clubs, though, Liam thought that they would be much stronger if they had his brother and invited Noel to see them live to hear what he thought. As Tony McCarroll mentioned in his book Oasis: The Truth, Noel hid his admiration from his brother, saying: “Liam had invited Noel down. After we had finished, he went out front to see Noel and asked him what he thought. He replied, ‘Fucking shit’. Liam was deflated. Then a friend came in to tell him that Noel had been engrossed”.
While Noel saw the band’s potential at that fateful gig, both brothers have conflicting accounts of how he got into the band. While Noel mentioned that he never set out to take over the band in the documentary Oasis: Supersonic, Liam jokingly said that Noel came to him in tears, begging on his hands and knees to join the band.
As soon as Noel started to show his songs to the band, the creative tides started to change. According to Bonehead (via American Songwriter), “He had loads of stuff written. When he walked in, we were a band making a racket with four tunes. All of a sudden, there were loads of ideas”. In their early rehearsals, the band had the building blocks of what would become classics, including their now famous cover of the Beatles’ ‘I Am the Walrus’.
The rough sketches also included a primitive version of ‘All Around the World’, which Noel made a point to save for Be Here Now so he could add an orchestra to the mix. It would take a few more years to get Oasis off the ground, but these were the baby steps of an outfit that would soon become the biggest band that Britain had ever seen.