Getting High (46 page)

Alan, the youngest of the three, was too young to notice. He was born on 26 May 1972 and attended Deansfield Primary School. It was just as he was about to enter Crown Woods secondary school that he started to get the drumming urge.

At the dinner-table, Steve would always be tapping away. Next thing you knew, so was Alan. He was buying records now, ‘Dancing In The Street' by Martha And The Vandellas was his first purchase. But he soon graduated to James Brown. It was the drum rolls you see, the ones that Clyde Stubblefield, Brown's funky drummer, would insert into each record, that truly caught Alan's attention.

Certainly those funky drums said more to Alan than school did. Alan didn't have time for most subjects, a bit of art, a bit of English, that was about all that interested him. But he was good at long-distance running, and played a bit of football as well.

He supported Charlton FC, the local team. His dad would take Alan and his brothers to see Charlton play and that was that. Like Guigsy and the Gallagher brothers, he had no choice in the matter, really.

Alan was about ten years old when his elder brother Steve hooked up with Paul Weller and started an enduring and fruitful musical partnership that has lasted to this day. When Steve was not with Weller, he was busy encouraging his brother.

Steve was the first to teach Alan about drumming and drummers. He would show him licks, play him various records. Steve's beloved jazz albums Alan couldn't get with, but the funk stuff – The Meters, Sly Stone, James Brown – now that really gripped him.

When Steve was away touring, Alan would steal up to the loft and practise. He was a soul-boy drummer. And he was getting good. Promising enough, in fact, for Steve to recommend that he take lessons from his old teacher, Bob Armstrong. He'll sort your hands out, Steve said.

Alan's parents were cool about their youngest son's interest. Their way had always been to encourage their children. Their philosophy was simple. Follow your instincts. You want to drum? Then drum.

Alan left school with no exam results worth talking about and secured a job in the clothes shop Next, situated by London Bridge. He started at ten in the morning and was finished by three in the afternoon. It was a tidy arrangement. Straight after work Alan was home to practise. Every two weeks, it was over to Bob's for drum tuition. Alan rarely missed a lesson or a day without drumming. Steve had taught him, by his own example, the real value of discipline. You want to make it, then practise. Don't fuck around.

Then one hot summer morning on the train to work, Alan ripped his trousers at the crotch. He had no boxer shorts on underneath. Alan got to the train station, praying that no one would notice. He made it to a phone and called up his boss. They had never liked each other.

‘I said, “I'm calling from the station, I've ripped my trousers and I've got to go home and change them. I'm going to be late,”' Alan recalls. ‘He said, “Oh no, you come here straight away. Get back on the train, hold your trousers together and walk over the bridge.” I said, “I'm not walking over London Bridge with me hampton out” [hampton being cockney slang for the penis, as in Hampton Wick, dick], and he said, “If you don't come in now, you ain't got the job.” So I put the phone down and that was the end of that one. I just dossed around for a bit.

‘Then I got a job in Footes the drum shop which is in Golden Square, London's West End, and I worked there for about two and a half years.'

Meanwhile, Alan kept up his lessons with Bob Armstrong, who was a keen exponent of the Moeller technique, a graceful style that allows you, through a certain use of the hands, to play two beats where others can only play one.

Alan put this technique to work both at home, and at work, where he was also making a lot of useful contacts.

He also bought his first drum kit from Steve, (‘paid 500 quid, he ripped me off') and he was now using it to back a folky singer called Tamara. Alan White made his playing debut at the King's Head in Fulham. He can still remember it.

‘I was shitting me pants but I was well excited. I thought it would have been a bit more difficult but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.'

This association lasted about a year and a half but then Alan got bored, wanted to move on. That's when Steve, who had played on a session with a band called Star Club, recommended Alan to them. They called; Alan passed the audition.

Prior to his arrival, the band had signed a deal with Island Records and had recorded an album.

Two singles duly followed. The first, ‘Let Your Hair Down', received positive reviews, good airplay and looked like it was going to put them on the map. But it never quite took off. Nor did the follow up, ‘Hard To Get'.

That's when the band decided that America held the most promise for them. They embarked on a gruelling tour, came home and were told by their record company to record a second album. The band, Alan, Steve French, Owen Weiss, and Julian Taylor (‘the best bass player I've heard in my life') started work.

Then their A&R man got it into his head that the reason for the band's lack of success was down to their guitarist, Steve. He started lobbying to have him removed. Realising that if he stayed the band would be dropped, Steve quit and travelled over to New York. He needn't have bothered. His departure was such a blow to the group, they never quite recovered their momentum. Alan thought, fuck it, the game's up, I'm outta here.

So on to the dole, you shall go. Alan signed on for about a year and spent some time pondering how the band had all been left broke but everyone who had been around them were now driving new cars.

The band did reform but under a new name, Paint. It was hardly inspiring. Alan found himself on the Camden pub circuit – Dublin Castle, the Monarch – and he felt himself going nowhere. Again, he quit.

Not long after, Dr. Robert, who was now launching a solo career after the demise of his group, The Blow Monkeys, invited Alan to record with him.

‘I did some of his album,' Alan states, ‘and I worked with him for about three months. I well enjoyed it, he's a top man, Robert, and he had some wicked songs. The one I'm really pleased I played on was a song of his called “Circular Quay”. It's beautiful and I was really pleased with my playing on it. Then we went out to Japan and did a tour which was good. I was quite content working with him, but then Noel called.'

Alan was working in a rehearsal studio with a Creation artist named Idha when Noel walked by and heard him. He noted the name with interest, especially when he discovered he was Steve White's brother. When Tony McCarroll was sacked, Alan was the first drummer that Noel called. Alan wasn't there when the phone rang. But his mum was.

‘Some bloke who sounded like he was off Coronation Street called you today,' she told her son when he walked in that evening. ‘Noel Gullagugga, something like that.'

Alan stepped back. ‘Do you mean Noel Gallagher?' he asked. ‘Yeah, that's him. The number's over there. Do you want a cup of tea, love?'

The next day Alan phoned back.

‘I said,” All right, Noel? It's Al, I believe you want a chat.” And he said, “Yeah, I want you to be in my band.” I said, “Don't you want me to audition?” He said, “No, don't worry about that. I've heard you play. As long as you're not eighteen stone and you've got a nice jacket and a nice pair of Levi's, you're in.”'

They first met at the Cafe Delancey in Camden. Noel remembers, ‘I didn't know what he looked like until this guy came up and said, “All right, Noel? How's it going? Fancy a Nelson?” [Nelson Mandela, Stella lager] I knew it would be cool then.'

Noel was staying temporarily in Fulham at the time, at Johnny Marr's flat, so after a drink they went back to the flat and Alan played him a tape of the records he'd appeared on. Noel said, brilliant, you're in.

The next day, they got together at John Henry's rehearsal space, studio six, in North London. They jammed for a couple of hours and then went down the pub to meet Guigsy.

Alan walked in and did a double-take when he saw the Oasis bassist.

He recalls, ‘We met him in this pub down the road and I thought he was about thirty-five years old. He had mad hair and it was all grey. He had a drink and he was shaking. I thought, fucking hell, it's like someone out of the Stones who's done too much. Then I found out he was only my age, and I thought, this band is having it. Guigsy has got grey hair, Bonehead's going bald, Liam is always in the paper having a ruck, what the fuck have I let myself in for?'

They returned to the studio and now the three of them played together. Noel then said, ‘We'll come back tomorrow and play some of the new album.'

Alan said, ‘But I don't know any of the songs.'

Noel replied, ‘Doesn't matter, no one else does either.'

The first thing they learnt was ‘Roll With It', then ‘Don't Look Back In Anger', then ‘Hello'. A week later, Alan met Liam and Bonehead for the first time.

‘Luckily,' Alan observes, ‘We all got on really really well. I thought, reading all the press, it might be a bit of a bind because they're so Manchester, they might think I'm a complete lunatic from the South. But after a couple of weeks, I really settled in. I couldn't believe how easy it was.'

Liam, of course, had to test the new drummer. On the day they met, Liam swaggered into the studio and said,' All right, let's do that Beatles song “It's All Too Much.”'

Alan said, ‘Fine. 1-2-3-4,' and counted them all in. Liam was okay after that.

The following Wednesday the band travelled down to the
Top Of The Pops
studio to perform ‘Some Might Say'. Now it was starting to hit home to Alan. Here he was drumming for a band that had just soared in at number one and he was about to make his TV debut with millions of people watching.

As ever, there was a lot of hanging around. But it was a sunny day. The band got the lagers in, lolled around in the sunshine and got to know their new member. There was no friction, and how could there be? They were from the same class. Different worlds, different accents, but they all came from the same part of town.

‘I was well over the moon,' Alan recalls, a victim of listening to too many Charlton footballers being interviewed.

God only knows what Tony McCarroll thought that night as he watched Oasis play their first number-one single on TV. The last time he had been on TV with them was for Channel Four's
The White Room
show where Noel had chosen to highlight the single' s B-sides, ‘Acquiesce' and, ironically for Tony, ‘It's Good To Be Free'.

During their slot, Liam stared out at the crowd with such a mean impassive look on his face that some audience members actually averted their eyes when they looked at him. Backstage, the mood within the band hadn't been good.

Still, it had been a powerful performance, made even better for Noel when he crossed over to the other stage and performed ‘Talk Tonight', with Paul Weller backing him on electric piano and vocals. It was a performance that may well have rankled the ever-protective, ever-jealous Liam.

Afterwards people came up to Paul and said things like ‘that was brilliant, fantastic', and Paul snapped at them, ‘Well, go and tell Noel, he wrote the fucking song.'

This was the last time Tony McCarroll had appeared on TV with the band. When he sat down to watch them again, it was their
Top Of The Pops
appearance for ‘Some Might Say' which finished with Noel triumphantly holding his guitar aloft, like he'd just won the FA Cup.

That is, if McCarroll could bear to watch the band that would now take over the world.

It had all started so well. The band, coming off a number one single, were eager to record the new album. Not only would it be a buzz playing and learning a whole new batch of Noel Gallagher songs, perhaps one of the most pleasurable aspects of their job, but it also meant that when they returned to touring, they would have a new set-list to perform. They loved
Definitely Maybe
, but they'd played it over a hundred times by now.

They were booked in for six weeks at Rockfield Studios in South Wales and quickly their producer Owen Morris, picked up on the renewed energy they were displaying. Alan's presence, he believes, was a major factor.

‘He chilled the vibe within the band because now that whole Tony tension had gone,' he explains. ‘Also, Alan doesn't take any shit. I haven't seen them but I have heard stories about Liam having a go at him, and Alan going, “Come on then, hit me,” and standing up to him.

‘And he's got total respect off Noel because Alan's a phenomenal musician and they were all in love with him, going, listen to him do all these rolls, he's the new Keith Moon.'

The first track they recorded was ‘Roll With It'. Noel had shown up about two in the afternoon, blind drunk. As he lolled around the studio, roadie Jason got his guitars together while the rest of the equipment was set up.

Five hours later they were ready to go. Their method of recording was to put the music down first and then let Liam sing over the finished result.

Noel had sobered up a bit by now but he was desperate to get something down. It was seven in the evening and the football was on TV in half an hour.

‘He was drunk,' Owen explains, ‘which is probably good because he started the song nice and slow; he couldn't play fast if he wanted to. All the band were playing at once and it was just noise, all out of control. We did about five takes and while they were watching football, I had a listen back to them and it was like, the first take is the one. So we went with that.'

Liam put down his vocals the next morning and then they went on to ‘Hello'. The same thing. The band put down the music within a few takes and then Liam later added his vocals.

‘And that night after we put down “Hello”, Owen says, ‘is when Noel played me “Wonderwall”'.