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Creation Records Founder Alan McGee Discusses Oasis And The Britpop Years

















Oasis will get back together because the warring Gallagher brothers love each other but won’t admit it, according to the man who launched them to rock stardom.

Creation Records founder Alan McGee, whose label has sold 60 million records and signed Oasis in 1993, has moved from London to enjoy an “early retirement” in a retreat near Hay-on-Wye, Powys.

As their mentor, Glaswegian McGee compared his shock on hearing about the band’s split in August to the death of Michael Jackson.

But he said he is still in regular contact with Liam and Noel – separately – and is confident that they will reform in the future.

“It is hard for them but we still get on great,” he said.

“I saw Noel last week and Liam the other month and I’m big mates with Bonehead (former guitarist Paul Arthurs),” he said.

“Yeah, I see Marcus Russell (manager) who owns Ebbw Vale’s Rugby Club and Owen Morris is a talented producer.

“At the moment, there is no chance of Oasis getting back together and I don’t want to go into it. But the brothers love each other. They are great people.”

McGee signed Oasis as Britpop began to rise and form the backbone of the cultural movement known as “Cool Britannia”.

But after being invited to a high-profile Britpop party by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in the 1990s, he now says he feels cheated by Labour.

“I can’t forget Britpop but we were all conned,” he said.

“After 17 years of the Tories, we needed to get them out.

“We thought we were getting a Labour like a mix of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan – but in Blair we really got another Margaret Thatcher.

“Me and 13 people were conned. This Government has committed crimes against humanity in Iraq, destroyed our civil liberties with CCTV and given us a nanny state which is serving the banks.”

But he is full of praise for Brecon and Radnor Liberal Democrat MP Roger Williams, who called at his house after he complained about access problems.

“Roger gets my vote,” he said. “In London I didn’t even know the name of my MP.”

At the end of the 1990s, the Creation empire crumbled after a hangover from a decade of drug abuse which saw McGee suffering from debilitating cocaine-related breakdowns.

He says his “well-documented bad behaviour” will feature in the film Upside Down: The Story Of Creation Records, which is released in March.

But McGee stresses that his days of drink and drugs are now well and truly over for the sake of his two children, aged 21 and nine.

“I don’t drink or take drugs anymore. At 49 years old, I did eventually grow up,” he said.

“People keep wanting me to get back into the record business, offering me crazy jobs like getting involved in an internet project, funded by the Chinese. But kind of like just being a dad.

“I spend most of my time DJing with Death Disco in London and Hay-on-Wye and on the computer – I’m a turning into a virtual recluse, an eccentric,” he joked.

“It is undignified when you have kids to be a ‘cano’ or an alcoholic. With kids it’s different; I want them to be proud of me.

“And me and the kids are happier than we’ve ever been in Hay-on-Wye, and the missus is getting there.”

Source: www.walesonline.co.uk

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