The brains behind Oasis won’t look back in anger
Alan Mcgee turned an unknown band into stars. Now he’s having another go, says Garry Bushell
ALAN MCGEE – the hell-raiser behind bands like Oasis and Primal Scream – is a lot quieter these days. He’s teetotal for a start, and sports Ayatollah-style whiskers. But his eyes still light up when he tells me about his latest discovery, Merseyside band the Ks.
“They’ve just sold out the O2 Ritz in Manchester, 1,500 people,” Mcgee beams. “They love the Jam, they love Oasis, they’re Britpop for now!
“It was amazing to see – 1,500 kids, mostly 16, 17 years old, singing rock ’n’ roll songs. they’re in their early 20s but the kids going to see them are really young.”
Will they make it? “They’re good enough; they just need to get radio play, they need to get streaming.”
Mcgee’s Creation Records started in his bedroom and became the most important indie rock label of the 1990s, breaking acts like the Jesus And Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine.
His story will be told in this year’s Irvine Welsh-penned movie Creation Stories and he continues to manage the Happy Mondays and Black Grape. But for now the only thing on the Scottish maverick’s mind is his new record label Creation23, whose signings include The Clockworks and Shambolics.
The man regularly referred to as “Oasis guru Mcgee” is back in the game. “Things are different, though,” he says in a voice that has lost none of its Glasgow roots.
“We’re not living in substantial times, we’re living in hashtag times. Bands used to be able to grow, now your first gig is on Youtube.the music business has changed for ever. It’s not worse or better, it’s more planned. For me, it’s blander.as is popular culture.you go to a festival and it’s not about seeing the band, it’s about posting pictures on Facebook and Instagram.”
He goes on: “I loved the 80s and 90s. There were only four things you needed to get to break a band: 1) Steve Lemacq’s Record of the Week 2) The Word 3) the NME front cover and 4) the chart show.
“Before that it was the Sounds front cover and John Peel. It’s much more random now. Soccer AM is more relevant to new music than Jools Holland, such is the current state of music on TV.”
Mcgee shakes his head in exasperation. Has he has changed too? “A lot. when I was young I was trying to chase the world and now I’m 59. I might hang on until I’m 80, I just want one last shot. I’m different now. I’m off booze, off drugs.”
Regrets? He’s had a few...
“I do regret calling Coldplay bedwetters... a bit,” he says, “because compared to what came after them they were OK. I don’t like their music but I don’t think they’re that bad.
“I used to be a mouthy little **** ... so full of prescription drugs.”
Mcgee, born in East Kilbride and brought up in Glasgow, spent his teens listening to glam rock “and then punk – the Jam, the Pistols, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Sham 69, Subway Sect... then I got involved myself”.
He was raised a Rangers fan but finds modern football too corporate. “When I moved to London after Oasis broke big in the 90s, I used to go to Chelsea all the time. I had a box on the halfway line.
“Ken Bates, then the owner, met me and Andy Saunders from Creation and invited us for a steak. He offered me a box for life for £1million and then made us pay for his dinner.we had to buy Ken Bates a steak in his own restaurant, so I told him where to poke his offer! I sponsor a local team in Wales now, Hay St Marys FC.”
Mcgee never rests and is now on a Q&A tour. “Southern fans ask questions about the music and the songs,” he laughs. “Northern fans want to know which of the Gallagher brothers is better endowed.”
Oasis come up a lot. He came across the band playing 300-capacity King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow in 1993 and snapped them up. within two years they were one of the world’s biggest groups.
“People want to hear Oasis stories,” he shrugs. “Mine come warts and all.we were number one in 30 countries.we thought it was for ever but it was a one-moment thing. Maybe I should’ve been a bit more conscious of the money side because I was all about the music – I still am.”
Another regret is not having worked with John Lennon’s son Sean.
“I was going to manage Sean in the 90s, he was brilliant but attitudes were against him.
It used to be that if you had famous parents it was frowned on. Now he’d be appreciated.
“He wanted to be cool. I said put out three albums in five years and
I’ll make you big and cool. He couldn’t get his head around it, so I didn’t manage him.”
Doing the Q&AS has made him “like a politician”, he says with a chuckle. “I take the answer in the direction I want it to go.”
When Tony Blair’s New Labour won the 1997 election, Oasis and Mcgee were famously invited to No 10.
Mcgee used his influence to persuade the new administration to allow musicians to keep claiming benefits and get more targeted help. He’s not convinced Labour’s current crop are electable though.
After years of being the driving force behind others, Mcgee finds himself on the front line. In Creation Stories he will be played by Ewen Bremner – Spud from Trainspotting.why are people interested?
“I’m a working class guy from Glasgow who should have been factory fodder but I broke out of that life. People are interested in that. I could have been a bus driver or a security guard, instead I ended up in the music business managing great bands.”
The film is due in October. “I’ve seen it and I can live with it,” he says. “It’s good, maybe great. Steven Berkoff is playing Aleister Crowley, who comes to me in my dream. That scene is brilliant.
“Now I’m back running a record company, Creation23. It’s just me now. One person can do it. One man and his dog.
“It’s not much different from when I started...”
An Evening With Alan Mcgee is on tour into the summer. Creation23 is at creation23.tmstor.es
‘I do regret calling Coldplay bedwetters’ ‘I should’ve been more conscious of the money’