super groovy delicious bite: definitely maybe

Oasis made it happen with sibling rivalry and pugilist punk pop possibilities on this audacious initiation. The group started out as The Rain with Paul McGuigan on bass, Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs on guitar, Tony McCarroll on drums, and Chris Hutton on vocals. Arthurs admits: "We had fuck all else to do. It was either get in a band, or get drunk every night." Liam Gallagher was brought in by Arthurs to replace Hutton and suggested the name of the group be changed to Oasis, inspired by the name of one of the clubs listed on a tour poster for Inspiral Carpets that his brother Noel had hung in the bedroom they had shared.

At the time, Noel Gallagher was on tour with Inspiral Carpets as a roadie. He heard about his brother's new band and made it back for the first gig: "I told our kid the band was shite, but he definitely had something as a frontman. Then I said "You either let me write the songs and we go for superstardom or else you stay here in Manchester for the rest of your lives like sad cunts.'"

Thusly injoined, the band spent more than a year working on their sound and learning Noel's songs. Arthurs recalls: "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."

They recorded a demo tape 'Live Demonstration' and were able to get a deal with Creation Records' Alan McGee after opening for Sister Lovers at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut club in Glasgow, Scotland. Noel demures: "[McGee] didn't jump onstage. We didn't threaten to burn the place down. He pulled me as soon as we came offstage and asked if we wanted a record deal, and we said, 'Who with?' and he said, 'Creation,' so we said yes. It was agreed that we were going to sign that night, but we didn't sign until two or three months later."

'Definitely Maybe' was recorded with Liam Gallagher on vocals and tambourine; Noel Gallagher on lead guitar, backing vocals, and piano; Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs on rhythm guitar and piano; Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan on bass; and Tony McCarroll on drums; with Anthony Griffiths on backing vocals on "Supersonic". The sessions began at Monnow Valley Studio, near Monmouth with producer Dave Batchelor; but the band was not happy with the resulting sound and tried to rerecord the songs live at Sawmills Studio in Cornwall with producers Noel Gallagher and Mark Coyle layering on guitar tracks later. The sound was still not working and engineer/producer Owen Morris was brought in to rework the tracks and do the final mix.

'Definitely Maybe' went to number fifty-eight in the US, thirty-four in Japan, twenty-six in Germany, twenty-five in Switzerland, twenty-three in Australia, twenty in France, four in Sweden, and number one in Ireland and the UK, where it became the fastest selling debut album of all time and made the band rock and roll stars.