Upside Down: The Creation Story

0:00:23 > 0:00:25# We're moving round and round

0:00:25 > 0:00:28# Can't hear a single sound

0:00:29 > 0:00:32# And when I hit the ground

0:00:32 > 0:00:35# I heard a ringing sound

0:00:35 > 0:00:38# Uh-huh-huh I heard a ringing sound

0:00:38 > 0:00:40# And my head hit the ground

0:00:40 > 0:00:41# Uh-huh-huh

0:00:41 > 0:00:44# Inside I'm upside down... #

0:00:56 > 0:01:00It was like a spy thriller, he was going, "Go to Piccadilly station.

0:01:00 > 0:01:03"There'll be train tickets waiting under your name."

0:01:03 > 0:01:05So I kind of went to the ticket desk and went,

0:01:05 > 0:01:09"Do you have any train tickets to London for Noel Gallagher?"

0:01:09 > 0:01:12"Yes, here they are, already paid for, off you go in the posh seats."

0:01:12 > 0:01:15I was like "fucking hell, this is all right."

0:01:17 > 0:01:18Got to London.

0:01:18 > 0:01:21Got in a cab, gave this guy the address,

0:01:21 > 0:01:23and he looked at the address and went "fucking heck."

0:01:23 > 0:01:25And he put the thing on, and off we went.

0:01:25 > 0:01:29And I'd never been to Hackney before, it took hours to get there.

0:01:29 > 0:01:32He dropped us off outside this, er...

0:01:32 > 0:01:34Well it was like this nondescript, disused shop.

0:01:34 > 0:01:37A green door, it had.

0:01:37 > 0:01:40I had the address, I'm thinking, "This can't be the place."

0:01:40 > 0:01:42Cos like Primal Scream were on,

0:01:42 > 0:01:45and Ride, they were selling a shit-load of records then.

0:01:45 > 0:01:48"This is not what I thought it was going to be."

0:01:49 > 0:01:55There's this chap in Glasgow, a young fellow called Bobby Gillespie,

0:01:55 > 0:01:58and he wanted to go and see Thin Lizzy playing Glasgow Apollo.

0:01:58 > 0:02:02But he was too young, so he went and knocked on the door of Alan McGee,

0:02:02 > 0:02:05who was a bit older, so he could go with him.

0:02:07 > 0:02:10And that was the beginning of the whole boogaloo, really.

0:02:10 > 0:02:15And that seeded something that changed British music for ever.

0:02:23 > 0:02:27The relationship between Alan and Bobby was fundamental.

0:02:27 > 0:02:31They were two sort of old-school Glasgow punk rockers

0:02:31 > 0:02:32who were best mates.

0:02:32 > 0:02:35They had this kind of joint vision.

0:02:35 > 0:02:38Bobby as the artist, and Alan as the enabler.

0:02:38 > 0:02:42- I couldn't have done it without Gillespie.- We were co-conspirators.

0:02:42 > 0:02:44A lot of the bands were my best mates.

0:02:44 > 0:02:48Outsiders, chancers, lunatics.

0:02:48 > 0:02:52A random collection of misfits, drug addicts and sociopaths.

0:02:52 > 0:02:56I do seem to attract, and am attracted to, nut-jobs.

0:02:59 > 0:03:01It was definitely about having a party.

0:03:01 > 0:03:03It went from our delusion,

0:03:03 > 0:03:07and it eventually became the mainstream sound of a generation.

0:03:07 > 0:03:11CHEERING

0:03:20 > 0:03:23I was a loner really at school, which was good

0:03:23 > 0:03:25because it meant you were invisible.

0:03:25 > 0:03:26Nobody really picked on me.

0:03:26 > 0:03:29Gillespie was actually one of the lads.

0:03:29 > 0:03:32He always ran with the boys. He was a weirdo as well,

0:03:32 > 0:03:35he just hadn't realised he was a weirdo. I always knew I was a weirdo.

0:03:35 > 0:03:37I didn't have too much of a relationship

0:03:37 > 0:03:39with other people, really.

0:03:41 > 0:03:43I was maybe 15, Bobby was 14.

0:03:43 > 0:03:47I think I took him to see a Thin Lizzy concert.

0:03:47 > 0:03:49He was a really innocent kid. He was still Gillespie,

0:03:49 > 0:03:54still loving things like the shininess of Phil Lynott's bass.

0:03:54 > 0:03:56I started getting into punk music,

0:03:56 > 0:03:59I started noticing how stupid a lot of people were.

0:03:59 > 0:04:02It's like, "I ain't anything like these fuckers."

0:04:03 > 0:04:05That's how I met McGee.

0:04:05 > 0:04:07Because he was the only other guy in the area

0:04:07 > 0:04:09who was going to see The Clash.

0:04:09 > 0:04:11We kind of joined over music.

0:04:11 > 0:04:14I remember going to buy God Save The Queen,

0:04:14 > 0:04:17and I actually thought "I am now part of the revolution."

0:04:17 > 0:04:21And I actually thought that it was like that important.

0:04:21 > 0:04:23So I got a bass, and I joined a group.

0:04:23 > 0:04:27And it was like me, Innes, and his next-door neighbour.

0:04:27 > 0:04:29Gillespie was always like our mate.

0:04:29 > 0:04:32He became the singer in this band that never played a gig.

0:04:32 > 0:04:35Which used to involve me and Innes getting drunk,

0:04:35 > 0:04:39and Gillespie rolling about to Sham 69 songs in Innes' bedroom.

0:04:39 > 0:04:42That was the beginning of us getting into the music business.

0:04:44 > 0:04:48NEWSREADER: At the end of the war it was only a small village of 2,000 people.

0:04:48 > 0:04:50It became Scotland's first new town.

0:04:50 > 0:04:54It was developed into the most successful experiment of its kind in Britain.

0:04:54 > 0:04:57This is a place where people choose to live and raise a family.

0:04:57 > 0:04:59A place to grow up in.

0:04:59 > 0:05:02A place where people can make a good life and enjoy themselves.

0:05:11 > 0:05:14We were three freaks

0:05:14 > 0:05:17in a horrible new town

0:05:17 > 0:05:21where people literally shout at us in the street.

0:05:21 > 0:05:25The reason I met Jim, it was my first year in secondary school.

0:05:25 > 0:05:27The kid that sat next to me noticed that on all my books

0:05:27 > 0:05:31I had written the names of the Velvet Underground, and The Stooges,

0:05:31 > 0:05:35and he said "I go to karate with a guy who likes all those weird groups."

0:05:35 > 0:05:36That was Jim.

0:05:36 > 0:05:39When the band first started, Douglas looked about eight.

0:05:39 > 0:05:42My dad thought I was a child molester,

0:05:42 > 0:05:46this seemingly eight-year-old kid going "is Jim coming out?"

0:05:46 > 0:05:48William Reid would always answer,

0:05:48 > 0:05:53would always shout upstairs to Jim, "Todd's here."

0:05:53 > 0:05:56And I was always thinking, "What's he calling me fucking Todd for?"

0:05:56 > 0:05:59I soon realised that Todd was short for toddler.

0:05:59 > 0:06:02I was working in a factory in East Kilbride.

0:06:02 > 0:06:06Everything we were, and everything we had, we got from rock 'n' roll,

0:06:06 > 0:06:08and it was totally heartfelt.

0:06:08 > 0:06:13We used to listen to, back-to-back, stuff like Einsturzende Neubaten

0:06:13 > 0:06:14and The Shangri-Las.

0:06:14 > 0:06:16We'd go from one extreme to the other.

0:06:16 > 0:06:19We had a kind of blueprint for Psychocandy

0:06:19 > 0:06:22long before we'd even written any of the songs.

0:06:25 > 0:06:28We were just existing in this utter void,

0:06:28 > 0:06:30quite healthy in a way,

0:06:30 > 0:06:32cos it gave us a gang mentality in a weird way,

0:06:32 > 0:06:35you know, just utterly underground.

0:06:41 > 0:06:43At this point, I got this British Rail job.

0:06:43 > 0:06:47What I really liked about that was, you could blag it,

0:06:47 > 0:06:49you could really not do very much.

0:06:49 > 0:06:52Cos all my life I've really never wanted to have a real job.

0:06:52 > 0:06:57I'm 18, 19, I've got a girlfriend, I've finally lost my virginity,

0:06:57 > 0:07:02and Innes gave me an ultimatum - I'd get thrown out of my group unless I come to London.

0:07:02 > 0:07:06You've got to understand, I'd no ambition to ever come to London,

0:07:06 > 0:07:08but I didn't want to get thrown out of the band.

0:07:10 > 0:07:14London's a make-or-break situation for anyone coming when you're young.

0:07:14 > 0:07:16You either love it or you hate it.

0:07:16 > 0:07:19After about a month, I realised I loved it.

0:07:19 > 0:07:20And for the next year, 1980,

0:07:20 > 0:07:23I had an absolute blast. No money or anything,

0:07:23 > 0:07:25but being Scottish, with Innes,

0:07:25 > 0:07:28trying to get a band together, it was just good fun, you know?

0:07:30 > 0:07:34My best friend joined Alan's band The Laughing Apple, as the drummer.

0:07:34 > 0:07:37Weekend, I tagged along to their rehearsals and gigs.

0:07:37 > 0:07:40What did do I think of him? He was mad.

0:07:40 > 0:07:42Already a totally overpowering presence.

0:07:44 > 0:07:46I used to go to a venue in Victoria,

0:07:46 > 0:07:50and every Tuesday night, they used to have indie night,

0:07:50 > 0:07:53and there was this band called TV Personalities.

0:07:53 > 0:07:57MUSIC: "Part Time Punks" by TV Personalities

0:07:59 > 0:08:02It was the first thing since The Clash in '77

0:08:02 > 0:08:06that absolutely knocked me for six and changed it for me.

0:08:06 > 0:08:10And I couldn't believe that people were this mental.

0:08:10 > 0:08:14There was no idea there was going to be 16, 17 people on stage.

0:08:14 > 0:08:16It was just a free-for-all.

0:08:16 > 0:08:18# The part-time punks... #

0:08:18 > 0:08:20And then in the middle of it all,

0:08:20 > 0:08:22this lunatic,

0:08:22 > 0:08:24who I believe is Joe Foster,

0:08:24 > 0:08:25got on...

0:08:27 > 0:08:29..and got a saw,

0:08:29 > 0:08:32and cut a Rickenbacker in half.

0:08:32 > 0:08:34I think Ed Ball was on bass, but I'm not sure.

0:08:34 > 0:08:37It was just insane.

0:08:37 > 0:08:40# But they're not pressed in red So they buy The Lurkers instead... #

0:08:40 > 0:08:44The next day, I went to Rough Trade and stole all their records,

0:08:44 > 0:08:49and from then on I became completely influenced by the TV Personalities,

0:08:49 > 0:08:53and I was like, "My God, maybe I can do that."

0:08:53 > 0:08:58And that was it. That was the moment Creation Records became a reality

0:08:58 > 0:09:01and I decided to do it. Without Dan there'd be no Creation Records.

0:09:01 > 0:09:06Without the TV Personalities there'd be no Creation Records.

0:09:09 > 0:09:11I started promoting shows when I was about 21.

0:09:11 > 0:09:15There was a page 3 news story in the NME, saying that Alan McGee,

0:09:15 > 0:09:20who no-one knew, was starting a club up in London called The Living Room.

0:09:20 > 0:09:23Nobody could get or wanted gigs at places like The Rock Garden,

0:09:23 > 0:09:25so there were places in pubs,

0:09:25 > 0:09:28the function room, so it was either strippers or bands.

0:09:28 > 0:09:30We put on The Nightingales for 50 quid.

0:09:30 > 0:09:34200 people showed up, and it was insane.

0:09:34 > 0:09:36It went on like that for about a year.

0:09:36 > 0:09:40It became a very...instant scene,

0:09:40 > 0:09:42then very quickly it became your every weekend.

0:09:42 > 0:09:44You would go even if you weren't playing.

0:09:44 > 0:09:46It became THE place to go and hang out.

0:09:53 > 0:09:54Next Thursday,

0:09:54 > 0:09:57at the same place, same time,

0:09:57 > 0:10:00The Nightingales are playing, so I hope you'll all be here.

0:10:04 > 0:10:07What makes us start the label is Protestant guilt.

0:10:07 > 0:10:11The Protestant work ethic, a lot of West-of-Scotland people have this.

0:10:11 > 0:10:16I was making about £600, £700 a week,

0:10:16 > 0:10:18which me and Joe Foster and Dick Green were drinking,

0:10:18 > 0:10:23but after being pissed for about three months solid,

0:10:23 > 0:10:24I got guilty about it, and thought

0:10:24 > 0:10:28we should do something with this money. So we started a record label.

0:10:28 > 0:10:32We all had a collective ambition, we were all going to do this.

0:10:32 > 0:10:33It was like a gang.

0:10:33 > 0:10:36There was always a self-importance about it all.

0:10:36 > 0:10:39That was definitely me, but a big part Joe Foster.

0:10:39 > 0:10:43I think we cooked each other up. The bits I never had in my armour,

0:10:43 > 0:10:46Joe Foster definitely had in his.

0:10:46 > 0:10:49So it was two of the most deluded people in London,

0:10:49 > 0:10:51walking about going, "We're fantastic."

0:10:53 > 0:10:54I'm up a hill, as you can see,

0:10:54 > 0:10:57and you'll spot the connection in a moment.

0:10:57 > 0:11:00I'm here to meet a band who I think are wonderful.

0:11:00 > 0:11:03I love their sound. They're The Loft, and they're up this hill too.

0:11:03 > 0:11:07MUSIC: "Up The Hill And Down The Slope" by The Loft

0:11:07 > 0:11:09So we did some gigs first for Alan.

0:11:09 > 0:11:12Within a gig or two, he said, "I'm starting a label."

0:11:12 > 0:11:15It was like, "Do you want to do a single?" "Yeah, all right."

0:11:15 > 0:11:17So we went off to a studio.

0:11:17 > 0:11:19I think he said, "Well, I've got 50 quid."

0:11:19 > 0:11:22Which didn't quite match what we were hoping.

0:11:23 > 0:11:27# Give me the money or I'll shoot you right between the eyes... #

0:11:27 > 0:11:32So we used to give bands £100 to go to Alaska Studios, or £200,

0:11:32 > 0:11:35and we would press it up.

0:11:35 > 0:11:38# Please

0:11:38 > 0:11:39# Don't say no... #

0:11:39 > 0:11:41It was done incredibly quickly.

0:11:41 > 0:11:43I did the vocal and went, "I'm doing that again."

0:11:43 > 0:11:45It was, "No, that's great."

0:11:45 > 0:11:47"No, I really want to do it again." "No, that's great."

0:11:47 > 0:11:51And that was it, that was the moment of, "Oh, well, that's it."

0:11:54 > 0:11:57Very cheap studios,

0:11:57 > 0:11:59limited equipment,

0:11:59 > 0:12:01limited time,

0:12:01 > 0:12:03how do we make the best of it? But in a bizarre way,

0:12:03 > 0:12:10sometimes the least you have actually magnifies...

0:12:10 > 0:12:13It magnifies your vision, magnifies the whole thing.

0:12:13 > 0:12:16Joe Foster produced it in his inimitable style, which was

0:12:16 > 0:12:19basically starting an argument with the engineer immediately,

0:12:19 > 0:12:23which was kind of like his style, so he created a bad atmosphere.

0:12:23 > 0:12:25We just, like, jumped into it.

0:12:25 > 0:12:29None of us really knew anything about it. We just figured, well,

0:12:29 > 0:12:30"We've paid for this studio,

0:12:30 > 0:12:34"so you will damn well do what we tell you to do."

0:12:34 > 0:12:38It was the first sort of real record that I think Alan could get behind

0:12:38 > 0:12:42and say, "OK, we've had The Legend, I've done things with Biff Bang Pow,

0:12:42 > 0:12:45"but this is a proper band I've discovered."

0:12:45 > 0:12:48And this is the first proper record on Creation, I think.

0:12:48 > 0:12:50APPLAUSE

0:12:56 > 0:13:02Thank you, The Loft. That's Over The Hill. Thanks to Janice and her producer Michael...

0:13:07 > 0:13:09We would travel to Glasgow to play,

0:13:09 > 0:13:13and you'd almost enter a re-creation of what you'd left in London

0:13:13 > 0:13:16in terms of dress code, people, what the DJ was playing.

0:13:16 > 0:13:20So, geographically, we felt we were in both places at once.

0:13:21 > 0:13:25We would hire a disco called Daddy Warbucks

0:13:25 > 0:13:28just off George Square on a Sunday night,

0:13:28 > 0:13:30put a band on, and make compilation tapes.

0:13:32 > 0:13:34Clockwork Orange would be getting shown on the walls

0:13:34 > 0:13:39as everybody was dancing to the 13th Floor Elevators.

0:13:39 > 0:13:41We met guys like Bobby Gillespie,

0:13:41 > 0:13:44and we saw bands like Felt, Jesus And Mary Chain,

0:13:44 > 0:13:48The Loft, and all these bands were on this label, Creation,

0:13:48 > 0:13:51so you'd be hearing that and lots of psychedelic music.

0:13:51 > 0:13:53It was just a really cool club.

0:13:53 > 0:13:58We played at Splash One, and I just remember

0:13:58 > 0:14:02various drunken members of my family getting up on stage, going,

0:14:02 > 0:14:05- BROAD SCOTS ACCENT:- "I want to be in the band too! Gimme the drums!"

0:14:05 > 0:14:08It was like that, you start thinking,

0:14:08 > 0:14:11"Christ, maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all."

0:14:11 > 0:14:15Our first contact with Creation was through Bobby.

0:14:15 > 0:14:17I remember coming home from school.

0:14:17 > 0:14:21My mum said, "Some guy just called about your band,"

0:14:21 > 0:14:24and she said she'd asked him if he was famous,

0:14:24 > 0:14:27and Bobby's reply was, "Not yet."

0:14:27 > 0:14:30I thought he was worth calling back.

0:14:30 > 0:14:32When we met them,

0:14:32 > 0:14:34they had this sound, the image,

0:14:34 > 0:14:36the philosophy,

0:14:36 > 0:14:38they had everything intact. It was all there.

0:14:38 > 0:14:41They just needed a drummer, I guess,

0:14:41 > 0:14:44and eventually that drummer was me.

0:14:44 > 0:14:48They said, "Mummy, London, Alan McGee's got a record label,

0:14:48 > 0:14:50"he'll put something out, man."

0:14:50 > 0:14:51So we contacted Alan,

0:14:51 > 0:14:54and initially he wasn't that interested.

0:14:54 > 0:14:57But he was going to give us a gig,

0:14:57 > 0:15:00so we came down to London to play our first gig.

0:15:00 > 0:15:04MUSIC: "Some Candy Talking" by Jesus And Mary Chain

0:15:04 > 0:15:08So we put on some really good bands and had some amazing nights,

0:15:08 > 0:15:10started a label,

0:15:10 > 0:15:13it's about 10 or 11 seven-inch singles in,

0:15:13 > 0:15:15then we meet The Jesus And Mary Chain.

0:15:20 > 0:15:22He was literally frothing at the mouth,

0:15:22 > 0:15:25saying things like, "Five albums! Ten albums!

0:15:25 > 0:15:28"Yeah, we're going to make millions!" And we're thinking,

0:15:28 > 0:15:29"That guy's mad."

0:15:29 > 0:15:32But whatever, he was willing to put a record out.

0:15:32 > 0:15:33That was good enough for us.

0:15:33 > 0:15:35And about six weeks later,

0:15:35 > 0:15:38they had a massive single with that noise, Upside Down.

0:15:38 > 0:15:42MUSIC: "Upside Down" by Jesus And Mary Chain

0:15:51 > 0:15:54# We're moving round and round

0:15:54 > 0:15:57# Can't hear a single sound

0:15:57 > 0:16:01# And when I hit the ground

0:16:01 > 0:16:04# I heard a ringing sound, uh-huh-huh

0:16:04 > 0:16:08# I heard a ringing sound

0:16:08 > 0:16:10# And my head hit the ground

0:16:10 > 0:16:13# The sound of upside-down... #

0:16:13 > 0:16:16It's a brilliant, violent, pop record.

0:16:16 > 0:16:18- It is a great pop record.- Yeah.

0:16:18 > 0:16:22It's great in the way that Be My Baby is a great pop record.

0:16:22 > 0:16:24It's a huge explosion of sound

0:16:24 > 0:16:27that completely inspires people,

0:16:27 > 0:16:29and that's all you need.

0:16:29 > 0:16:32We thought, "This is a big number one hit."

0:16:32 > 0:16:36# You think you're dangerous, you never was but you can't see... #

0:16:38 > 0:16:42It was amazing, but at the same time it was kind of an anti-climax.

0:16:42 > 0:16:44I remember

0:16:44 > 0:16:46sitting in Alan's little flat

0:16:46 > 0:16:50in Tottenham, folding up the little gatefold paper sleeves

0:16:50 > 0:16:53and stuffing them into plastic bags,

0:16:53 > 0:16:57and it was me, William, Douglas, Bobby and Alan who did it.

0:16:57 > 0:17:00The bad behaviour crept in, really.

0:17:00 > 0:17:03It was more functional than getting off our heads.

0:17:03 > 0:17:06We've got to stay up all night, so we do speed to stay up.

0:17:06 > 0:17:08And I remember sitting there, thinking,

0:17:08 > 0:17:12"Marc Bolan didn't do this. David Bowie didn't do this.

0:17:12 > 0:17:14"There's got to be more to it than this."

0:17:14 > 0:17:15And there was.

0:17:20 > 0:17:24The Jesus And Mary Chain are the most un-riot band of all time!

0:17:24 > 0:17:26They couldn't start a riot, but Alan McGee,

0:17:26 > 0:17:29he could start a riot in a paper bag.

0:17:29 > 0:17:32We knew there was going to be a riot at the North London Poly,

0:17:32 > 0:17:35because when we went there, there was people talking about it.

0:17:35 > 0:17:36The stage was invaded,

0:17:36 > 0:17:39those beautiful red velvet curtains were pulled down,

0:17:39 > 0:17:44the PA was pulled into a pile in the middle of the floor,

0:17:44 > 0:17:46the police came running in with truncheons.

0:17:46 > 0:17:50It looked like something from the Notting Hill riots in the '50s.

0:17:50 > 0:17:53And we had to lock ourselves in the dressing room.

0:17:53 > 0:17:56There was people pounding on the door with hammers, I remember.

0:17:56 > 0:17:59We were thinking, "What a way to spend a Friday night,

0:17:59 > 0:18:01"coming to see a band and thinking,

0:18:01 > 0:18:02"Let's kill them after the show."

0:18:02 > 0:18:05Well, what the hell happened?

0:18:05 > 0:18:08We want people to come and listen to music, not fight. They should

0:18:08 > 0:18:12divert their energies elsewhere if they want to fight. Not at us.

0:18:17 > 0:18:19It's the world's largest rock spectacular.

0:18:19 > 0:18:2272,000 packed into Wembley Stadium. More in America.

0:18:22 > 0:18:25The Prince and Princess of Wales came early,

0:18:25 > 0:18:28and Live Aid's creator joined the royal acclaim.

0:18:28 > 0:18:31Where does Mr Alan McGee

0:18:31 > 0:18:35fit into this rainbow of possibilities?

0:18:35 > 0:18:39Is he a shadow,

0:18:39 > 0:18:42coming along, smiling benignly?

0:18:42 > 0:18:45Or is he at the top of the mountain,

0:18:45 > 0:18:50laughing like a maniac, waving the flag and saying "Follow me?"

0:18:50 > 0:18:51I would say the second.

0:18:51 > 0:18:55People started to take Alan seriously for the first time, I think.

0:18:55 > 0:18:59A lot more attention started coming on the label.

0:18:59 > 0:19:02You'd read the New Musical Express or whatever was going about.

0:19:02 > 0:19:06All their records would get in there, their acts would be in there.

0:19:06 > 0:19:10People wanted to know what they were doing. They had a buzz about them.

0:19:11 > 0:19:14With the money from the Mary Chain's first single,

0:19:14 > 0:19:17he was able to get a room in an office block in Clerkenwell Road.

0:19:17 > 0:19:20I ended up in a broom cupboard at Hatton Garden.

0:19:23 > 0:19:26A lot more work was done in the pub. That was the continuing theme.

0:19:26 > 0:19:30I was in a taxi with Alan, and he started getting very excited.

0:19:30 > 0:19:33"Pat, Pat, we're getting Ed Ball!"

0:19:33 > 0:19:34"How do you mean?"

0:19:34 > 0:19:37"Ed! From the TV Personalities! He's coming to work for us!"

0:19:37 > 0:19:39That was great. You could go to the office,

0:19:39 > 0:19:42Ed would be there, and he lights everything up.

0:19:42 > 0:19:44Ed was one of the boys,

0:19:44 > 0:19:47and Dick was a good laugh, you know,

0:19:47 > 0:19:51and we were just having it, really having a great time in life.

0:19:51 > 0:19:52We spotted Biff Bang Pow.

0:19:52 > 0:19:54It was the first time I'd properly met McGee,

0:19:54 > 0:19:57and Dick was in the band as well, Dick Green.

0:19:57 > 0:20:00Somebody took offence to McGee,

0:20:00 > 0:20:03and had this plastic pint glass,

0:20:03 > 0:20:04chucked it at him.

0:20:04 > 0:20:06"Biff Bang Pow, you're shit!"

0:20:06 > 0:20:09He chucked it at McGee, it hit McGee, side of his head,

0:20:09 > 0:20:11and McGee took off his guitar.

0:20:11 > 0:20:14"You fuckin' bastard, fuckin' get you by the way!"

0:20:14 > 0:20:16They had this spiral staircase.

0:20:16 > 0:20:17This guy goes down there,

0:20:17 > 0:20:20there goes McGee, there goes Dick Green, there goes somebody else,

0:20:20 > 0:20:24we're all running down the staircase, out onto the streets of Camden.

0:20:24 > 0:20:28So that was one of my first touches with the whole Creation world.

0:20:40 > 0:20:42You see, I was in two bands at the same time.

0:20:42 > 0:20:47A lot of people think I was in Jesus And Mary Chain and I left to form the Scream, but it's not true.

0:20:47 > 0:20:52I was in both bands at the same time. I'm not a drummer as such. I'm not a musician in that sense.

0:20:52 > 0:20:54I only play two drums because that's all I can play.

0:20:54 > 0:20:55It was very basic but it worked.

0:20:55 > 0:20:58I wanted to be a singer in the band.

0:21:01 > 0:21:05I think early days of Primal Scream were breathtaking.

0:21:05 > 0:21:07Bobby was beautiful.

0:21:07 > 0:21:10We just wanted to be great. We didn't want to be like

0:21:10 > 0:21:14mediocre, average, just another fucking band. We wanted to be like,

0:21:14 > 0:21:16"We're going to do this. We're going to be great."

0:21:16 > 0:21:18But I knew we'd be good.

0:21:18 > 0:21:23I remember sitting on a hillside above Glasgow thinking, "We're going to get out of here,

0:21:23 > 0:21:26"play all around the world because I know that we're fucking good."

0:21:26 > 0:21:28"I know we're better than anybody else".

0:21:28 > 0:21:32The Primal Scream thing was really just based out of friendship.

0:21:32 > 0:21:34They were the coolest.

0:21:34 > 0:21:37I toured with them. I remember going to Amsterdam

0:21:37 > 0:21:39with The Weather Prophets and Primal Scream.

0:21:39 > 0:21:44And they went from the sort of cute little boys into the rock stars.

0:21:44 > 0:21:48With them, it was like drink and girls and drugs were number one.

0:21:48 > 0:21:50Their music was number four or something.

0:21:50 > 0:21:54I just remember there was me and Kizzy and Paul Mulreany from our band.

0:21:54 > 0:21:58We were all just milling about in dirty jeans and jumpers, just looking like tramps, really,

0:21:58 > 0:22:01at the office, and then, around the corner, comes the Scream.

0:22:01 > 0:22:04And they've got nothing going on at this point. They haven't even got a band.

0:22:04 > 0:22:07But there's Innes and there's Bob and there's Throb.

0:22:07 > 0:22:11And they come round in their leathers and their hair and they are just the coolest thing.

0:22:11 > 0:22:14You know? It's like, "Look, real pop stars!"

0:22:16 > 0:22:20And it didn't matter that they had nothing.

0:22:20 > 0:22:24We did a deal off the back of the success of Mary Chain.

0:22:24 > 0:22:29Rob Dickens, the guy that ran Warners, he saw something in me that gave me a shot.

0:22:29 > 0:22:31When we put Elevation together,

0:22:31 > 0:22:35it was because I wanted to have his spirit in A&R.

0:22:35 > 0:22:37And he wanted to have distribution and finance

0:22:37 > 0:22:39to do the projects he loved.

0:22:39 > 0:22:44He gave me Elevation Records which his record company suffocated.

0:22:44 > 0:22:47But the Primals and The Weather Prophets were on there.

0:22:47 > 0:22:52I shared his passion at the Primal Scream album. I shared it less at The Weather Prophets.

0:22:52 > 0:22:58It didn't work out. I think there's a spirit that doesn't work at a major record company.

0:22:58 > 0:23:01What makes them great is that they can't...

0:23:01 > 0:23:04work within the framework of a normal organisation.

0:23:04 > 0:23:06They're very dictatorial.

0:23:06 > 0:23:09It's all about their view on the world.

0:23:09 > 0:23:12And it's very hard to slot that into a major organisation.

0:23:12 > 0:23:16It taught us a lot, and when we went back to the indie thing,

0:23:16 > 0:23:19it was with renewed vigour, to be honest.

0:23:19 > 0:23:23He shoved me into founding The House Of Love, The Valentines.

0:23:23 > 0:23:26Alan, you haven't given up totally.

0:23:26 > 0:23:28Alan McGee, by the way, was the gentleman

0:23:28 > 0:23:32who brought Jesus And Mary Chain to fruition in this world.

0:23:32 > 0:23:37You've now got The House Of Love with a single out on Monday which is a major event for you.

0:23:45 > 0:23:47Everyone was so obsessed with being cool.

0:23:47 > 0:23:51I mean, I know bands. This is what it's like, you know.

0:23:51 > 0:23:53But that lot,

0:23:53 > 0:23:56they really did take the biscuit.

0:23:56 > 0:23:58# Destroy the heart she said

0:23:58 > 0:24:01# You will suffer and be scared

0:24:01 > 0:24:05We were backing up someone, and he just came up to me after the gig

0:24:05 > 0:24:09and just tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I would really like to do an album.

0:24:09 > 0:24:12"Are you into doing it?" And I went, "Yeah!"

0:24:12 > 0:24:14The first time that Guy came in,

0:24:14 > 0:24:20we were all sort of like, working-class, Scottish council estate kids, more or less.

0:24:20 > 0:24:22Then having Kenneth Branagh walking up to you.

0:24:22 > 0:24:24- POSH VOICE:- It was, "Hi."

0:24:24 > 0:24:28"How are you doing? I'm Guy. What's your name? Nice to meet you."

0:24:28 > 0:24:31I had had experience of being on a major label.

0:24:31 > 0:24:36I had been signed to CBS Publishing and been dropped, so I kind of understood the process.

0:24:36 > 0:24:39We had some pre-prepared publicity photographs.

0:24:39 > 0:24:42They were a very small outfit, Creation,

0:24:42 > 0:24:44and they didn't do things like advertising,

0:24:44 > 0:24:47and they didn't have a good plugger and stuff like this.

0:24:47 > 0:24:50And it was all a bit, you know... They were busking.

0:24:50 > 0:24:52It was a great band.

0:24:52 > 0:24:55Guy was very ambitious, very driven, very driven character.

0:24:55 > 0:24:59I remember we were on tour and John Peel started playing our album.

0:24:59 > 0:25:03Almost every night he played a track and it just went through the roof.

0:25:03 > 0:25:05It was a pretty heady ascent at the time.

0:25:05 > 0:25:07The music papers loved them.

0:25:07 > 0:25:09All the journalists wanted to interview,

0:25:09 > 0:25:12wanted to hang out with them.

0:25:12 > 0:25:14And basically, Guy Chadwick and Terry Bickers

0:25:14 > 0:25:18were shaping up to be the Morrissey and Marr of that time.

0:25:18 > 0:25:21It was the first Creation album that sold, you know.

0:25:21 > 0:25:23It was the one that set them up, basically.

0:25:23 > 0:25:26And that changed everything for the label because, you know,

0:25:26 > 0:25:30the phone was just ringing all the time, and...

0:25:30 > 0:25:34there were more people being employed! It was party time for them.

0:25:34 > 0:25:38They were absolute rock 'n' roll animals.

0:25:39 > 0:25:42They have carried on. They're a bunch of mummy's boys.

0:25:42 > 0:25:45For about two years I spent on the road with them...

0:25:45 > 0:25:48the worst behaviour.

0:25:48 > 0:25:51They were just shockingly out of control.

0:25:53 > 0:25:55It was growing so fast and it got out of hand.

0:25:55 > 0:26:00I think I had nervous exhaustion combined with sort of drugs psychosis.

0:26:00 > 0:26:04For me, it was just drinking far too much,

0:26:04 > 0:26:08and I didn't find it very easy coping with being famous all of a sudden.

0:26:08 > 0:26:11I was kind of like feeling at my lowest ebb.

0:26:11 > 0:26:13But the band was at its highest peak.

0:26:13 > 0:26:18As we became more successful, my state of mind took a real nosedive.

0:26:20 > 0:26:23Major labels, at this point, absolutely adored Alan.

0:26:23 > 0:26:26They loved him because they saw in him the man who had the key.

0:26:26 > 0:26:29Absolutely, he did!

0:26:29 > 0:26:33They loved him, and he absolutely hated their guts.

0:26:33 > 0:26:34Absolutely hated them!

0:26:34 > 0:26:37I'd asked Alan to manage the group, and I'd said, you know,

0:26:37 > 0:26:41"We should get a bit more muscle, you know."

0:26:41 > 0:26:45So Creation managed us and he just went on the razz, you know.

0:26:45 > 0:26:48And McGee just had an enormous amount of balls, you know,

0:26:48 > 0:26:50and an enormous amount of nerve.

0:26:50 > 0:26:53He took on the majors, for God's sake!

0:26:53 > 0:26:56He fronted out EMI, RCA, MCA, CBS.

0:26:56 > 0:26:58You name them, he fronted them all out!

0:26:58 > 0:27:02The Waldorf behind a pair of glasses.

0:27:02 > 0:27:06- He went, "We're going to get the best deal anyone's ever got." - One of the biggest!

0:27:06 > 0:27:10"So-and-so's offered us this much money, so-and-so this much."

0:27:10 > 0:27:14And got the last of the biggest record deals for The House Of Love.

0:27:14 > 0:27:17And signed him to Fontana, yeah.

0:27:17 > 0:27:20At the point where Jesus And Mary Chain have turned into this phenomenon,

0:27:20 > 0:27:23that they want to go with a major.

0:27:23 > 0:27:26That was the point where the first cut is the deepest.

0:27:26 > 0:27:29The deeper the cut, the harder you come back,

0:27:29 > 0:27:31and he roared back!

0:27:31 > 0:27:35The righteous revenge of the man was fully justified.

0:27:35 > 0:27:39The success of House Of Love was that fulfilment.

0:27:39 > 0:27:42That was the last time where Creation was going to lose a band

0:27:42 > 0:27:44to a major, or any label for that matter,

0:27:44 > 0:27:47and all the bands were going to stay on the label.

0:27:52 > 0:27:54Ladies and gentlemen,

0:27:54 > 0:27:57we're leaving Downing Street for the last time,

0:27:57 > 0:28:01after 11.5 wonderful years,

0:28:01 > 0:28:04and we're very happy that we leave the United Kingdom

0:28:04 > 0:28:07in a very, very much better state

0:28:07 > 0:28:10than when we came here 11.5 years ago.

0:28:12 > 0:28:13The greats of rock 'n' roll,

0:28:13 > 0:28:16be they people who twanged or wailed or...

0:28:17 > 0:28:20..figured out ideas,

0:28:20 > 0:28:22by and large, were the lunatics.

0:28:35 > 0:28:37The Valentines were great. I always liked them.

0:28:37 > 0:28:41Joe Foster first found them about '85, '86.

0:28:41 > 0:28:42Kevin wasn't singing then.

0:28:42 > 0:28:46And they were pretty terrible, but they weren't really bad.

0:28:46 > 0:28:49We always thought we were going to be good.

0:28:49 > 0:28:51And I only began to realise we might be good

0:28:51 > 0:28:53after about four years of trying.

0:29:10 > 0:29:14In '88, we were on tour and we met Alan McGee.

0:29:14 > 0:29:16It came round that this guy

0:29:16 > 0:29:18was going to do a gig,

0:29:18 > 0:29:22and he wanted Biff Bang Pow, me and Dick to support the Valentines.

0:29:22 > 0:29:25He was in a band supporting us, actually.

0:29:25 > 0:29:28We were like, "No way are we supporting them!"

0:29:28 > 0:29:30They were so dodgy around this time.

0:29:30 > 0:29:34They were such an anorak band that me and Dick, we had to play above them.

0:29:34 > 0:29:37So we went on after them,

0:29:37 > 0:29:40and suddenly, there'd been a total metamorphosis.

0:29:40 > 0:29:43He'd somehow grasped what it was he was trying to do.

0:29:43 > 0:29:47And it was like raw and it was amazing.

0:29:47 > 0:29:50We were just being really angry and full of energy and spirit and all that

0:29:50 > 0:29:52and he was a bit impressed by it.

0:29:52 > 0:29:55Me and Dick both looked at each other, and we were like,

0:29:55 > 0:29:58"We've got to do it." And he was like, "We've got to do it."

0:29:58 > 0:30:02So we went in the dressing room and went, "Do you want to be in Creation?"

0:30:02 > 0:30:07So, we made this EP in a kind of state of mind of, "Well, why not?

0:30:07 > 0:30:08"Let's do anything."

0:30:18 > 0:30:21I discovered... I was trying to do,

0:30:21 > 0:30:23you know when you kind of bend the guitar string

0:30:23 > 0:30:27and you get the double effect, the Chuck Berry thing.

0:30:27 > 0:30:31You know, the Pixies used to do it all the time. That bendy thing.

0:30:31 > 0:30:33I was trying to do that, and I couldn't do it.

0:30:33 > 0:30:35So I just got the idea of tuning

0:30:35 > 0:30:38the two strings together and use the tremolo arm.

0:30:38 > 0:30:42And then, I suddenly found that there was this amazingly expressive thing.

0:30:42 > 0:30:46So, in the space of about four or five days, we kind of made our sound.

0:30:46 > 0:30:51By the time we came out of the studio, we had the whole thing,

0:30:51 > 0:30:54that melting thing, it just all kind of happened.

0:30:54 > 0:30:56I never thought they'd become what they did.

0:30:56 > 0:31:00They went up about five levels with Isn't Anything,

0:31:00 > 0:31:01it's an amazing record.

0:31:01 > 0:31:05WOOZY, DRONING GUITARS

0:31:15 > 0:31:19CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Thank you!

0:31:20 > 0:31:24MUSIC PLAYS

0:31:49 > 0:31:55# Aaa-aaa-aaah

0:31:55 > 0:31:59# Aaa-aaa-aaah... #

0:32:05 > 0:32:10Being lucky is a talent in itself. He was very good at finding bands

0:32:10 > 0:32:14who would pick up the key when whoever was the current band was going to drop it.

0:32:14 > 0:32:18After six gigs, we had A&R men down, trying to sign us,

0:32:18 > 0:32:19which was extremely fast.

0:32:19 > 0:32:21We knew that then, even.

0:32:21 > 0:32:24At that point, I was re-taking an art history exam or something.

0:32:24 > 0:32:27And I remember coming home at lunchtime,

0:32:27 > 0:32:32putting a pasty and beans or whatever in the oven to eat, the phone ringing,

0:32:32 > 0:32:35someone passed the phone to me and said, "It's a guy from Warner Brothers."

0:32:35 > 0:32:39This guy was saying, "I've been listening to your tape

0:32:39 > 0:32:41"and I want to sign your band."

0:32:41 > 0:32:46So I was just sort of, like, floored. Knocked out.

0:32:47 > 0:32:51The guy, showing off, played me this band he was going to sign called Ride.

0:32:51 > 0:32:55But he foolishly said, "I'm GOING to sign them."

0:32:55 > 0:32:57I immediately left,

0:32:57 > 0:33:02and I used to have this mobile phone that was like a cosh, right?

0:33:02 > 0:33:06And I remember going, "Dick, get me Ride's phone number."

0:33:06 > 0:33:11Two hours later, Dick would phone me up on the cosh. "01865, blah blah blah."

0:33:11 > 0:33:14And of course, he got them down.

0:33:14 > 0:33:18We were playing a big show supporting The Soup Dragons at that time.

0:33:18 > 0:33:21And who shows up but Alan McGee?

0:33:21 > 0:33:26Ride were literally schoolchildren. They were harder to get than most, actually.

0:33:26 > 0:33:29If they were a bit older, they were easier to get, because you

0:33:29 > 0:33:33just sent them out of their minds and they would sign with you.

0:33:33 > 0:33:35I basically used the other tactic I used to have.

0:33:35 > 0:33:39I showed up every gig on their British tour for two weeks,

0:33:39 > 0:33:41until they signed with me.

0:33:41 > 0:33:45The bands he had already got on his label just spoke volumes.

0:33:45 > 0:33:48McGee had got some of our favourite bands anyway,

0:33:48 > 0:33:50it was just like a no-brainer.

0:33:50 > 0:33:54I knew they were massive. I knew they were going to be huge.

0:33:54 > 0:33:55Two great talents in one band.

0:33:55 > 0:33:59It was very much what the indie press was after at the time.

0:33:59 > 0:34:03First single cracked it, second single went in the charts.

0:34:03 > 0:34:05And they became instantly huge as a live band.

0:34:13 > 0:34:17Every month or two, we would put out a single and we would be playing bigger venues,

0:34:17 > 0:34:20and this didn't stop until, like, mid-1993.

0:34:20 > 0:34:24It was a dream for me, that my band would start to do well.

0:34:24 > 0:34:28I never really expected that, I don't think any of us did at the start.

0:34:28 > 0:34:32The first album went gold immediately.

0:34:32 > 0:34:34We thought, "This is going to be the Beatles,

0:34:34 > 0:34:38"this is going to be the most massive thing ever."

0:34:38 > 0:34:41Because we just kept growing, and it was a phenomenon for a while.

0:34:43 > 0:34:47Melody over noise was an unusual thing at the time, you know.

0:34:47 > 0:34:51We had been getting into Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr and Husker Du

0:34:51 > 0:34:54and bands like that.

0:34:54 > 0:34:55MUSIC PLAYS

0:35:03 > 0:35:08A lot of people were influenced by that, and I seemed to be the only person that signed these bands.

0:35:08 > 0:35:11It felt like there was something really important there,

0:35:11 > 0:35:13those bands sounded so different.

0:35:13 > 0:35:17I was the only person in the world that actually wanted them.

0:35:17 > 0:35:24So when they came along, like The Telescopes or Slowdive, Swervedriver, nobody wanted them!

0:35:24 > 0:35:26I was the only person that liked it.

0:35:26 > 0:35:30I had no idea it was going to be this influential kind of music.

0:35:30 > 0:35:33You go to America and you heard shoegazing guys.

0:35:40 > 0:35:44I think the darkness of Swervedriver really appealed

0:35:44 > 0:35:45to a lot of Americans.

0:35:45 > 0:35:50Swervedriver were probably on different kind of drugs from most of the people on Creation, you know?

0:35:50 > 0:35:55We were more probably speed and cider at the time!

0:35:55 > 0:35:58I never saw them as shoegazing myself,

0:35:58 > 0:36:03but they did seem to get lumped in. The only shoes they gazed at were the ones that were flying past

0:36:03 > 0:36:05as people were surfing in front of them.

0:36:14 > 0:36:18There's a sudden realisation that, shit, you know, we've got to follow this up now!

0:36:18 > 0:36:21MUSIC: "Leave Them All Behind" by Ride

0:36:21 > 0:36:26# Wheels turning round

0:36:26 > 0:36:31# Into alien ground

0:36:31 > 0:36:37# Past two different times

0:36:37 > 0:36:41# Leave them all behind

0:36:41 > 0:36:47# Leave them all behind

0:36:47 > 0:36:52# Leave them all behind

0:36:52 > 0:36:56# Leave them all behind... #

0:36:58 > 0:37:04We started to go to places like Japan and America for the first time, and that's when you get

0:37:04 > 0:37:08the likes of Seymour Stein starting to enter the scene.

0:37:08 > 0:37:11Alan had started having relationships with major labels in the States.

0:37:11 > 0:37:16Sire was a cool indie label run by a cool music obsessive,

0:37:16 > 0:37:22huge fan, that became a big, thriving world force.

0:37:22 > 0:37:26Ride was one of those wonderful accidents.

0:37:26 > 0:37:29They were opening for one of my bands, The Mighty Lemon Drops.

0:37:29 > 0:37:34When I heard that the act was on Creation,

0:37:34 > 0:37:36I said, "This is worth checking out."

0:37:36 > 0:37:40And they were worth checking out. They were young,

0:37:40 > 0:37:44they were great musicians, they had great songs.

0:37:44 > 0:37:47I told Alan, a few days later we did a deal.

0:37:49 > 0:37:53Alan did a deal for three Creation bands with Sire in the states.

0:37:53 > 0:37:56The deal was for Ride, Primal Scream and the Valentines.

0:37:56 > 0:38:01These relationships with Sire and all the Warners people were crucial.

0:38:01 > 0:38:06The Americans probably never understood what I was saying, but somehow they believed me.

0:38:06 > 0:38:13People understand that Alan has something incredible up his sleeve. And he has worked with amazing bands.

0:38:13 > 0:38:17I cannot stress enough how many Americans can't understand

0:38:17 > 0:38:21every word he says, or even 50% of the words he says.

0:38:21 > 0:38:23He was bringing in the money that kept us going.

0:38:23 > 0:38:27It was pretty easy. I would just go in and tell people it was going to be the biggest group ever.

0:38:27 > 0:38:32We were planning, like, You've got to go and sell this one to America,

0:38:32 > 0:38:36get us another couple of hundred thousand dollars to keep us going or make a record.

0:38:36 > 0:38:39It was still very tight times, financially.

0:38:39 > 0:38:42For two or three years, we survived on advances.

0:38:42 > 0:38:46We had kind of ran out of steam, because we had sold all the bands.

0:39:01 > 0:39:04Acid house had a big effect on the label.

0:39:04 > 0:39:07I remember hearing it in '87, in clubs in Brighton.

0:39:07 > 0:39:09This music going...

0:39:09 > 0:39:12"AAH-AAH UHH AAH-UHH AAH-AAH!"

0:39:12 > 0:39:15And you'd be like, "That's rubbish!"

0:39:15 > 0:39:20Just in its ascendance is house music, dance culture,

0:39:20 > 0:39:24people making records with drumbeats, loops,

0:39:24 > 0:39:30the whole alternative crossover thing was starting to happen.

0:39:30 > 0:39:34We were in some indie club with James Williamson, January '89,

0:39:34 > 0:39:38and it was all records that I had put out. And it was the most miserable fucking club ever, right?

0:39:38 > 0:39:44I said, "Look, why don't we just go and have a good time? Why don't we go to the Hacienda?"

0:39:44 > 0:39:47He came up and supposedly had his epiphany.

0:39:49 > 0:39:57We walked in and there was 2,000 people going absolutely mental.

0:39:57 > 0:40:01Wilson was in the corner in the cocktails bar, holding court.

0:40:01 > 0:40:03He gave me a hug, I gave him a hug.

0:40:03 > 0:40:07I looked on stage, there were 600 kids on stage, I'll never forget it.

0:40:07 > 0:40:12And there was Shaun Ryder sweating profusely, out of his mind,

0:40:12 > 0:40:15leading the charge of 600 people

0:40:15 > 0:40:17punching the air.

0:40:20 > 0:40:23I remember we'd gone to see a gig at the Astoria.

0:40:23 > 0:40:25I hung around afterwards and by sheer coincidence,

0:40:25 > 0:40:27it was turning out to be a rave club

0:40:27 > 0:40:31and so I stayed and it was like this incredible slap in the face.

0:40:31 > 0:40:38The first time you hear it on an E, suddenly it's like...it's great, it's amazing, I get it.

0:40:38 > 0:40:41This is an advert for drugs.

0:40:41 > 0:40:42It made sense.

0:40:42 > 0:40:46It was like something I'd not felt for years.

0:40:46 > 0:40:50Just an incredible, dirty, sexy energy.

0:40:50 > 0:40:53I remember going into rehearsals the next day and saying,

0:40:53 > 0:40:55"I went to this club last night,"

0:40:55 > 0:41:00and described it and they were saying, "What, you went to a disco?"

0:41:00 > 0:41:03All of us one by one had that moment.

0:41:03 > 0:41:05I was converted to acid house.

0:41:05 > 0:41:08I was so insane for it that I moved to Manchester.

0:41:08 > 0:41:11It was no surprise that McGee came for six months

0:41:11 > 0:41:14and lived in Manchester. He was always hip on youth culture

0:41:14 > 0:41:17so whatever's going on, Alan McGee's got to be here somewhere.

0:41:17 > 0:41:22I phoned Wilson up, "I'm coming up." He went, "You're joking?" I went "No, I'm coming up."

0:41:22 > 0:41:26He went, "Erasmus has got a flat above us, do you want it?" "How much?"

0:41:26 > 0:41:29And it was, like, £90 a week and I went, "Have it."

0:41:29 > 0:41:32We went mental, really, for about a year.

0:41:32 > 0:41:35Tony Wilson interviewed him about why he was living in Manchester.

0:41:35 > 0:41:37May I introduce you?

0:41:37 > 0:41:40The gentleman on the left with the strange hairstyle is Alan McGee,

0:41:40 > 0:41:43the chief executive officer of Creation Records.

0:41:43 > 0:41:46- Why have you moved to Manchester? - Better class of drug.

0:41:46 > 0:41:49He gave the classic line, "Why have you moved here?"

0:41:49 > 0:41:51"There's a better class of drugs in Manchester."

0:41:51 > 0:41:55But there is. You wouldn't go there for anything else.

0:41:55 > 0:41:58SWOOPING ACID HOUSE BEATS

0:41:59 > 0:42:03Alan realised that this would be something

0:42:03 > 0:42:05that would really work for Primal Scream.

0:42:05 > 0:42:07I remember telling the Primals about it.

0:42:07 > 0:42:11Him and Jeff Barrett were completely obsessed

0:42:11 > 0:42:15by acid house, and it became like a religion for him.

0:42:15 > 0:42:20We took Bobby to, like...I think it was the Escape. This was April '89.

0:42:20 > 0:42:23That night, we got on one, as they say.

0:42:23 > 0:42:26The first one he gave me never worked!

0:42:28 > 0:42:29Second one worked.

0:42:30 > 0:42:35Gillespie got it. By about June, he'd invented acid house.

0:42:38 > 0:42:43Musically, it changed Creation. It reinvigorated it.

0:42:43 > 0:42:47It reinvigorated many of the groups on Creation.

0:42:47 > 0:42:52The energy was, like...wild. You know, like...just wild. It was just like...

0:42:52 > 0:42:55Drug-induced, but wild.

0:42:55 > 0:42:58Fed back into us and fed back into the music.

0:42:58 > 0:43:00Bobby was clever, Kevin Shields was clever.

0:43:00 > 0:43:03They were influenced by it. I took Guy Chadwick to the clubs,

0:43:03 > 0:43:05all he did was take his clothes off.

0:43:05 > 0:43:07I'm absolutely convinced the worst thing

0:43:07 > 0:43:09I can possibly do is take drugs.

0:43:09 > 0:43:12He was out of fucking control.

0:43:12 > 0:43:14Popping Es was a bad, bad idea for me.

0:43:14 > 0:43:16It was like...we're in a gay club,

0:43:16 > 0:43:20we're on drugs, acid house is pumping

0:43:20 > 0:43:22and Guy Chadwick's taking his clothes off.

0:43:22 > 0:43:24The bouncers are coming up to him going,

0:43:24 > 0:43:25"Do not take your clothes off!"

0:43:25 > 0:43:29He had no sense of danger whatsoever, do you know what I mean?

0:43:29 > 0:43:32I'm just a complete nutcase when I take drugs.

0:43:32 > 0:43:35In the corner, you've got Ian Brown watching me

0:43:35 > 0:43:38trying to put Guy Chadwick's clothes on, going,

0:43:38 > 0:43:39"What are you up to?"

0:43:39 > 0:43:41We wish you the best of luck,

0:43:41 > 0:43:43and hope you have other bizarre interviews

0:43:43 > 0:43:48and other television programmes before you're both...sent away. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

0:43:48 > 0:43:53Around late '88, beginning of '89, I moved the office to Hackney.

0:43:55 > 0:44:00That's when it really went off the hook, that's when the parties started.

0:44:00 > 0:44:04It was so disorganised. The look of the building was higgledy-piggledy.

0:44:04 > 0:44:08The office looked like what Creation was like, all creaky floors like that.

0:44:08 > 0:44:13It was like a maze. It was over a sweatshop, it was really run-down.

0:44:13 > 0:44:17There were like little staircases with little rooms off.

0:44:17 > 0:44:20We were gradually taking over this warren of disgusting rooms in this place.

0:44:20 > 0:44:23It was kind of like this really weird kind of thing

0:44:23 > 0:44:26zig-zagging across the road, Creation.

0:44:26 > 0:44:27It was total chaos.

0:44:27 > 0:44:30There were about seven or eight of us at that point,

0:44:30 > 0:44:31it soon became 12.

0:44:31 > 0:44:34They were friends that Alan had brought in to work there.

0:44:34 > 0:44:37None of them had been involved in record companies

0:44:37 > 0:44:40or corporate things before, they made it up as they went along.

0:44:40 > 0:44:44It truly was a really truly independent thing.

0:44:44 > 0:44:47You could be yourself to quite a large extent, yeah.

0:44:47 > 0:44:52You didn't have to pretend that you weren't crazy.

0:44:52 > 0:44:54A label full of personalities and mad, wild people.

0:44:54 > 0:44:57Then Tim Abbot and his brother got involved.

0:44:57 > 0:45:01Alan called me up and he said, "Let's meet up." And that was it.

0:45:01 > 0:45:07We became firm friends, partners in crime and he introduced me to Dick

0:45:07 > 0:45:10and he said, "Have a look over the company."

0:45:10 > 0:45:13It was a crazy place but there was work getting done

0:45:13 > 0:45:16and obviously we were selling...

0:45:16 > 0:45:20a decent amount of records. Probably not enough for us ever to survive.

0:45:20 > 0:45:23And we were all getting paid then as well.

0:45:23 > 0:45:26So it was a functioning company, you know.

0:45:26 > 0:45:31People did that extra bit, people wanted to be there. It was play.

0:45:31 > 0:45:33Good times though, that period was.

0:45:33 > 0:45:36Because we made great, unique, left-field records.

0:45:36 > 0:45:38MUSIC: "Loaded" by Primal Scream

0:45:38 > 0:45:41# I don't wanna lose your love

0:45:42 > 0:45:44# I don't wanna lose your love. #

0:45:44 > 0:45:48There's probably no greater human being on God's earth

0:45:48 > 0:45:51that would be surprised that Primal Scream had a hit.

0:45:51 > 0:45:55We had them for six and a half years before they had a hit single.

0:45:55 > 0:45:58The record that really made everything happened was Loaded.

0:45:58 > 0:46:00HORN PLAYS

0:46:00 > 0:46:04THROBBING BEATS KICK IN

0:46:10 > 0:46:13Andrew Weatherall come into the picture with the band

0:46:13 > 0:46:17and large quantities of...refreshments!

0:46:17 > 0:46:19He was practically the same age as us,

0:46:19 > 0:46:21growing up with the same music.

0:46:21 > 0:46:25He was into punk rock and he was into dub and into disco.

0:46:25 > 0:46:29It was just right, you know? He was an amazing person to meet.

0:46:29 > 0:46:30It was righteous, really.

0:46:30 > 0:46:34I remember the first time the cassette of Weatherall's work

0:46:34 > 0:46:37on the track came into the office, it was absolutely amazing.

0:46:37 > 0:46:39I'll never forget that moment.

0:46:39 > 0:46:42The sound was different but the essence

0:46:42 > 0:46:44of Primal Scream was still in there.

0:46:44 > 0:46:46It was like dance music came into indie music.

0:46:46 > 0:46:48That was the crossover thing.

0:46:48 > 0:46:52When Loaded happened... "Wow, they're actually doing it, they've made a dance record."

0:46:52 > 0:46:54Loaded came out as a white label in the clubs.

0:46:54 > 0:46:57That was a big turning point.

0:46:57 > 0:47:00It was very special. It just completely changed things.

0:47:00 > 0:47:03Never heard anything like this ever before.

0:47:03 > 0:47:08We went on a European tour and we were loving being in a band

0:47:08 > 0:47:11and loving the gigs but nobody was listening.

0:47:11 > 0:47:15We got back to England and people were going crazy about Loaded.

0:47:15 > 0:47:19Single of the Week everywhere and then it became a big chart record.

0:47:22 > 0:47:26Most indie records would go into the chart and go right out again.

0:47:26 > 0:47:29Even to this day, but that stayed in the chart for weeks.

0:47:29 > 0:47:32It was like a real, proper hit record.

0:47:32 > 0:47:36This was the moment that Alan could actually put

0:47:36 > 0:47:40Primal Scream where they belong, on Top Of The Pops in people's homes.

0:47:40 > 0:47:42CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

0:47:42 > 0:47:44# I don't wanna lose your love

0:47:46 > 0:47:49# I don't wanna lose your love. #

0:47:51 > 0:47:53I'd just got on a bus, I was coming to London and I got

0:47:53 > 0:47:55a phone call from Alan McGee

0:47:55 > 0:47:58saying, "Duffy hasn't got his Musicians' Union together,

0:47:58 > 0:48:02"Do you want to be on Top Of The Pops with Primal Scream tonight?"

0:48:02 > 0:48:05I'm there to sort of pretend to play keyboards.

0:48:05 > 0:48:10Everybody else was partying, enjoying Top Of The Pops.

0:48:10 > 0:48:11# Whoo, yeah... #

0:48:11 > 0:48:13LOUD REVERB GUITAR

0:48:13 > 0:48:17So we moved from being on the dole to getting £70 a week.

0:48:17 > 0:48:21McGee gave us a wage. They also gave us a tiny advance.

0:48:21 > 0:48:24We built a studio in Hackney and we bought a sampler.

0:48:24 > 0:48:27Then we kind of started writing Screamadelica.

0:48:30 > 0:48:32The group were so off their head.

0:48:32 > 0:48:35We had the hottest band in the UK at the time that couldn't

0:48:35 > 0:48:40get to the studio and make a record because it was too complicated.

0:48:40 > 0:48:44The gestation period for Screamadelica was months and months.

0:48:44 > 0:48:47It wasn't just a band going in making a record,

0:48:47 > 0:48:50it'd been those singles and remixes.

0:48:50 > 0:48:54Obviously the dance of side of things was the next big thing, the next thing, the next sound.

0:48:54 > 0:48:56The most exciting things.

0:48:56 > 0:48:58We were influenced by that whole time.

0:48:58 > 0:49:01It fed into us which then fed back into the music.

0:49:01 > 0:49:05I think we came in from clubs, all on ecstasy,

0:49:05 > 0:49:07go back to Andrew and his place

0:49:07 > 0:49:11and he had a little four-track set up, we'd start writing.

0:49:11 > 0:49:15We were always good at writing songs but then through the sampling

0:49:15 > 0:49:20and using loops it became suddenly more modern.

0:49:20 > 0:49:24And then they would go away, when you'd just about given in with them

0:49:24 > 0:49:26and come up with Higher Than The Sun.

0:49:26 > 0:49:29So of course I would just then stick it out to keep the buzz going.

0:49:29 > 0:49:34We got the odd mix of Higher Than The Sun and McGee heard it

0:49:34 > 0:49:38and said, "It's got to be a single, Bob. I know it's not going to be a hit

0:49:38 > 0:49:40"but we have to release it as a single, it's a statement."

0:49:40 > 0:49:45# Higher, higher than the sun... #

0:49:58 > 0:50:01They had the biggest album of the era with Screamadelica.

0:50:01 > 0:50:07The music was infinite in its different styles,

0:50:07 > 0:50:09it wasn't just punk, rock 'n' roll or whatever.

0:50:09 > 0:50:12The spirit of John Coltrane was on that album.

0:50:12 > 0:50:14It summed up, in a funny way,

0:50:14 > 0:50:19that whole period for me. A proper golden moment.

0:50:19 > 0:50:23I think they managed to capture something really for a generation.

0:50:25 > 0:50:28Even on the night of the record getting made,

0:50:28 > 0:50:30there were about seven or eight people in the office

0:50:30 > 0:50:33and Paul Cannell had done this sun.

0:50:33 > 0:50:37He said, "I was out of my head then and I saw some damp on the wall

0:50:37 > 0:50:41"and there's something in the damp, can you go and photograph it?"

0:50:41 > 0:50:45We spent an afternoon shooting this damp, looking for...

0:50:45 > 0:50:49You know you see those fucking things like Jesus in the toast?

0:50:49 > 0:50:51It was like, "There's something in the damp,

0:50:51 > 0:50:52"I want that for the artwork."

0:50:52 > 0:50:55And I think it was in white and blue

0:50:55 > 0:50:59and Bobby being Bobby loves a picture with his band, right,

0:50:59 > 0:51:02so he wanted to do the inside cover as a sleeve. I'm thinking,

0:51:02 > 0:51:05"Yeah, great, that's really going to do well(!)"

0:51:05 > 0:51:07So I thought, OK, put it on the ground,

0:51:07 > 0:51:09put four album sleeves round the sun

0:51:09 > 0:51:12and went, "THAT'S the album sleeve."

0:51:12 > 0:51:15And he went, "I want it in red," and I went, "Done." And that was it.

0:51:15 > 0:51:20McGee was always travelling to America or Europe.

0:51:20 > 0:51:22He was always away.

0:51:22 > 0:51:25I would only see him or speak to him briefly, you know.

0:51:25 > 0:51:28So it was quite distant, the relationship.

0:51:28 > 0:51:32But, you know, when things started happening for Primal Scream

0:51:32 > 0:51:36in a big way with Screamadelica, McGee was incredible,

0:51:36 > 0:51:41he was invaluable as a friend and as an adviser

0:51:41 > 0:51:43and as a supporter.

0:51:43 > 0:51:48We were shocked. Me and Dick pressed 60,000 records.

0:51:48 > 0:51:49Even though it was mania,

0:51:49 > 0:51:53we had no idea that the world was going to get it.

0:51:53 > 0:51:54We were clueless, really.

0:51:54 > 0:51:57We just put the record out, we just thought it was a good record

0:51:57 > 0:51:59and what I was really proud of, obviously,

0:51:59 > 0:52:02was that my friend made this incredible record.

0:52:04 > 0:52:07I guess Screamadelica would be the first record

0:52:07 > 0:52:08that really went kind of big.

0:52:08 > 0:52:11And then the Bandwagonesque record did pretty well

0:52:11 > 0:52:14and Loveless came out and that was a big record too.

0:52:14 > 0:52:17So everything started to happen quite quickly, I think.

0:52:17 > 0:52:20Anyone able to put three records of that quality out

0:52:20 > 0:52:23in a little run like that was amazing.

0:52:23 > 0:52:26Why they all came at the same time? I've no idea, pure coincidence.

0:52:26 > 0:52:31Timelines weren't organised to come in that close a proximity.

0:52:31 > 0:52:35But they did and it was great for us, it was great.

0:52:35 > 0:52:37Even though I was on a lot of drugs at the time,

0:52:37 > 0:52:41I did kind of realise, "This is it, this is the peak."

0:52:41 > 0:52:44"If it gets any better than this, it'll be strange."

0:52:47 > 0:52:51This is a song by a famous British songwriter called Shakin' Stevens.

0:52:51 > 0:52:54He's like a kind of modern Elvis. From Wales.

0:52:57 > 0:53:01# She wears denim wherever she goes

0:53:01 > 0:53:06# Says she's gonna get some records By the Status Quo

0:53:06 > 0:53:08# Oh, yeah

0:53:10 > 0:53:12# Oh, yeah... #

0:53:12 > 0:53:14The Scottish thing's always been pretty big with media.

0:53:14 > 0:53:17We'd have people suddenly appear like Teenage Fanclub

0:53:17 > 0:53:21and people like that, we just brought them into the world

0:53:21 > 0:53:24but who knew? Norman Blake, The Boy Hairdresser, who knew?

0:53:24 > 0:53:27Myself and Douglas had been friendly with Bobby Gillespie.

0:53:27 > 0:53:30We lived in Bellshill, which is about ten miles

0:53:30 > 0:53:32from the city centre of Glasgow

0:53:32 > 0:53:35and on a Saturday afternoon we would go into town

0:53:35 > 0:53:38and meet up with Bob and a few different other people.

0:53:38 > 0:53:41We all got together and I think initially I started

0:53:41 > 0:53:44helping out with The BMX Bandits.

0:53:44 > 0:53:47And then the next thing another band was formed

0:53:47 > 0:53:48called The Boy Hairdressers

0:53:48 > 0:53:50which then became Teenage Fanclub.

0:53:56 > 0:54:01I kind of got word back from Bobby that they wanted to sign to Creation

0:54:01 > 0:54:04cos they weren't getting on with their record company

0:54:04 > 0:54:07but I'd no idea they were as good as they were.

0:54:07 > 0:54:10We didn't sign a deal with Creation at that point.

0:54:10 > 0:54:13We went into the studio and Creation started paying for the recordings.

0:54:13 > 0:54:16Every song that came on on Bandwagonesque,

0:54:16 > 0:54:18it was like, "Fuck, it's really good."

0:54:18 > 0:54:22We put it out, it exploded in America.

0:54:22 > 0:54:26# She'll drive us home If there isn't a bar

0:54:26 > 0:54:27# Oh, yeah

0:54:30 > 0:54:32# Oh, yeah... #

0:54:32 > 0:54:35You know, McGee's a real people person,

0:54:35 > 0:54:37so he gets everyone else involved.

0:54:37 > 0:54:41Norman had been a member of The BMX Bandits and still was a member

0:54:41 > 0:54:43when he started Teenage Fanclub.

0:54:43 > 0:54:46I think Alan took us as a sort of labour of love.

0:54:46 > 0:54:49It was like, "I'm going to persuade people that The BMX Bandits

0:54:49 > 0:54:51"are actually worth listening to."

0:54:53 > 0:54:57He saw me as a kind of stand-up comedian who had aspirations

0:54:57 > 0:55:00to make pop records or something, initially.

0:55:03 > 0:55:06Myself and McGee made a ginger connection.

0:55:06 > 0:55:08I think he felt sorry for me. He's obviously a redhead as well

0:55:08 > 0:55:13and he thought, "There's a wee chap that's making music.

0:55:13 > 0:55:16"Nobody's going to sign him, he's got red hair."

0:55:18 > 0:55:21We had been playing a lot of shows around the UK.

0:55:21 > 0:55:24At the same time, Nirvana had been over touring.

0:55:24 > 0:55:28Our paths crossed on numerous occasions

0:55:28 > 0:55:30and we became friendly with them.

0:55:31 > 0:55:35They were able to use the leverage of Nirvana

0:55:35 > 0:55:39to get on Saturday Night Live and get all that in motion.

0:55:39 > 0:55:42Because I was spending a lot of time in New York

0:55:42 > 0:55:46with Seymour and Joe McEwen, I understood the Fanclub would work.

0:55:46 > 0:55:50When Gillespie said to me, "Norman wants to talk to you,"

0:55:50 > 0:55:52I suddenly went, "That'll work in America."

0:55:52 > 0:55:57What they wanted was British versions of their bands, and that's what the Fanclub was.

0:55:57 > 0:56:01Thank you. Goodbye.

0:56:01 > 0:56:04It was a Scottish band trying to be American.

0:56:04 > 0:56:06See you next time we're in New York City.

0:56:06 > 0:56:09You couldn't help but like the Teenage Fanclub

0:56:09 > 0:56:12because their people skills were fucking phenomenal.

0:56:12 > 0:56:15I think that's probably what they had over everybody.

0:56:20 > 0:56:23I do sign bands on songs, but I actually sign people

0:56:23 > 0:56:26on the off-chance that they might make a great record.

0:56:26 > 0:56:29I'd no idea that the Valentines were going to morph into

0:56:29 > 0:56:32being Loveless when I signed them in Chatham

0:56:32 > 0:56:34and they were playing the town hall.

0:56:34 > 0:56:36We kind of suddenly got popular.

0:56:36 > 0:56:39There was a lot of expectation so we went in to make

0:56:39 > 0:56:41the new album that we were going to make in eight weeks.

0:56:41 > 0:56:43Everything went horribly wrong.

0:56:43 > 0:56:45Creation at the time were going bankrupt.

0:56:45 > 0:56:48We started making Loveless. Nightmare.

0:56:48 > 0:56:52It went on to this massive kind of going from studio to studio.

0:56:52 > 0:56:54Creation would find a studio that was about to close

0:56:54 > 0:56:57and stick us in there for another month.

0:56:57 > 0:56:59That was it, and it went on for a year and ten months.

0:56:59 > 0:57:02They did take a long time.

0:57:02 > 0:57:07They did spend around £270,000 making the record.

0:57:07 > 0:57:10But they didn't bankrupt Creation.

0:57:10 > 0:57:13Me and Dick being out of our minds nearly bankrupted Creation.

0:57:13 > 0:57:16It wasn't any individual's fault.

0:57:16 > 0:57:20They didn't help, but neither did the cocaine or the ecstasy.

0:57:20 > 0:57:23If the label had collapsed, he was the one to lose the most

0:57:23 > 0:57:25because everyone else had houses.

0:57:25 > 0:57:29Everyone else had families, centred relationships.

0:57:29 > 0:57:34Alan, all he had was Creation, his baby, his gift to the world.

0:57:34 > 0:57:37It could quite easily have gone down.

0:57:37 > 0:57:40We kind of lost the plot majorly, really.

0:57:40 > 0:57:44In the meantime, I had this vision or whatever you want to call it,

0:57:44 > 0:57:46I knew what I wanted to do.

0:57:46 > 0:57:50We worked very slowly. It wasn't being a perfectionist, doing things over and over again.

0:57:50 > 0:57:53Just everything very slow, a few hours a day.

0:57:54 > 0:57:56Some people have got this thing.

0:57:56 > 0:58:01It's almost like an illness, they can't finish. Kevin has that.

0:58:01 > 0:58:06He can't physically say that's it. He finds it really, really hard.

0:58:06 > 0:58:10Our relationship with the label was getting more and more like that.

0:58:10 > 0:58:14We lost it but they kept us going by not pulling the plug.

0:58:14 > 0:58:16Not many other labels would have done that.

0:58:16 > 0:58:22It's worth it because it's like the Sistine Chapel of modern rock music.

0:58:22 > 0:58:25There was no A&R input whatsoever to it,

0:58:25 > 0:58:27whereas I was busy trying to emotionally blackmail

0:58:27 > 0:58:30Kevin Shields into giving me a record,

0:58:30 > 0:58:34feigning nervous breakdowns by pretending to cry down the phone.

0:58:34 > 0:58:36Which helped, because he believed me.

0:58:36 > 0:58:39It was still a nightmare getting the record out of him,

0:58:39 > 0:58:40but I got the record out of him.

0:58:40 > 0:58:43We finished it off in a sudden burst of activity

0:58:43 > 0:58:45over the space of two months.

0:58:45 > 0:58:49It was like Metal Machine Music becomes a pop album.

0:58:49 > 0:58:53Maybe that was the last great rock record. It was going somewhere new.

0:58:53 > 0:58:57Since then, everybody's just went... it's went backwards.

0:58:58 > 0:59:00It was worth it, do you know what I mean?

0:59:00 > 0:59:03We went through a lot of pain for that record.

0:59:03 > 0:59:06Kevin went through a lot of pain for that record. It was worth it.

0:59:12 > 0:59:16The culmination of all that '50s and '60s and '70s

0:59:16 > 0:59:19biographies and autobiographies and all those stories that we'd read

0:59:19 > 0:59:26were being translated and lived out at Creation House in Hackney.

0:59:26 > 0:59:28Get some serious drugs.

0:59:28 > 0:59:32Just that line alone could have almost been a mantra

0:59:32 > 0:59:33at Creation HQ for a while.

0:59:33 > 0:59:36There's no discipline. They're all on drugs.

0:59:36 > 0:59:38You went down there and everyone's on drugs.

0:59:38 > 0:59:40Squeaky clean as I used to be,

0:59:40 > 0:59:42the first time I ever took an E was at work.

0:59:42 > 0:59:46Every Friday, McGee used to turn up at about 12 o'clock

0:59:46 > 0:59:49with a bag of Es and the whole fucking place turned into a party.

0:59:49 > 0:59:54We had a phone system that did a loudspeaker page to the whole building.

0:59:54 > 0:59:58There'd be feedback and Alan would come on and go

0:59:58 > 1:00:01"Right, right, right, hello. There's a party in the bunker -

1:00:01 > 1:00:04"everybody stop what you're doing and come down."

1:00:04 > 1:00:09The bunker was the basement which was Alan, Dick and Tim's office.

1:00:09 > 1:00:15Suddenly people would turn up. The Bands would just hang around and the party would start.

1:00:15 > 1:00:18They'd get the Valentines to come, Primal Scream.

1:00:18 > 1:00:20Creation was a whole weekend out.

1:00:20 > 1:00:23You'd go in for a meeting on Friday night

1:00:23 > 1:00:27and Monday you'd leave and you're like, "What happened there?"

1:00:27 > 1:00:34One hell of a weekend. And what was it we were supposed to organise?

1:00:34 > 1:00:37I mean, it was just complete chaos at that point in the office.

1:00:41 > 1:00:45You can imagine going back on Monday and looking at the carpet

1:00:45 > 1:00:49and smelling all the alcohol and seeing paraphernalia everywhere.

1:00:49 > 1:00:54I had to start the Monday by cleaning my office

1:00:54 > 1:00:59and trying not to think about what was done on my desk during the weekend.

1:00:59 > 1:01:02The railway track went past Westgate Street.

1:01:02 > 1:01:05I can remember one time me and Paul Mulraney

1:01:05 > 1:01:09were on these two giant concrete podiums.

1:01:09 > 1:01:13We were playing something like Frankie Knuckles, dancing away like lunatics.

1:01:13 > 1:01:17At seven in the morning, commuters were going to work

1:01:17 > 1:01:22and as they were going to work, we were going like that on the pillars.

1:01:23 > 1:01:27That's how insane Creation was and at half-past eight, nine o'clock,

1:01:27 > 1:01:29we'd be like, what's the sales figures?

1:01:29 > 1:01:33Ed, phone up Rough Trade and find out what we've sold.

1:01:33 > 1:01:40At half seven in the morning we were like on an E, doing the mad E dance.

1:01:40 > 1:01:42We've both never been the same since.

1:01:44 > 1:01:48He was the engine revving beyond normality.

1:01:48 > 1:01:52But that was the way those racing cars were fuelled.

1:02:04 > 1:02:10It was suggested that I should visit Creation the next time I was over in London.

1:02:10 > 1:02:15People said that Alan was a huge fan and a huge fan of music in general,

1:02:15 > 1:02:18so that was enough to get me interested.

1:02:18 > 1:02:20# Well, I see you're leaving soon. #

1:02:20 > 1:02:23He probably looked at us and went, "What the fuck?"

1:02:23 > 1:02:25The meeting with Alan was interesting.

1:02:25 > 1:02:28I really couldn't understand a lot of what he was saying.

1:02:28 > 1:02:31I could tell that he enjoyed the music and he was very enthusiastic.

1:02:31 > 1:02:35I wasn't letting anybody have copies of what I was working on

1:02:35 > 1:02:37at the time so Alan and I went downstairs

1:02:37 > 1:02:40and just listened to eight songs, maybe.

1:02:40 > 1:02:44It eventually became Copper Blue and he asked, "What do I need to do to get you over here?"

1:02:44 > 1:02:47Then immediately I had everyone trying to sign it off me

1:02:47 > 1:02:49but I put it out myself anyway.

1:02:49 > 1:02:52When the Sugar album came out and went top three,

1:02:52 > 1:02:54that felt like a real breakthrough.

1:02:54 > 1:02:57We went gold in England,

1:02:57 > 1:02:59we ended up on the cover of the NME,

1:02:59 > 1:03:01we ended up album of the year.

1:03:01 > 1:03:03It felt like everything must be financially OK

1:03:03 > 1:03:06but the wheels came off pretty soon after.

1:03:07 > 1:03:12I think that all through that time they were having financial problems.

1:03:12 > 1:03:18The ambitions and their vision far outstripped their financial income.

1:03:18 > 1:03:21McGee was running around going to America and Europe,

1:03:21 > 1:03:22doing licensing deals

1:03:22 > 1:03:25and then getting the money from that to put a band into the studio.

1:03:25 > 1:03:29Not paying the studio until they had to.

1:03:29 > 1:03:31Basically winging it all the time.

1:03:31 > 1:03:34People thought we were absolutely out of control.

1:03:34 > 1:03:36We always seemed to owe somebody,

1:03:36 > 1:03:39whoever pressed the records, loads of money.

1:03:39 > 1:03:44They sent down a few people from time to time to tell us off.

1:03:44 > 1:03:47I built myself a cupboard to hide in.

1:03:47 > 1:03:49Just because every call was

1:03:49 > 1:03:52"Where's our money, where's our money?"

1:03:52 > 1:03:54People coming round.

1:03:54 > 1:03:59They'd come down and meet me and I'd just be terribly rude to them.

1:03:59 > 1:04:01They'd just leave, really, to be honest.

1:04:01 > 1:04:05There was always going to be a point, whichever album it was going to be,

1:04:05 > 1:04:07where Alan spent too much money on an album

1:04:07 > 1:04:11that was not going to sell enough to cover that expense.

1:04:11 > 1:04:15Whichever album it was going to be, it was going to happen.

1:04:15 > 1:04:17He needed to shore up the funds.

1:04:19 > 1:04:22There really is only one way to go in the record business

1:04:22 > 1:04:24and that's to go to a major.

1:04:26 > 1:04:28We'd been close to bankruptcy,

1:04:28 > 1:04:30putting houses on the line

1:04:30 > 1:04:33and anything they could to keep it going.

1:04:33 > 1:04:36It made Alan push even harder, I think.

1:04:36 > 1:04:42"It's Alan, what's the trigger word? When do you need to be pulled out?"

1:04:42 > 1:04:45Because you're going mad with the drugs.

1:04:45 > 1:04:48You're still coming in and running a label

1:04:48 > 1:04:51and you're far more resilient than anyone else,

1:04:51 > 1:04:53but you are damaging your health.

1:04:53 > 1:04:57I guess he was getting more frantic, more manic.

1:04:57 > 1:05:02You get used to it, you grow with it and you're all a bit frantic and manic and doing similar things.

1:05:02 > 1:05:05My recollection is that Alan was pretty suspicious

1:05:05 > 1:05:09of the whole thing at the time.

1:05:09 > 1:05:12I remember McGee calling me up after Screamadelica,

1:05:12 > 1:05:14some time after that and saying,

1:05:14 > 1:05:16"Listen, I'm sorry, man, I've let you down.

1:05:16 > 1:05:20"I'm going to sell the label to Sony." He felt that he'd failed.

1:05:20 > 1:05:24We thought we would never be able to make a deal with these guys because they just hated us so much.

1:05:24 > 1:05:27I just said, "Give me the money."

1:05:30 > 1:05:33I think the one we all thought could break through was the Primals,

1:05:33 > 1:05:37because they'd had Screamadelica and they just seemed ready to go.

1:05:37 > 1:05:43With a bit of our Sony bucks, we could break that sucker wide open.

1:05:43 > 1:05:45When Sony got involved in Creation,

1:05:45 > 1:05:47some people arrived and completely changed the vibe

1:05:47 > 1:05:51and some drugs arrived and completely changed the vibe as well.

1:05:51 > 1:05:54There was always Alan's personality behind it.

1:05:54 > 1:05:57I guess I didn't know then it was a drugs personality

1:05:57 > 1:06:01and that that was what it was that was causing him to be

1:06:01 > 1:06:04so erratic and so hard to deal with sometimes.

1:06:04 > 1:06:09I thought I was possibly up there with Beethoven or Shakespeare,

1:06:09 > 1:06:15that I was creating metaphysical history by running Creation Records.

1:06:15 > 1:06:18I was absolutely delusional.

1:06:20 > 1:06:24Creation had been building so much expectation

1:06:24 > 1:06:28and so much promise that the world

1:06:28 > 1:06:31was ready for Alan to present

1:06:31 > 1:06:35the right band and everyone would buy into it because it was Creation.

1:06:35 > 1:06:38It's like that famous painting of the two fingers touching.

1:06:38 > 1:06:41This is the last great rock'n'roll band.

1:06:41 > 1:06:44This is the band that we've all been waiting for.

1:06:47 > 1:06:51I was stood at the bar and McGee walked up to me

1:06:51 > 1:06:55and I remember he had on a sky-blue top, white jeans,

1:06:55 > 1:07:00red shoes and ginger hair, and I go, "What the fuck is this lunatic?"

1:07:00 > 1:07:02And he had a skinhead at the time.

1:07:02 > 1:07:05He looked like he'd been on acid for six months.

1:07:06 > 1:07:10There was a bit of a scene with a promoter about us playing on the night.

1:07:10 > 1:07:14We told them we're going on or your club's getting it.

1:07:14 > 1:07:16Which we did, we did the gig.

1:07:16 > 1:07:18Me and my little sister, Susan, watched it.

1:07:18 > 1:07:22Two or three songs in, I remember saying to my sister,

1:07:22 > 1:07:24"I think I should sign them."

1:07:24 > 1:07:26And he went, I really like your band."

1:07:26 > 1:07:29Noel tried to give me this demo and I said I don't want it.

1:07:29 > 1:07:31He said, "Have you got a record deal?"

1:07:31 > 1:07:35I said, "No," and he said, "Do you want one with Creation?" and I went, "Yeah."

1:07:35 > 1:07:36Let's just do it.

1:07:36 > 1:07:37That was it.

1:07:37 > 1:07:38We shook on it...

1:07:38 > 1:07:41They finished the tune,

1:07:41 > 1:07:46we chatted away about the Beatles and the Sex Pistols and blah blah blah, and that was it.

1:07:46 > 1:07:49I drove back to Manchester that night

1:07:49 > 1:07:52and the next day I phoned a few people who knew McGee.

1:07:52 > 1:07:56I said, is this liable to be bullshit or is it liable to be real?

1:07:56 > 1:07:58They were going, "Oh fuck, yeah."

1:07:58 > 1:08:00Then the phone rang and there he was,

1:08:00 > 1:08:04"Do you want to come down to London?" I was like, "Wow."

1:08:04 > 1:08:07# There's no easy way out

1:08:07 > 1:08:10# The day's moving just too fast for me. #

1:08:10 > 1:08:13Literally, the first person to say to them, you're great,

1:08:13 > 1:08:16do you want a deal, was going to get them and I was that guy.

1:08:16 > 1:08:19You've got to create your own luck.

1:08:19 > 1:08:23You've got to know when something's great, which to my credit I did,

1:08:23 > 1:08:25but I fluked it because I was there.

1:08:25 > 1:08:28He was convinced it was all going to fuck up somehow.

1:08:31 > 1:08:34Then he stopped playing the demos to people and stuff

1:08:34 > 1:08:36because he thought, his words not mine by the way,

1:08:36 > 1:08:42a band this good won't be signing to our record label kind of thing.

1:08:42 > 1:08:45# I take my car and drive real far

1:08:45 > 1:08:49# To where they're not concerned about the way we are

1:08:49 > 1:08:52# In my mind, my dreams are real

1:08:52 > 1:08:55# Are you concerned about the way I feel

1:08:55 > 1:09:00# Tonight I'm a rock 'n' roll star... #

1:09:02 > 1:09:05I see us and Primal Scream as virtually identical people

1:09:05 > 1:09:08but we come from different places musically.

1:09:08 > 1:09:11We're not electro wizards, so you know what I mean?

1:09:11 > 1:09:15We stick to the plank of wood with the strings on it.

1:09:15 > 1:09:18They were the flagship. That's my band signed to Creation.

1:09:18 > 1:09:21I remember them coming in the first time to come and see yourself.

1:09:21 > 1:09:25Very quiet. I can visualise the kid now as he came in.

1:09:25 > 1:09:29He just looked fantastic. You just wanted to be him.

1:09:29 > 1:09:31Noel's kind of dead businesslike.

1:09:31 > 1:09:34We just talked about fucking drugs and music.

1:09:34 > 1:09:37I don't even think we talked record deal that day.

1:09:37 > 1:09:39Scored on the wall behind Chris Abbott's desk

1:09:39 > 1:09:42in big black felt pen was "Northern Ignorance."

1:09:42 > 1:09:45Noel spotted it and went, "I like that. What does it mean?"

1:09:45 > 1:09:46"Nothing really."

1:09:46 > 1:09:48I thought that kind of describes me.

1:09:48 > 1:09:51I fucking love this place and I've not been here two minutes.

1:09:51 > 1:09:54I found out much Later that he liked Rattle and Hum U2.

1:09:54 > 1:09:57If he'd said that, I could never have signed them.

1:09:57 > 1:10:01# I'm a rock 'n' roll star

1:10:01 > 1:10:07# Tonight, I'm a rock 'n' roll star. #

1:10:09 > 1:10:12We decamped to Sawmills Studio down in Cornwall.

1:10:12 > 1:10:14That sound was polished, it was there and ready.

1:10:14 > 1:10:19Alan came down to listen to the mix of 'Rock'n'Roll Star', and this is fucking true, right?

1:10:19 > 1:10:22Now 'Rock'n'Roll Star', it's a fucking tune, right?

1:10:22 > 1:10:26If you record it blowing into a trombone it's a fucking tune.

1:10:26 > 1:10:31So anyway, up it comes, it's having it, gets to the end bit, it's fucking mad as fuck.

1:10:31 > 1:10:35# It's a rock'n'roll... # It fades out into this fucking echo and reverb.

1:10:35 > 1:10:38Alan went, "It's fucking great, man."

1:10:38 > 1:10:42"But I'll tell you what, turn the hi-hat up in the second verse."

1:10:42 > 1:10:46It didn't dawn on me what he'd said about 10 seconds.

1:10:46 > 1:10:50I was like, "Is that all you've got... The hi-hat in the second verse?"

1:10:50 > 1:10:54"But it's all right in the first verse, I take it?"

1:10:54 > 1:10:56I thought it was fucking mental. The hi-hat?

1:10:56 > 1:10:59Who gives a fuck about the hi-hat in the second verse?

1:10:59 > 1:11:01# It's just rock'n'roll

1:11:01 > 1:11:05# It's just rock'n'roll

1:11:05 > 1:11:08# It's just rock'n'roll... #

1:11:08 > 1:11:11So we went on this tour. It was fucking brilliant.

1:11:11 > 1:11:14The press had started to take note. People were coming to the gigs.

1:11:14 > 1:11:16It started to take hold.

1:11:16 > 1:11:19You could feel a youth culture thing was just starting.

1:11:19 > 1:11:25The word phenomenon is often overused, or attached quite lightly. But they were.

1:11:25 > 1:11:29It was all about the music, clothes, drugs, fucking football.

1:11:29 > 1:11:33Going out and having a great night out. Who wouldn't want to be in the middle of all that?

1:11:33 > 1:11:38It got its own power and energy from the chaos really.

1:11:38 > 1:11:41They were becoming front-page phenomena. New Beatles, if you like.

1:11:41 > 1:11:47The speed at which it went, I think that was just above and beyond anybody's expectation.

1:11:47 > 1:11:51Somebody mentioned the word Britpop. And that was that.

1:11:51 > 1:11:55Of course, the doors got blown off really by Parklife

1:11:55 > 1:11:56and the Oasis explosion.

1:11:56 > 1:12:00and Pulp and Elastica and the people that followed that.

1:12:00 > 1:12:05I don't think music had had that impact since the '60s.

1:12:05 > 1:12:10That made for the most remarkable and exhilarating time to be alive.

1:12:10 > 1:12:15And obviously there was Blur/Oasis kind of wars, as they call it.

1:12:15 > 1:12:17He'd got another horse in the big race.

1:12:17 > 1:12:20This led to this little excursion in the charts.

1:12:20 > 1:12:24Allegedly we won that battle and lost the war.

1:12:27 > 1:12:31Two of Britain's most popular pop groups have begun

1:12:31 > 1:12:33the biggest chart war in 30 years.

1:12:33 > 1:12:39The industry hasn't seen anything like it since The Beatles battled The Rolling Stones in the '60s.

1:12:39 > 1:12:42One asked oneself, what has meaning and depth,

1:12:42 > 1:12:45and what is candy floss?

1:12:45 > 1:12:48There are certain things that mean it, man.

1:12:48 > 1:12:53Even though the person doing it might be trying to make a pop record, a hit record,

1:12:53 > 1:13:00if something is good, is it not correct to turn the world on to it?

1:13:00 > 1:13:03After Definitely Maybe, we moved here.

1:13:03 > 1:13:06It's kind of like when Creation sort of got posh.

1:13:06 > 1:13:11The main change was, you went from Hackney to Primrose Hill. They got new offices.

1:13:11 > 1:13:14Primal Scream's studio was around the corner.

1:13:14 > 1:13:17If anybody wasn't in there, they were in the pub up the road.

1:13:17 > 1:13:21You would constantly see somebody from Creation

1:13:21 > 1:13:25coming from the pub with trays of gin and tonics and Jack Daniels.

1:13:25 > 1:13:30Alan would just be, "Go to the pub and get me 500 fucking double Jack Daniels."

1:13:30 > 1:13:36Kids were walking up the street. Lots of people had jobs and didn't know what they were doing,

1:13:36 > 1:13:42or where they were supposed to be sitting. There was always somebody in the corner at Creation Records.

1:13:42 > 1:13:46"Have you got a desk?" "I don't know what I'm doing here." Do you know what I mean?

1:13:46 > 1:13:51"Why are you in the corner? What are you doing?" A piece of paper in your hand, like a review.

1:13:51 > 1:13:54"Why are you...?" "I don't know. I've been here for six months.

1:13:54 > 1:13:59"I haven't got anywhere to sit. Nobody knows my name. I want to go home!"

1:13:59 > 1:14:04They were great times. Everybody was holding on for dear life.

1:14:04 > 1:14:06Nobody knew where it was going to end.

1:14:06 > 1:14:11We were genuinely more mental than the bands. You know? Up until Oasis.

1:14:11 > 1:14:16They were more mental than we were. They were more mental than me or Tim really, you know?

1:14:16 > 1:14:19You know, your record label boss always had drugs on him.

1:14:19 > 1:14:24Always had the phone number of somebody who would be there within fucking five minutes.

1:14:24 > 1:14:27I was becoming a professional drug addict.

1:14:27 > 1:14:30I was going more and more out of my mind really, to be honest.

1:14:30 > 1:14:34It's a bit like, you are supposed to be Alan McGee.

1:14:34 > 1:14:36You're supposed to be this insane person.

1:14:36 > 1:14:43I'm in America and there'd be 20 people waiting to take me out cos I was like a professional good time.

1:14:46 > 1:14:51But the partying took its toll on Alan quite quick. He wasn't kind of there for most of it.

1:14:51 > 1:14:55I can't remember what happened. I was too embroiled with my own band

1:14:55 > 1:14:58and trying to keep that together.

1:14:58 > 1:15:01I guess he did too many drugs, or whatever.

1:15:01 > 1:15:04Too much for him.

1:15:04 > 1:15:08I'm not really sure what happened, but I think he got ill.

1:15:08 > 1:15:11It was his problem really.

1:15:11 > 1:15:16That kind of thing happened early on in the life of Morning Glory.

1:15:16 > 1:15:20He was out of the game. But the rest of us went fucking bananas.

1:15:20 > 1:15:21Well you would do, wouldn't you?

1:15:21 > 1:15:24I'd basically been partying for six years, that's what it was.

1:15:24 > 1:15:28But it was all coming to like a climax.

1:15:28 > 1:15:33I think the first sign of his breakdown might have been on a plane to LA.

1:15:33 > 1:15:40I remember, it was a long line of cocaine about that size I did off the back of an amplifier.

1:15:40 > 1:15:43And then went and tried to get on a plane.

1:15:43 > 1:15:47I got carted off the plane by paramedics.

1:15:47 > 1:15:51Then checked myself out, went to a Swervedriver show,

1:15:51 > 1:15:53got absolutely rat-arsed again.

1:15:53 > 1:15:56I think the first time he had a little bit of a crash.

1:15:56 > 1:15:59If he'd stopped then, I think he would have been fine.

1:15:59 > 1:16:05I shouldn't have started partying again after I was taken off the plane but I did cos I was a drug addict.

1:16:05 > 1:16:10He's a one-man Charge of the Light Brigade. I don't think the word circumspect is in his vocabulary.

1:16:10 > 1:16:14He's just like a raging bull.

1:16:14 > 1:16:17I just thought he was like a train and completely unstoppable.

1:16:17 > 1:16:23He went up and dragged himself on and crashed again, I think.

1:16:23 > 1:16:27It was as if I had a metal pole in my neck, which wasn't good.

1:16:27 > 1:16:32I went into the Mondrian, jumped in the shower, couldn't calm down.

1:16:32 > 1:16:36Phoned up the lobby. They got the paramedics.

1:16:36 > 1:16:3919 paramedics came, got me from the room,

1:16:39 > 1:16:43took me blood pressure. It was 172.

1:16:43 > 1:16:46Put me in a wheelchair. Now this is starting to get bizarre.

1:16:46 > 1:16:52Put oxygen mask on. Inside my head I'm looking at it this person sitting in the chair.

1:16:52 > 1:16:55Now I'm normal. But I'm not feeling normal.

1:16:55 > 1:16:58I'm feeling as if I'm going to like, go.

1:17:02 > 1:17:05I felt like a wanker basically.

1:17:05 > 1:17:10It's like, you got the rock 'n' roll badge. I had to stop it.

1:17:10 > 1:17:14It was hard to tell at that point how big the crash was.

1:17:14 > 1:17:17A near death experience or whatever it was, it is hard to say.

1:17:17 > 1:17:20It was a big crash.

1:17:20 > 1:17:22It was a big crash.

1:17:24 > 1:17:28I guess his dealings with his friends and the outside world changed from then on in.

1:17:28 > 1:17:34That was a point in time that I had to basically draw back.

1:17:34 > 1:17:36It was a slow road to getting better.

1:17:41 > 1:17:43The main kind of void was Alan's energy.

1:17:43 > 1:17:46Alan was a whirlwind of energy. And then he'd gone.

1:17:46 > 1:17:48So the company was fairly rudderless.

1:17:48 > 1:17:52Alan was the president of pop before that. That's what he was.

1:17:52 > 1:17:56We all followed wherever he went, like children following the Pied Piper.

1:17:56 > 1:17:58"Where's Alan?" "Alan's in hospital."

1:17:58 > 1:18:02At one point it was, "That's it, I don't care what you do, I'm not going to be involved."

1:18:02 > 1:18:07My whole thing was, "Right, I'll look after it, you get better, then you decide."

1:18:07 > 1:18:12"Cos at the minute you can't... you can't make a decision because you're too..."

1:18:12 > 1:18:15"...you're too ill to make a decision, to ill to see clearly."

1:18:15 > 1:18:20Dick had to step up to the plate, and I think initially was a little bit bewildered by it.

1:18:20 > 1:18:22He was always a low-profile kind of guy.

1:18:22 > 1:18:27He wasn't somebody who'd push himself into the spotlight. He was happy in the background,

1:18:27 > 1:18:31working as the Yang to Alan's Yin. That was why they were such a good partnership.

1:18:31 > 1:18:34They were polar opposites as personalities.

1:18:34 > 1:18:39We tried to do it as a team. It took all of us to replace Alan's drive.

1:18:39 > 1:18:43We kept it going really. We more than kept it going at that point!

1:18:43 > 1:18:47But the momentum was there. All we had to do was guide it along the tracks.

1:18:47 > 1:18:52I guess Dick was the guy who held it together. So maybe Dick's the secret hero of that label.

1:18:52 > 1:18:57He's a solid guy. Without Dick, none of it would have happened, you know?

1:19:05 > 1:19:08# Wake up, it's a beautiful morning

1:19:08 > 1:19:11# Feel the sun shining for your eyes

1:19:11 > 1:19:15# Wake up it's a beautiful (Wake up Boo)

1:19:15 > 1:19:19# For what could be the very last time. #

1:19:19 > 1:19:22Boo Radleys with Wake Up Boo

1:19:22 > 1:19:27was the first time I'd had 65 regional radio stations that I pitched,

1:19:27 > 1:19:30and it was the first time I had 65 A lists ever.

1:19:30 > 1:19:32So that was like a little landmark there.

1:19:32 > 1:19:37A bolt out of the blue for everyone. We put a lot of effort into the Boo Radleys. I certainly did.

1:19:40 > 1:19:44I always remember the concerts and Martin Carr, a great guitarist.

1:19:44 > 1:19:47You think, that guitar's really loud, really exciting.

1:19:47 > 1:19:51Then it got even louder. How did he do that? How can that possibly work?

1:19:51 > 1:19:55But it all seemed to fit into the context of great pop music.

1:19:55 > 1:19:57Alan was ill at that point.

1:19:57 > 1:20:01He used to send me postcards to the studio telling us

1:20:01 > 1:20:05to pull out every dirty trick in the book.

1:20:05 > 1:20:07And with Wake Up Boo, I thought that's what we were doing.

1:20:07 > 1:20:11Going from nowhere to the NME front cover, which happened within a matter of days.

1:20:11 > 1:20:13It was a dream come true.

1:20:13 > 1:20:16And the first Number One album.

1:20:16 > 1:20:19It's what you dream of as a kid, and it all seemed so easy.

1:20:19 > 1:20:24You wanted something to happen, and it happened, it seems impossible now.

1:20:52 > 1:20:54# Today is gonna be the day

1:20:54 > 1:20:57# That they're gonna throw it back to you

1:20:57 > 1:21:02# By now you should've somehow Realized what you gotta do

1:21:02 > 1:21:05# I don't believe that anybody

1:21:05 > 1:21:09# Feels the way I do about you now. #

1:21:11 > 1:21:16Morning Glory was the most, least anticipated album of all time.

1:21:16 > 1:21:18Nobody was waiting for the album to come out,

1:21:18 > 1:21:21because it came pretty soon after the first one.

1:21:21 > 1:21:23We went down to hear the first tracks,

1:21:23 > 1:21:27and it was like everything they played was a potential single.

1:21:30 > 1:21:34There was an equinox with Morning Glory becoming so big,

1:21:34 > 1:21:38That was a watershed moment in Oasis's life.

1:21:38 > 1:21:42I suppose that year became a watershed for Creation, really.

1:21:42 > 1:21:48You had this massive album that went way beyond indie expectations really.

1:21:48 > 1:21:51Wonderwall was the turning point that everyone really.

1:21:51 > 1:21:52A huge international hit.

1:21:52 > 1:21:55I mean, no one knew how big that record could be.

1:21:55 > 1:21:58I think we were all stunned.

1:21:58 > 1:22:00# Because maybe

1:22:00 > 1:22:03# You're gonna be the one who saves me? #

1:22:03 > 1:22:06A lot of it is tinged with a bit of sadness,

1:22:06 > 1:22:10because that kind of album was everybody's dream.

1:22:10 > 1:22:14Alan always dreamed of having the biggest band in the world on his label, and he did.

1:22:14 > 1:22:17But he kinda fucked himself up in the process,

1:22:17 > 1:22:21so he wasn't around to really enjoy it with the rest of us.

1:22:24 > 1:22:28His dream was to have a band that made it in America, and it did. He wasn't there for that.

1:22:28 > 1:22:34The rest of us partied like drunk monkeys until the fucking sun came up and fucking went down. It was great.

1:22:39 > 1:22:44You could feel that they had the real shot that most of those Creation bands didn't have.

1:22:44 > 1:22:50People were ready for an alternative band that had real, real songs.

1:22:50 > 1:22:55With Oasis, it was a fast build, but it was a logical fast build,

1:22:55 > 1:22:58where they went from playing small clubs, to medium clubs.

1:22:58 > 1:23:01I remember they played in New York,

1:23:01 > 1:23:03it was called the Theater at Madison Square Garden.

1:23:03 > 1:23:07That was a build that just happened logically for them. It just went quickly.

1:23:07 > 1:23:12# I said maybe

1:23:12 > 1:23:17# You're gonna be the one that saves me?

1:23:17 > 1:23:21# And after all... #

1:23:21 > 1:23:25You just had the impression that everything was going to go crazy.

1:23:25 > 1:23:28That things wouldn't be the same again.

1:23:28 > 1:23:31It was something that put Creation on the map,

1:23:31 > 1:23:36and it ended up with people like Alan McGee, and Noel Gallagher hobnobbing with Tony Blair.

1:23:36 > 1:23:38It was quite a bizarre thing to happen.

1:23:38 > 1:23:41It was also the seeds of the end of Creation,

1:23:41 > 1:23:46it was going to go commercially ballistic to the point

1:23:46 > 1:23:50that a small North London independent record label

1:23:50 > 1:23:52could never service that kind of level of success.

1:23:58 > 1:24:01# First time, I did it for the hell of it... #

1:24:01 > 1:24:04Oasis had just become extremely successful

1:24:04 > 1:24:09and we were huge beneficiaries of that success.

1:24:09 > 1:24:13I think everyone was expecting McGee to sign the next Oasis or something.

1:24:13 > 1:24:15They came down to see us playing.

1:24:15 > 1:24:19I think it was about our fourth ever concert.

1:24:19 > 1:24:22In a pub called The Monarch in Camden, in London.

1:24:22 > 1:24:24Came to see them, went into the dressing room,

1:24:24 > 1:24:28and went "Gryff, really good band, it would really help

1:24:28 > 1:24:32"if you sing in English," and he went "we were."

1:24:32 > 1:24:36Alan convinced himself that he'd invented Oasis in his head.

1:24:36 > 1:24:38And therefore he could do it again.

1:24:38 > 1:24:42Something For The Weekend could be a Blur song,

1:24:42 > 1:24:44and I always wanted my Blur.

1:24:44 > 1:24:46So I went, I'll have my own version of Blur.

1:24:46 > 1:24:49Little did I know that I was signing this insane band

1:24:49 > 1:24:51of anarchists from Wales.

1:24:54 > 1:24:56When it went really big for Oasis,

1:24:56 > 1:24:59and there was a lot of money coming in.

1:24:59 > 1:25:01They would just let you do anything. You know?

1:25:01 > 1:25:05Creation called me up and said, "There's this band called

1:25:05 > 1:25:08"Super Furry Animals that have just written a song about you,

1:25:08 > 1:25:12"and they want to use your photo on their album cover."

1:25:12 > 1:25:16Immediately I said yes, yes, but can I hear them play something?

1:25:16 > 1:25:20I'd just come out of prison, and I was trying to catch up on everything,

1:25:20 > 1:25:23all the drugs that have been around, invented since I was banged up.

1:25:23 > 1:25:26All the different sounds, different forms of communication,

1:25:26 > 1:25:29everyday life. I was trying to catch up on everything.

1:25:29 > 1:25:33So that was my re-entry, actually. It was of fundamental importance

1:25:33 > 1:25:37to everything that happened to me since.

1:25:37 > 1:25:38Really born again!

1:25:40 > 1:25:43It was just incredible how this label came along

1:25:43 > 1:25:48and indulged us in the things we would think about it,

1:25:48 > 1:25:51but don't necessarily think it's possible to live them out.

1:25:51 > 1:25:55It's like some strange fantasy.

1:25:55 > 1:25:58Whatever idea we came in with, they would say, "Yeah, let's do it."

1:25:58 > 1:26:04They were really free thinking like that, it was great. They never really thought about the money.

1:26:04 > 1:26:07You could buy an armed vehicle for £11,000.

1:26:07 > 1:26:11We went to an arms dealer called Baz in Nottingham.

1:26:11 > 1:26:14The criminal Justice Bill had just come in,

1:26:14 > 1:26:16so we installed a sound system,

1:26:16 > 1:26:18so we could go to raves,

1:26:18 > 1:26:21and the equipment could not be physically confiscated.

1:26:21 > 1:26:25We were bit aggressive with it, we took it to Radio One.

1:26:25 > 1:26:30We took down the record in a tank, and they put us on heavy rotation.

1:26:38 > 1:26:41People were looking for a reason, after 30 years,

1:26:41 > 1:26:44or whatever it was, a band had become that big.

1:26:44 > 1:26:46It had never happened since the Beatles.

1:26:46 > 1:26:50Why did that happen? How has this come out of nowhere?

1:26:50 > 1:26:53And there are all these people who are going to see them at Knebworth.

1:26:53 > 1:26:55Champagne Supernova!

1:27:05 > 1:27:08# How many special people change?

1:27:08 > 1:27:11# How many lives are living strange?

1:27:11 > 1:27:16# Where were you while we were getting high? #

1:27:16 > 1:27:18Doing Knebworth was above and beyond

1:27:18 > 1:27:21any of my expectations for that band.

1:27:21 > 1:27:25I never, ever doubted what we were doing was going to reach out,

1:27:25 > 1:27:27and people were going to take it.

1:27:27 > 1:27:31Never did I imagine it would get as big as that.

1:27:31 > 1:27:33No way.

1:27:37 > 1:27:40They sent crazy Bentley limousines,

1:27:40 > 1:27:43and things to pick up everyone on Creation Records,

1:27:43 > 1:27:46and drive them to Knebworth.

1:27:46 > 1:27:50So even Super Furry Animals went to Knebworth in a Bentley.

1:27:50 > 1:27:52We weren't even playing, you know.

1:27:54 > 1:27:57There was so many people going, we had to fly in by helicopter.

1:27:57 > 1:27:59I remember circling the site,

1:27:59 > 1:28:04looking over the site at all these thousands of people

1:28:04 > 1:28:09just swarming in and filling up, it was just something else. Beyond.

1:28:09 > 1:28:12We watched it from a distance. It was almost like a dream.

1:28:12 > 1:28:15It was one of the few times I've seen Noel gobsmacked.

1:28:15 > 1:28:18Second night at Knebworth, he was gobsmacked.

1:28:18 > 1:28:21He didn't have anything to say - which was a first!

1:28:21 > 1:28:26# Some day you will find me Caught beneath the landslide

1:28:26 > 1:28:30# In a champagne supernova in the sky

1:28:30 > 1:28:37# Some day you will find me Caught beneath the landslide

1:28:37 > 1:28:39# In a champagne supernova

1:28:39 > 1:28:42# A champagne supernova

1:28:42 > 1:28:44# Cos we don't believe

1:28:44 > 1:28:49# That they're gonna get away from the summer. #

1:28:49 > 1:28:51It was fun, but there was a horrible side to it.

1:28:51 > 1:28:54Everything, overblown to every degree really.

1:28:54 > 1:28:59VIP tents within VIP tents within special areas.

1:28:59 > 1:29:01You had to have 15 different wristbands to get near,

1:29:01 > 1:29:07and then find out, "I couldn't get in that one, I'm paying for this!"

1:29:07 > 1:29:09He'd pay for that Creation Records world-class tent,

1:29:09 > 1:29:13and tried to get a glass of water, and they told to go away.

1:29:13 > 1:29:14Security were like, "Who are you?"

1:29:14 > 1:29:17He couldn't get backstage, but Mick Hucknall did.

1:29:17 > 1:29:21He was, he was drinking our beer. And we were like, that's fucking Mick Hucknall, get out.

1:29:21 > 1:29:25It was my tent. I paid £250,000, and didn't even sell diet Coke,

1:29:25 > 1:29:28so I couldn't even get a drink.

1:29:28 > 1:29:33# Where were you while were we getting high? #

1:29:33 > 1:29:35When the fireworks were going off,

1:29:35 > 1:29:37I kind of went AC/DC,

1:29:37 > 1:29:42and it wasn't like the band or the management, it was just the event.

1:29:42 > 1:29:45I kind of thought, it's not really us,

1:29:45 > 1:29:49it's not really Oasis, I don't know what it is. We should get out.

1:29:49 > 1:29:53# Champagne supernova

1:29:53 > 1:29:55# Champagne supernova

1:29:55 > 1:29:58# Cos people believe

1:29:58 > 1:30:02# That they're gonna get away for the summer

1:30:06 > 1:30:09# But you and I We live and die

1:30:09 > 1:30:14# The world's still spinning round We don't know why

1:30:14 > 1:30:17# Why, why, why... #

1:30:34 > 1:30:36CHEERING

1:30:42 > 1:30:46We probably should have ended it after Knebworth.

1:30:46 > 1:30:50In our heads, that's when it started ending.

1:30:50 > 1:30:54For want of a better word, the indie scene has never been the same since.

1:30:54 > 1:30:56It killed indie music, in a way.

1:30:56 > 1:31:01But, um, at least we were the last, you know. I guess.

1:31:02 > 1:31:08So really the Creation Records story is about the death, the end of the independent.

1:31:12 > 1:31:17I'd say the monumental success that we had,

1:31:17 > 1:31:20which we wanted more than anybody else in the world,

1:31:20 > 1:31:22that was probably the beginning of the end.

1:31:22 > 1:31:25It's a bit like the Roman Empire. When it seems at its strongest,

1:31:25 > 1:31:27that's when it's starting to crumble.

1:31:27 > 1:31:31It went from being a kind of proper indie label

1:31:31 > 1:31:35to almost like trying to become an multi-national.

1:31:35 > 1:31:37It was hugely different.

1:31:37 > 1:31:40It was nothing like the Creation we had known at the very beginning.

1:31:40 > 1:31:44Some of it good, probably most of it bad.

1:31:44 > 1:31:48It seemed to be a lot of people working there that you could tell

1:31:48 > 1:31:52they were there because it looked good on their CV.

1:31:52 > 1:31:55I guess that comes with the level of success.

1:31:55 > 1:31:56When a band gets so big,

1:31:56 > 1:32:00it can't be run by a load of fucking drug monkeys from Hackney.

1:32:00 > 1:32:04They brought in a lot of people who had no passion for rock 'n' roll and music.

1:32:04 > 1:32:08They could have been selling baked beans, to be honest with you.

1:32:10 > 1:32:13Sony looked at the turnover, which was becoming monumental.

1:32:13 > 1:32:18I think they suddenly realised we've got this insane human being,

1:32:18 > 1:32:21who, at any given moment, could go back to drugs.

1:32:21 > 1:32:24It was me that was on the cheque book.

1:32:24 > 1:32:26And that was kind of dangerous.

1:32:26 > 1:32:31Because that was like one of the lunatics having keys to the mental institution.

1:32:31 > 1:32:34You know, I could let them all out.

1:32:34 > 1:32:37I think you do a deal with these people

1:32:37 > 1:32:41they want more and more and more and more and more.

1:32:41 > 1:32:45You don't know what you are putting out - Nikki Sudden records, or Felt records.

1:32:45 > 1:32:52Or the Slaughter Joe records, they want the Primal Screams and Oasises and the My Bloody Valentines.

1:32:52 > 1:32:54You know, big acts.

1:32:54 > 1:32:57In all those deals that people made with independent labels,

1:32:57 > 1:33:02the successful ones inevitably became owned by the majors.

1:33:02 > 1:33:07But, at the time, the idea was to keep Creation going as a strong independent.

1:33:07 > 1:33:09Sony sort of had to disempower me.

1:33:09 > 1:33:15And they, stealth-wise, put people in around me.

1:33:15 > 1:33:17They formed this management collective.

1:33:17 > 1:33:19There was just too many people!

1:33:19 > 1:33:21Too many.

1:33:21 > 1:33:26Staff issues. Everything was a crisis to do with people rather than the artists half the time

1:33:26 > 1:33:29and it was getting very difficult to manage that many people.

1:33:29 > 1:33:32When it comes to being a boss of 50 people,

1:33:32 > 1:33:35I don't know about Dec, but I just used to want to run away.

1:33:35 > 1:33:38That's probably not a very good leadership quality!

1:33:40 > 1:33:43I always assumed people knew what they were doing.

1:33:43 > 1:33:46I run my part of it, so I know what I'm doing and I'm off my head

1:33:46 > 1:33:50all the time. So everybody else must know what they're fucking doing.

1:33:50 > 1:33:52Really, it was just me and Dec.

1:33:52 > 1:33:54Everybody around us had been brought in by Sony.

1:33:54 > 1:33:56We were surrounded.

1:33:56 > 1:34:01So we got taken over really. Brilliant corporate tactics.

1:34:01 > 1:34:04You don't take the shares, you just sack all the people

1:34:04 > 1:34:09and "put our own people in so we can out-vote these loonies", you know!

1:34:10 > 1:34:13Whether he thought he was back into it, after the illness, 100%,

1:34:13 > 1:34:17I don't think he was.

1:34:18 > 1:34:21Maybe that's partly my fault, because the way

1:34:21 > 1:34:24I democratised the label - had to make it survive when he was ill.

1:34:24 > 1:34:26He... He...

1:34:26 > 1:34:29He didn't quite fit back into that, I don't think.

1:34:29 > 1:34:32So it was never quite the same.

1:34:32 > 1:34:34And he was never quite the same.

1:34:36 > 1:34:40One good thing they did was release the last Mary Chain album, which is a great album.

1:34:40 > 1:34:43Munki. It's great.

1:34:43 > 1:34:46We got booted off Warner Brothers Records and we needed a deal.

1:34:46 > 1:34:51And, er, Alan was there to rescue us.

1:34:52 > 1:34:55# I had trouble But I found my star

1:34:55 > 1:34:59# Found myself an electric guitar

1:34:59 > 1:35:03# Well I was some kind of messed up kid

1:35:03 > 1:35:07# Now look what you did Look what you did

1:35:07 > 1:35:09# You made me, yeah... #

1:35:10 > 1:35:14I know for a fact the Mary Chain took that to every major record label

1:35:14 > 1:35:16and they all rejected it.

1:35:16 > 1:35:18And Alan put it out.

1:35:20 > 1:35:22They believed in Mary Chain when nobody else did.

1:35:22 > 1:35:26They've believed in the Mary Chain at the start, when nobody would and at the end.

1:35:26 > 1:35:29To me, that's a fucking great thing,

1:35:29 > 1:35:32because Jim and William Reid are so amazing.

1:35:32 > 1:35:36You know? A great band. One of the best bands ever.

1:35:39 > 1:35:42# I love rock 'n' roll

1:35:42 > 1:35:46# I love what I'm doing

1:35:46 > 1:35:50# I need rock 'n' roll

1:35:50 > 1:35:53# Gets me where I'm going. #

1:35:59 > 1:36:02I remember phoning Dick up one morning.

1:36:02 > 1:36:05A particularly bleak February morning.

1:36:05 > 1:36:09I'm just saying, "Are you enjoying this?"

1:36:09 > 1:36:13And he was going, "I hate it." And I went, I don't like it either.

1:36:13 > 1:36:16And we just thought, "You know,

1:36:16 > 1:36:19"what are we trying to achieve with this?"

1:36:19 > 1:36:21We think we've done all we can do.

1:36:21 > 1:36:26We went to see a couple of Sony people and just said, "Ah, you know,

1:36:26 > 1:36:27we think that's it."

1:36:27 > 1:36:30Let's finish this now.

1:36:30 > 1:36:33It was a hard decision, but I think we both had enough.

1:36:33 > 1:36:37They told us three or four months before they were going to close the label down.

1:36:37 > 1:36:40And we were going to be the last record on the label.

1:36:40 > 1:36:42I felt let down. I didn't feel offended.

1:36:42 > 1:36:45It was just like it was fucking so unnecessary, you know what I mean?

1:36:45 > 1:36:48If somebody had been a bit smarter with the cash.

1:36:48 > 1:36:52We bailed at a point, at least we kept our dignity.

1:36:52 > 1:36:55We thought we'd have to go through a whole rigmarole

1:36:55 > 1:36:58and maybe if we were lucky we'd get out at the end of 2000.

1:36:58 > 1:37:04They worked out if they cut us at November 1999,

1:37:04 > 1:37:06they saved half a million running costs.

1:37:06 > 1:37:09And me and Dick were like cheering.

1:37:09 > 1:37:12We got out just before the end of the decade.

1:37:13 > 1:37:16We got shafted. Totally fucking shafted.

1:37:16 > 1:37:18They fucked us over because...

1:37:18 > 1:37:20I made my best record, right?

1:37:20 > 1:37:24They actually shut the fucking office a week or two after the record came out.

1:37:24 > 1:37:28There was nobody in the fucking building, there was nobody working the record.

1:37:29 > 1:37:34We paid everybody off, the staff off properly, we paid the bills.

1:37:34 > 1:37:36We kept the rest of the money. It was OK.

1:37:36 > 1:37:39We still put in the Primal Scream album at number two.

1:37:39 > 1:37:43Oasis still put their album out on their own label and it went to number one.

1:37:43 > 1:37:48We ended on a high, but that isn't rock 'n' roll, so we went bust!

1:37:48 > 1:37:50HE LAUGHS

1:37:50 > 1:37:55Nostradamus did say that creation would end in 1999.

1:37:55 > 1:38:00So people were really paranoid around the millennium

1:38:00 > 1:38:04that the world was going to end, that creation was going to finish.

1:38:04 > 1:38:08But he didn't specify it would be a record label!

1:38:17 > 1:38:18BIG BEN TOLLS

1:38:22 > 1:38:25Any insinuation that rock 'n' roll is a hopeless case

1:38:25 > 1:38:30is when you get to the supposed state of Nirvana that it's always going to be empty.

1:38:30 > 1:38:35It's a fallacy. You see, our dreams are so huge and enormous and vast.

1:38:35 > 1:38:38And we can never really fully meet them.

1:38:38 > 1:38:41The rule really is to be glad for every fucking thing.

1:38:43 > 1:38:45The flag has gone in, you know.

1:38:45 > 1:38:48We can return to the moon in 20 years' time

1:38:48 > 1:38:50and that Creation flag will still be there.

1:38:50 > 1:38:55I think it was like the ultimate fucked-up family.

1:38:55 > 1:38:59When you go through such an incredible moment in time,

1:38:59 > 1:39:04you're bound together in some very profound way.

1:39:04 > 1:39:06You can't shake that off, even if you want to.

1:39:06 > 1:39:08I think if you asked any single band now,

1:39:08 > 1:39:11we'd all love to be back on Creation.

1:39:11 > 1:39:16I don't think any of those bands would have been as successful if they hadn't been on Creation.

1:39:16 > 1:39:20We wouldn't have done all the stuff we've done if it hadn't been for Alan and Dick.

1:39:20 > 1:39:23I don't think anyone else would have taken a chance with Primal Scream.

1:39:23 > 1:39:27It was a great atmosphere to make music in, to talk about music

1:39:27 > 1:39:28and to talk about what was possible.

1:39:28 > 1:39:30The ideas that you had.

1:39:30 > 1:39:33Some of the ideas we had were fucking amazing.

1:39:33 > 1:39:37They found certain individuals or bands, interesting people,

1:39:37 > 1:39:41and thought they had a unique voice that had to be heard.

1:39:41 > 1:39:44Alan signs people, he believes in the people, he's not to know

1:39:44 > 1:39:47that when he signs you as an artist, you're not going to go off

1:39:47 > 1:39:51and make space-jazz albums next time, but he'll pay for it and go with it

1:39:51 > 1:39:53because he believes in you.

1:39:53 > 1:39:57They gave us the freedom to do what we wanted.

1:39:57 > 1:39:59They financed our fucking dreams.

1:39:59 > 1:40:01And even when they never had any money,

1:40:01 > 1:40:04they went out of their way to find the money to do it.

1:40:04 > 1:40:06Eventually, it all came good.

1:40:06 > 1:40:08Made great records.

1:40:08 > 1:40:11You know, it all paid off in the end.

1:40:11 > 1:40:14We couldn't have done it without Gillespie.

1:40:14 > 1:40:15# Uh-huh-huh

1:40:15 > 1:40:18# Feels like I'm going mad

1:40:18 > 1:40:21# Best friend I ever had

1:40:21 > 1:40:25- # So low I feel so sad.- #

1:40:25 > 1:40:27We rewrote pop history with lightning!

1:40:31 > 1:40:33Subtitles by Red Bee Media

1:40:33 > 1:40:35E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk