{"id":1947,"date":"2016-11-02T11:36:07","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T11:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/?page_id=1947"},"modified":"2017-10-18T10:24:04","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T10:24:04","slug":"in-conversation-with-supersonics-mat-whitecross","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/?page_id=1947","title":{"rendered":"This is History: Mat Whitecross on directing Supersonic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Supersonic director Mat Whitecross. Photo taken on Mat’s Canon by music supervisor Ian Neil. Reproduced on Oasis Recording Info by kind permission of Mat Whitecross.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a> Filmmaker Mat Whitecross is uniquely positioned in the Oasis story. As the director of Supersonic<\/em><\/a>, he got closer than most to understanding the highly-charged, enigmatic relationship of Noel and Liam Gallagher. The brothers each sat for more than twenty hours of interviews with Mat, a process described by Liam as \u201cLike [the] therapy I never had!\u201d In the course of making the film Mat also pulled together hours of rare\u00a0footage, drawn from the band\u2019s own archive alongside the previously-unseen collections of their friends and family.<\/p>\n

On 26th<\/sup> October 2016, Mat spoke to Tom Stroud at length about making Supersonic.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way you could grow up in the \u201990s and be the age I was and not have Oasis as part of your DNA. And, personally, I love the fact that people have such a complicated relationship with them, the fact that they are a love\/hate band, y\u2019know? No-one sits on the fence and says, \u201cYeah, I can take them or leave them\u201d – you either love them with all your heart or you hate them with all your heart. Which is great; that\u2019s what you want from a band, right?\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tom: Let\u2019s start with a bit about you – you were born in 1977, you\u2019re a year older than me, and you\u2019re exactly the right age to appreciate Oasis and that moment in British music from the mid-\u201990s. You were obviously a fan; you didn\u2019t get to go to Knebworth did you? But obviously they were on your radar.<\/em><\/strong>
\nMat: They were definitely on my radar! I was exactly the right age. And I missed Knebworth! Because I was actually out of the country; I was travelling around South America. And so I wasn\u2019t around [for that] but I\u2019ve got a lot of friends who went. And I started to go and see them on the third album. I should\u2019ve gone before but it was one of those things where you go \u201cOh yeah, yeah, yeah I\u2019ll get round to it\u2026\u201d. I remember a friend – I mean this is a classic thing with every band – every person I met, and even now, people are like: \u201cWhoah you should\u2019ve seen them in the first two years! You missed it.\u201d So, in a sense, making the film was a way of travelling back in time and correcting that mistake.<\/p>\n

Tom: I was just going to say, it doesn\u2019t matter now because someone\u2019s made a film and put it on the big screen!<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMat: [Laughs<\/em>] That\u2019s true, yeah! You can dip in at your leisure.<\/p>\n

Tom: So when you came to it, did you have a fixed view of Oasis and the story that you wanted to tell? And did any of that change when you were making the film?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMat: Well the way it came about was that Simon Halfon (who\u2019s one of the producers) used to design the record sleeves and the album artwork from the fourth album [Standing on the Shoulder of Giants<\/em><\/a>] onwards. And so he contacted me – we were supposed to be doing another film about the Clash, quite a few years ago. And the timing didn\u2019t work out. So when he came to me I didn\u2019t know what we were supposed to be doing, and he sent me this slightly cryptic e-mail saying \u201cDo you like Oasis?\u201d<\/p>\n

And that was pretty much it; that was all the information I had going in. And when I said yes, he said \u201cDo you want to come and meet Noel?\u201d So I didn\u2019t really<\/em> know\u2026 I can\u2019t even remember if he told me the band were getting back together, whether there was a reunion on the cards, or whether it was a retrospective thing. And then, of course, Noel\u2019s first question was: \u201cWell, what\u2019s this film that we\u2019re making?\u201d [Laughs<\/em>]. So I wasn\u2019t exactly armed with a huge amount of information. But it was great because everyone in the room had been talking about Knebworth and the fact that they had this great footage that no-one had ever seen. And it just felt – the size of the thing, even being out of the country when it was on\u2026 it was just on a scale that no one had imagined. Certainly not that band, in two years; it was inconceivable in this country, just two years before. So it felt like that was a good way of focussing attention. Because the more we talked about it, it just felt impossible to me to do the whole story up to 2009. It would\u2019ve been just so superficial. And there\u2019s so many changes not only in the band but in the world around them, that I just think it would\u2019ve been too much. I mean you could have a mini-series maybe, but\u2026<\/p>\n

Tom: Yeah I mean that\u2019s the frustration with this film, just for the period you\u2019ve covered it almost feels too short; to do the whole lot is impossible, isn\u2019t it?<\/em><\/strong>
\nMat: Right, for sure. It was a tricky one. And it was tricky going into it because I hadn\u2019t really had a chance to do the homework I would\u2019ve liked. Obviously I knew the story- I\u2019d grown up with it; I used to read the NME<\/em> every week like everyone else. I knew enough about them that I could kinda wing it and I was a big fan. So I knew enough about the story, but it wasn\u2019t like I\u2019d done the kind of research I normally do going into it, before meeting someone like that, talking about the project\u2026 I think I was in the middle of something else and I didn\u2019t really have the chance to sit down for a day and go: \u201cRight, what is this film that we\u2019re gonna try and make?\u201d I didn\u2019t even know if I was making it. Because I was effectively going in to meet them – I assumed I was auditioning but no-one really briefed me! [Laughs<\/em>].<\/p>\n

Tom: You were being sounded out. <\/em><\/strong>
\nMat: I was being sounded out, for sure. Because I don\u2019t know if they saw anyone else for it but it was one of those things where we didn\u2019t know if we were definitely going to do it, what the film was gonna be, and if we could raise the money. All those kind of issues that you have going into any film. But when Noel first mentioned this film I thought that if we focussed on the early years it would be much more intense, and we could go into so much more depth. And also just the fact that what\u2019s really unique about Oasis is those first two years. He said it himself when we were doing the interviews\u2026 Noel was saying there was that danger. \u201cWe knew at the time that after Knebworth you become another band, and the machine takes over.\u201d And that is kinda the inevitable thing that happens to most bands. But it did mean that after that, you can compare the journey and the stories. As crazy as they were, you can compare them in some ways to other bands. Whereas on the way up it was very different.<\/p>\n

Tom: Why did they want to do it? I know it\u2019s twenty years since Knebworth and that footage hadn\u2019t been used before. But, as fans, we had the sense that Oasis was buttoned-up, the relationships had broken down\u2026 they didn\u2019t get involved in any of the promotion for the reissued albums. It felt like Oasis was this done thing, and the next thing we knew there\u2019s this film coming out. Did they have a sense of wanting to tell their story properly, or their place in history? What was driving the idea?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMat: Yeah I would say it was probably that sense of wanting to try and convey the legacy of what that band had achieved. Because I think\u2026 I dunno, probably you and David and the fans, know this better than anyone else: which is that – it happens to a lot of bands – the shine goes off. Once you become successful it\u2019s not cool to like you anymore. But I think, given all the tabloid excesses, controversies, and caricature that was perpetuated, the problem was that people forgot about the music. They forgot about the great attitude and the vibe in the first few years, and started to remember the tit-for-tat nonsense, and all the problems towards the end. Which, in my mind, wasn\u2019t what Oasis was about at all.<\/p>\n

And also – I think unfairly – a lot of the later albums got criticised and were slagged off by the press, who were looking for the next thing. Y\u2019know as soon you\u2019re big then everyone wants to knock you down. I love a lot of those later albums, and a lot of those later songs. But it\u2019s impossible to compete with the first two albums because they\u2019re masterpieces. And I remember saying that to Noel, and Noel was like: \u201cWell why should I have to live up to the first two albums? No one else can!\u201d [Laughs<\/em>]. It was one of those things – like they didn\u2019t make another album as good as Definitely Maybe<\/em> (arguably). And Noel was like: \u201cWell no one has!\u201d [Laughs<\/em>].<\/p>\n

So, from my point of view, I thought – let\u2019s focus on the early days which had all those things. I felt like, when I was talking to friends about it, for whatever reason it\u2019d become\u2026 it wasn\u2019t like it was uncool to like Oasis, but it was more that it was like \u201cHmm, yeah\u2026 they kinda lost it by the end, and were they any good in the first place?\u201d People had forgotten how great they were. But then as soon as you\u2019re playing one of those songs – you hear the song back home, or on a jukebox – then the whole place erupts and everyone\u2019s singing every lyric. So it doesn\u2019t take that much to give them a nudge, but I felt that in some way we could redress the balance. And I guess that was Noel and Liam\u2019s motivation as well.<\/p>\n

And the other thing that Noel said is that the industry seems very beige, and safe, and corporate now. He was joking and kinda saying: \u201cLook, back then – twenty years ago – what was the biggest band? Well, there was this kind of punk rock band from the wrong side of the tracks who really shouldn\u2019t have made it.\u201d And everyone was focussed on them. And what\u2019s the biggest thing in music right now? It\u2019s basically Cilla Black. He was saying that, for his money, that\u2019s a tragedy. Not to say that people shouldn\u2019t be allowed to listen to any type of music, but you should want to listen to music that\u2019s gonna challenge you and be in your face. For lots of reasons: technical, cultural, all these things\u2026 the way that people (for want of a better word) \u2018consume\u2019 music has changed. And I guess maybe a band like Oasis aren\u2019t possible in the same way any more.<\/p>\n

Tom: Yeah that\u2019s one of the points at the end of the film isn\u2019t it? That this story couldn\u2019t happen now in the way that it did.<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMat: Yeah, I mean it was interesting because I don\u2019t think Noel was saying that because music\u2019s changed it can never be as good, or as interesting now. It\u2019s more the fact that people\u2019s minds can\u2019t be focussed, in the way that they were, on one particular band who seemed to represent everything at that moment. Because I guess the industry is so fractured and we\u2019re far less tribal in the way that we listen to music. You can listen to lots of bands and lots of types of music, and that\u2019s normal now. But, back then, you had your band and they were like your football team: you supported them through thick and thin, through good days and bad days, great albums and terrible albums. And now it\u2019s much more like: you might listen to some of their songs but you just have them on a playlist. And if you don\u2019t go to the gig that night because you\u2019re tired, or you\u2019re drunk, or you miss it, then you just watch it on YouTube twenty minutes later. So you\u2019re not invested in it in quite the same way. It doesn\u2019t mean that there\u2019s not great music and great characters out there now, but they\u2019re not part of the mainstream in the way Oasis were at that moment in time.<\/p>\n

Tom: Right, let\u2019s talk about interviewing Noel and Liam because you had unprecedented access. I heard Ron Howard talking about the Beatles film [Eight Days a Week<\/a>] and he said, \u201cOh yeah, Paul and Ringo were brilliant – they gave me loads of time! I had two two-hour sessions with them.\u201d<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMat: Hahaha!<\/p>\n

Tom: \u2026whereas you had twenty hours with Noel and Liam, didn\u2019t you?<\/em><\/strong>
\nMat: Yeah! And it could\u2019ve been more, that was the crazy thing. They were happy to do as much as we wanted. But it wasn\u2019t a foregone conclusion because when we met for the first time they [cautiously] said, \u201cYeah, OK. We\u2019ll do the interviews, keep on going and we\u2019ll see how it goes.\u201d But I knew in the back of my mind that, if it\u2019d gone badly up-front, then they\u2019d probably get bored and just get the hump. Just walked off! There was always that thing in the back of my mind: what if they just find the process really dull and boring? What if\u2026? I mean, especially Liam tends to have quite a narrow attention span, so what happens if, after two hours, he says: \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m not really feeling this. Have you got enough?\u201d And we\u2019d barely covered his childhood, y\u2019know? But he was amazing<\/em> – they both were. They kept coming back each week. Even after the first session I spent two, three hours with Noel talking about songwriting, and about what music means to him. Those kind of things – it was all much more abstract; just getting to know each other. And at the end of that he said: \u201cWe haven\u2019t really talked that much about Oasis!\u201d I was like, \u201cRight, well we\u2019ll do it next time.\u201d Which was an amazing luxury to have, and probably no-one\u2019s ever had that before.<\/p>\n

So each week we\u2019d go through it and he said he\u2019d prefer to do it chronologically, because it would help him remember. So we went month-by-month through those three years. And obviously I would say something like, \u201cI want to talk a bit about your brother, or Bonehead, or your childhood\u201d, or whatever it might be\u2026 and then we\u2019d go off-piste for half an hour or an hour (or whatever it was) and then come back. But that was the way we did it. Each week we\u2019d go, \u201cWell, we\u2019re nowhere near Knebworth; I guess I\u2019ll see you next week again?\u201d And the same went for Liam. Even Liam, on the last session he was like: \u201cYou sure you\u2019ve got enough? I\u2019ll come back and talk about the third album. Can we do that one as well?\u201d And Noel was the same – he said \u201cAnytime you need me, I\u2019ll come back.\u201d I said that we\u2019d kinda got to that point, we didn\u2019t want to waste their time. Although there was a little bit of me – in the back of my mind – saying let\u2019s just pretend we haven\u2019t finished the film, I\u2019ll keep on interviewing him for the rest of my life! \u201cYeah, there\u2019s just another couple of things I wanted to ask you\u2026\u201d Would\u2019ve been great.<\/p>\n

Tom: When you\u2019re doing an interview the barriers come down over time, don\u2019t they? And I know you\u2019ve said that, at first, it was kind of terrifying doing those interviews – and I completely get that.<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMat: Yeah, yeah. Well it was\u2026 you know, sitting down the first time you do that thing where they\u2019re such great storytellers you immediately relax into it. And you listen to them, and it\u2019s surreal because they\u2019re people that I grew up with: I had their posters on my wall and the albums on my shelf. So it was very odd because you\u2019re in that situation but [it feels like] a slightly \u201cout of body\u201d experience. And then suddenly you realise you\u2019ve got to ask the next question: \u201cOh shit, he\u2019s talking to me!\u201d, and I\u2019m like – \u201cOK, fine. I\u2019m not listening to this on the radio or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom: And then when you have to look Noel in the eye and say, \u201cYour dad hit you\u201d, that\u2019s tough to do isn\u2019t it? Were they alright about that?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMat: Yeah I mean, you know what they\u2019re like. There\u2019s nothing off-limits, which is amazing. I kinda assumed that\u2026 it wasn\u2019t that I assumed there were any questions that weren\u2019t going to be allowed. It was more that I thought he would, after a while, get to a point where he\u2019d say, \u201cLook, I think we\u2019ve covered this.\u201d Or, \u201cLet\u2019s move on.\u201d But that never really happened. The only thing was that – if I felt we were getting to a point on a subject where he\u2019s a bit talked out, then I\u2019d say \u201cWell let\u2019s move on, we\u2019ll come back to this another time.\u201d Or I\u2019d find another way, so if Liam said something about it, or I went to meet Peggie and she said something else that was revealing, then I could say: \u201cWell it\u2019s interesting, because your mum mentioned this, whereas you\u2019d said that.\u201d And so that was a way of circling round and covering something we hadn\u2019t done in enough depth.<\/p>\n

But there was never any point with either [Noel or Liam] where they said they weren\u2019t comfortable with discussing a topic. Which is the amazing thing about talking to them, because some people [in the music industry] have media training or management before they go into interviews, because interviews seem so tame now. But [Noel and Liam], uniquely, are still exactly just as you take them. And I guess the only danger for us was that, because they\u2019ve been such great interviewees and so open in the past, was anything new going to come out? Were we actually going to add anything to the story? It felt like the depth that we got into was something new.<\/p>\n

Tom: And you definitely did. And I\u2019m pretty sure I know the answer to this, but presumably a joint interview was never discussed?<\/em> <\/strong>
\nMat: It wasn\u2019t. Well\u2026 it was discussed by us, within our filmmaking team. Because I think it was before I met them both\u2026 I remember Liam tweeting a photo<\/a> of him backstage at one of Noel\u2019s gigs, with a triple-A pass. And I never really got to the bottom of that\u2026 I don\u2019t know what the story was there.<\/p>\n

But I was thinking, does it seem to be thawing? Are they gonna be mates again? Or is there gonna be a reunion? Part of me thought this is great, but the other part of me thought actually, it\u2019s probably going to be more valuable to us to interview them separately. Because when you get them together – as entertaining as that is (and you see them in the film, they\u2019re fantastic) – but it tends to be relatively superficial; it\u2019s banter and they can\u2019t take it seriously.<\/p>\n

Tom: Yep.<\/em><\/strong>
\nMat: One brother talks over the other, and all those kind of problems. And I just felt like if we\u2019re going to start talking about their difficulties, their problems with each other, their childhood and any of these things, I can\u2019t ever imagine them opening up in the way that we need when they\u2019re doing it together. It\u2019s just an amalgam.<\/p>\n

Tom: And that\u2019s a visual thing anyway; you\u2019d want to see them reunited because it hasn\u2019t happened for so long. But I love the fact that the whole film is done in voiceover, which keeps you in the moment.<\/strong><\/em>
\nMat: Ah, good! Yeah I think so. That was something that we discussed up-front. Noel said, \u201cLook, I don\u2019t want this to be just an exercise in nostalgia. I don\u2019t want us to wallow in the past.\u201d Obviously when you\u2019re looking at the old days there\u2019s an element of nostalgia involved, if it was a good moment in your life. But, on the other hand, it felt like an easy way of avoiding that was not seeing them in the present, and not feeling like (as he said) \u201cA bunch of grey-haired rockers talking about the good old days.\u201d Which is fair enough.<\/p>\n

And we realised that if we weren\u2019t gonna be able to get them together, then the only way of creating a conversation between the two of them – without getting too tricksy – was to interview them separately, and create that conversation through me. So I would ask the same questions to them both and if Liam said something that was interesting or provocative, I could put that back to Noel, and then put Noel\u2019s answer back to Liam. So you could create a dialogue even though none existed, because they can\u2019t be in the same room together.<\/p>\n

Top of Page<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Mat Whitecross was interviewed by Tom Stroud on 26th<\/sup> October 2016. Online presentation by David Huggins; published on Oasis Recording Info, 2nd<\/sup> November 2016. In Part 2<\/a> Mat recalls searching the archives for lost footage of Oasis! Supersonic<\/em> is out now on DVD<\/a>, Blu-Ray<\/a>, and digital download from iTunes<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Filmmaker Mat Whitecross is uniquely positioned in the Oasis story. As the director of Supersonic, he got closer than most to understanding the highly-charged, enigmatic relationship of Noel and Liam Gallagher. The brothers each sat for more than twenty hours of interviews with Mat, a process described by Liam as \u201cLike [the] therapy I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1927,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1947","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1947"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2334,"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1947\/revisions\/2334"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}