THEY were both notorious hellraisers with prickly reputations in their 20s as they embraced rock ‘n’ roll debauchery.
But, now in middle age and their reputations as great songwriters secured, Oasis’s Noel Gallagher and The Libertines’ Pete Doherty are ego-free, according to Ocean Colour Scene’s Steve Cradock.
Noel Gallagher was in the studio with Cradock working on Paul Weller’s new album[/caption]
Pete Doherty is a big fan of Ocean Colour Scene and recently joined them on stage[/caption]
Guitarist Cradock, 55, who has also played with Paul Weller since the early 90s, is pals with both musicians and lifted the lid on what they’re really like behind the headlines.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun from his home ahead of the band’s performance at Godiva Festival, he said: ” He [Noel] plays guitar on a track on Find El Dorado actually – Paul’s covers album – so I saw him there. We text occasionally. It’s lovely. I love Noel. He’s an incredible writer. I can’t say that enough, he’s fantastic.”
Cradock will be heading to see Oasis this summer with his sons, Sunny and Cass, and feels like the newly-reformed group “deserve to be the biggest band in the world again”.
Even though Ocean Colour Scene knocked Oasis’s Be Here Now off the top of the UK album chart in 1997 with their third album Marchin’ Already, Cradock acknowledges his band didn’t have the same cultural impact as the Gallagher brothers.
“Oasis changed the whole country,” says Cradock. “The Beatles did that. I think maybe The Jam did that. Maybe the two-tone label did that. Maybe Arctic Monkeys had done that. We’re just a group from Birmingham who were around at that time.
“Oasis changed the way people dressed and they had such incredible characters, you know, Noel and Liam. Liam was just a one-off and they broke the f**king mold, I think. And, you know, good on them.”
Meanwhile Doherty, who now lives a quiet life in a small French seaside town with his wife Katia de Vidas and their daughter Billie Mae, two, recently joined Ocean Colour Scene on stage to sing backing vocals.
“He’s always lovely, Pete Doherty,” says Cradock. “I like him a lot and he seems to be a fan of the group and always has been apparently.
“He’s just lovely, and I’m pleased he’s managed to get himself straight, you know.
“It’s the people who are no good who end up being c**ts to me because they have to be, don’t they? They’ve got to have it. I don’t know, I don’t want to get into psychology or anything but most people I meet are really lovely people, really nice.”
Though he was immersed in the raucous Britpop scene that preceded Doherty’s rise to indie stardom in the early noughties, Cradock managed to come through the wild parties relatively unscathed.
He admits he was never on “Pete’s level” but says “the 90s were very hedonistic so we’ve all had our moments. But that sort of bullsh*t, when you see people who pass through all that rock and roll death, it’s all just bullsh*t man.”
When asked if the pair have big egos, Cradock delivered an emphatic no, saying: “No I don’t think there is. Most people are really lovely.”
Classic rock fans can also breathe a sigh of relief that Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant is another music hero with no airs or graces.
The Whole Lotta Love singer features on Weller’s upcoming album and Cradock says he turned up ready and willing to work like a regular session musician.
“He was prepared for it, like a working musician, not a rock god,” he says.
“He was humbling and he played some beautiful harp. Then we asked if he would sing and he sang and it was just like, ‘wow’.”
Mod fan Cradock rejoiced in hearing Plant’s tales from his days before superstardom, particularly how he played a role in a notorious battle between two subcultures on the south coast.
Robert Plant blew Cradock away when he sang in the studio[/caption]
“He told me he left the Black Country in ’64 on his hand-painted Lambretta, went down to Hastings and got involved in the mods and rockers fight and then drove back on his Lambretta.
“It blew my mind the fact that you’ve got this sort of rock icon who was originally a mod fighting the rockers.
“He was a gentleman and he’s a great singer and he’s really tuned in to what’s happening in that moment you know, a true professional, a G. He’s a f***ing G.”
Music fans can hear Plant do his thing when the record is released on July 25.
Godiva Festival takes place at Coventry’s War Memorial Park July 4-6
