Art Brut’s Eddie Argos has shared an anecdote about spending time with Oasis on tour – involving an impressive party trick and a Half Man, Half Biscuit song.
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In an Instagram post shared yesterday (August 31), Argos published a clip from the audiobook edition of a forthcoming book of his. In the excerpt, Argos recounts Art Brut’s stint as support act for Oasis’s 2005 Europe tour.
“It was quite a strange experience being in Oasis’ dressing room. Even though we were playing two nights with them, we hadn’t really expected to see them at all,” he begins.
He added that the band were “drinking their rider and stealing their ham and cheese” while spending time acquainting with Liam Gallagher. He told the Oasis frontman that he would stand still “perfectly” for about a minute during Art Brut’s performance of song ‘Moving to L.A.’. He brought up that, while watching Oasis perform on the tour, he noticed Liam would do the same thing onstage.
“Liam replied with a ‘Oh yeah, I’m the fucking master of standing still’,” Argos recalls, “and then stood staring at me completely motionless for about three minutes.”
Argos admits that he was left stupified by Liam’s own party trick – “I briefly thought about trying to balance something on his head, perhaps a tambourine,” he says.
“Fortunately, I came to my senses and realized that I didn’t know the man well enough to start trying,” Argos adds. When Liam “finally started moving again,” the indie rock frontman admitted “how strange” it was that Art Brut was supporting Oasis, comparing it to getting “an obscure, surrealist folk band from Merseyside” like Half Man Half Biscuit for the tour.
It was with this remark that Liam had called Noel over to their conversation, mentioning that the brothers used to listen to Half Man Half Biscuit all the time when they shared a room together. “Then Liam and Noel both turned to me and started singing ‘The Trumpton Riots’,” he notes.
“This was too much for me to take,” he admits, “Felt like part of a strange dream.”
In 2007, Argos recalled the same anecdote in an interview with The Guardian, where he also mentioned that Liam was a fan of his band: “He watched our soundcheck and we were playing ’Modern Art’, and he’s going, ‘Yeah, fuckin’ ‘ave it! This one’s me favourite!’ He loved it.”
The Oasis reunion tour was announced on Tuesday (August 27), with Liam and Noel Gallagher set to take to the stage together for the first time in 16 years. They will be playing 17 dates in the UK and Ireland next summer.
There is currently talk about which previous Oasis members could be joining Liam and Noel on the road in 2025, with co-founder Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs reportedly on board.
Former Oasis drummer Alan White has teased that he might join the band in their sold-out 2025 reunion tour after posting a cryptic social media post.
In July, Art Brut released the compilation, ‘A Record Collection, Reduced To A Mixtape’ and along with the five-CD box set ‘Yes, This Is My Singing Voice!’.
The double LP compilation gathers together key tracks from the band’s initial run of four albums from 2005’s debut ‘Bang Bang Rock & Roll’ to 2011’s ‘Brilliant! Tragic!’, and their 2018 fifth album ‘Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out!’, plus live tracks and rarities. Tracks including first single ‘Formed A Band’ and subsequent favourites including ‘Emily Kane’, ‘Nag Nag Nag’, ‘Axl Rose’ and a live version of ‘Modern Art’.
“A nice landmark,” Argos told NME of the releases. “It’s 20 years of Art Brut. I feel that our music makes a bit of sense at the moment. Shouty talky indie in music is fashionable again, right?”