00:00In that huge moment when Liam turns up, for his first day, for the first time the brothers are going
00:06to perform together for however many years, there is not a high five or a hug or even a word
00:12between them. It's just like, okay, you ready? Yeah, should we go? Yeah, one, two, three, four, in.
00:19The world's biggest rock band. The popularity likened to that of the Beatles. The pop group Oasis is in doubt
00:25tonight. Brother against brother. We do, we do get quite nasty. Liam starts to see himself as a bit of
00:30a mad genius, but he's not quite a genius. He wants to be the man in charge. He wants to
00:35be the main man who's doing it.
00:39Hi, I'm Andrew Trendle. You're watching NME, and we're here today with the creator and writer of the beautiful new
00:44Oasis documentary, Don't Look Back in Anger, Mr. Stephen Knight.
00:47Hello.
00:48How you doing, Stephen?
00:49I'm very good, very good.
00:50So we last met in Birmingham at the inaugural Peaky Blinders Festival, where Liam was playing.
00:57Yeah.
00:57And I understand this is where this all began.
00:59It is, strangely. I was approached by Liam to direct a video of one of his solo singles, which was
01:10a beautiful song and it was a pleasure to do.
01:13And it was a cashless deal where, in return, I asked him to appear at the Peaky Blinders Festival, which
01:19he did, and he tore the place apart. It was brilliant. It was such a great day.
01:23And that's when I met him, and that's when we first had a dialogue.
01:27But then I didn't really speak much to him subsequently until just before Christmas 24 when I got a message
01:34saying, I know you're busy, but would you be interested?
01:38And I texted immediately back and said, I'm very busy. However, I'm really interested.
01:43So we got talking about this, and I understood that Liam and Noel both wanted me to do the documentary
01:53and not someone who knew what they were doing, which was quite daunting.
01:58But I thought, yeah, let's do it.
01:59How heavy a burden is that? Because naturally, this was the day we thought would never come.
02:03You must have been one of maybe, what, a handful of people that had known that this was on the
02:08way.
02:08How was it keeping that secret and planning for this?
02:10Yeah, I mean, that's not, it's not too bad. And I've tried not to, as with anything that I do,
02:17try not to think about the expectation, because it scares you to death.
02:22So I just thought, this is an interesting opportunity, and what should it be? What should it be about?
02:28Because, as I say, I've not done a documentary before, but I thought, if I'm writing a script, then I
02:34have to think, what is this, actually?
02:36Fundamentally, what is it that you want out of this?
02:39And I just thought, here we have a well-publicised rift between two people, and here they are coming together.
02:46So it's about reconciliation that leads to redemption and forgiveness and all of those wonderful things where you're on the
02:53tightrope with religion and all of that stuff.
02:56And I thought it should be about that, and just hoped that you can't choose to have a happy ending,
03:02I just hoped there would be one, and there was.
03:04Well, it took us a while to get to the happy ending as well, because naturally people might come into
03:08this expecting there to be a kind of Hollywood close-up, and either squaring off like a Western or kind
03:13of fisticuffs or a hug or something, but it's actually quite, they're just like down to business, aren't they?
03:19Yes. That's the thing that I find so appealing. And basically, my decision was to not make a film about
03:26the making of a film about a reunion. It was to just observe what's actually happening, and then in the
03:32edit you can start to sort of tell the story that you know is happening.
03:35And so we put cameras, with ten cameras in the rehearsal room, fixed, so we couldn't even follow someone around.
03:42Because they're sort of English working class blokes, in that huge moment when Liam turns up, for his first day,
03:51for the first time the brothers are going to perform together for however many years, there is not a high
03:57five or a hug or even a word between them.
04:00And it's just like, okay, you ready? Yeah, should we go? Yeah, one, two, three, four, in. And then the
04:08relationship builds as they're doing the actual work.
04:11Yeah.
04:12And that's what I love about it, that's why I think people get it and people feel the emotion, because
04:17you're feeling the emotion that they're not expressing, which I think is great. That's how I wanted that to be.
04:24And what was the moment you felt that it kind of truly thawed, and that the warmth and the love
04:29had been kind of reinstated? Because we end on quite a happy, it all ends, you know, brother on.
04:33No, of course, yeah.
04:34What was the moment where you thought it's working?
04:36Well, there's lots of them that sort of stepping stones, I think. And the first one which I love is
04:42when, because Noel's got this great way of saying, no, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. You
04:47know, you're going, not to Liam, but to the band.
04:51And he says that to day one, this is, and says, do take me there, take me there, take me
04:56there, and he does it, he sings it, and Liam sort of takes the mickey out of it a little
04:59bit.
05:00And they look at each other and they laugh and that's it, gone. But you just think, okay, that was
05:05two brothers talking to each other, with decades of experience of doing this sort of stuff.
05:10They're back on the bike, they're backing it. And they're sort of seeing the fun in it. And that was
05:15the first one. And then the step, you know, when Liam grabs Noel's hand and Noel had no idea who's
05:19going to do that.
05:20Yeah.
05:20Genuinely didn't know. And he says in the voiceover, he said, he's going on. And then from then on, next
05:29step in stone, their kids are introduced to each other. They're never met. And they become best mates and they're
05:35a gang. Suddenly it's a family again. You know, and just having that happen without anyone narrating it and without
05:44anyone pointing it out to anybody, you just feel it.
05:47I think he's, you know, I think that's the way life is.
05:51I just don't see myself on stage with Liam. I don't really want to be going back with the tension.
05:58Will it fall apart again?
06:01I saw it three times. I saw the tour three times and I was at the Cardiff gig. You know,
06:05for me, I mean, I was nervous just having to be there and review it. But what was it like
06:09for you being there knowing that there was so much riding on it and so much going into it?
06:11Well, having seen the rehearsals, I knew that they were in good shape. I mean, not just good shape. They
06:16were better than they've ever been. And I didn't think that the sort of people will go on stage and
06:22freeze. But Noel afterwards said he had no idea what was going on for the first 45 minutes.
06:27It was just muscle memory. But obviously, they were self evidently better than they've ever been. And everybody knew it.
06:34But the emotion of the crowd was the story.
06:38That was it. That was the story that night. It wasn't how great they are. The question I wanted to
06:43ask with the film is why, after 16 years of no promotion, no marketing, is this music bigger than it's
06:51ever been?
06:52And not only that, the generation who first loved it. The first meeting I had with Noel, he said, the
06:58thing is, we had no idea that it was going to get this response.
07:02We thought it would get a response, but not this. We thought arenas, not stadiums. And suddenly there's this tidal
07:08wave and it becomes apparent that this can't just be the fans that were there first of all.
07:12It's got to be the next generation and even the next. So that made me think at the very beginning,
07:17let's ask that question, why is this happening?
07:20And that's why we picked certain people of that generation to find out why they were loving the music.
07:25And what do you think it is?
07:26I've got various theories. The music, obviously the melodies are great, but that's too mysterious to explain.
07:33In general music, because music just goes straight to somewhere in your heart and people, you know, they love the
07:41music stays with them.
07:42That's one thing. That's great. But I do believe when Noel sat down to write the songs, I don't think
07:48he sat down thinking,
07:49I'm going to write a song about this. I'm going to write a song about that. You know, as a
07:54writer, I feel sometimes the same way.
07:57It's like being a radio and you just pick it up, you know, you're picking up a signal from somewhere
08:02and then you read it back.
08:03You go, what the hell is that? And speaking to Noel, I think there's something of that about it.
08:08So therefore these songs have this kind of mystical universality, if you're lucky, obviously.
08:15That generation saw a meaning in it that was that was about themselves.
08:21Then the next generation saw a meaning in the words that's about themselves equally.
08:26But it's always different. So everybody takes it and it becomes a possession of yours that you own.
08:30And then at Cardiff for the first time and then subsequently you get the two generations owning the same thing
08:37with their own interpretation.
08:37It's like a bridge between and probably has been all through those years.
08:42Then suddenly they're in the same place at the same time when that music is there.
08:46And there's the bridge in front of them and they cross and they meet in the middle and they're all
08:49hugging each other and crying.
08:52And Noel had to turn his back, you know, because he was so emotional.
08:55So I kept on about this all the way through. The film has to be emotional.
09:00It's got to be about the emotion of it because not least because they're not going to show it.
09:05They're not going to burst into tears and hug each other. You know, you've got to do that. That's your
09:10job.
09:11One moment where they did kind of let their guard down is I love it when it's the interview footage
09:14and then it pans out and they're both there.
09:16That must have been an amazing day of shooting to actually have them.
09:19It was lovely. I mean, I guess I'm not an interviewer. So it was just a conversation basically, you know,
09:25I'm not a journalist rather.
09:26So I think they have they're quite wary of journalists, sorry, because they feel there's an agenda usually.
09:36And I think that meant that they were very we met in the pub and we were very relaxed and
09:41just talked about stuff.
09:43And fortunately, virtually everything they say you could put on a T-shirt.
09:47Yeah, because it's so smart and funny and they both are like that and articulate.
09:51So, yeah. And, you know, there's a lot of a lot of that interview that is really good.
09:58And are you going to be on the road with Oasis next year?
10:00I'll go, definitely. But I won't be on the road making a film.
10:04Just bucket hat on, pints in the air.
10:07Absolutely. Not in the air, the pint I'll be drinking. I'll be throwing it away.
10:11Stephen, thank you so much. Thank you.
10:24It's going to be chaos.
