WRITTEN OFF AT 40, RESURGENT AS HE APPROACHES 50, LIAM GALLAGHER’S SECOND ACT RESOUNDS TO THE ROAR OF THE CROWD, WITH TWO SOLD-OUTKNEBWORTHS AND A NEW ALBUM WITH SOME “WEIRD SHIT” HE’LL COME AROUND TO EVENTUALLY. AND IF THAT SEEMS AN UNLIKELY ENOUGH TRANSFORMATION, JUST WAIT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS-GULP!-WHEN HIS TIME IS UP. “I’LL BE REBORN AS A WASP,” HE TELLS TED KESSLER.

LIAM LOVERS INTERVIEWS AS TOLD TO CHRIS CATCHPOLE.

“The clothes are already made – but I make them look good”: Liam Gallagher, rock’n’roll star redux, Spring Studios, Kentish Town, London, March 1, 2022.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM OLDHAM

DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU SAW HIM? PERHAPS HE WAS on stage, hands behind his back, leaning into the microphone from beneath it, chest puffed, belting the words out from somewhere deep within his guts. Yearning, sneering, calling your name. More likely, though, you first spied him on TV. Press the red button, The Chart Show’s on. A r udimentar y drum beat sounds. Boom-tish-boomboom-tish-boom-tish-boom-boom-tish. Fingers slide down the neck of an Epiphone Les Paul Standard guitar and there he is, William John Paul Gallagher, doing a Mancunian duck walk across the roof of a building next to King’s Cross Station in London. He tip-toes in soft shoes through a puddle, before the camera closes in on his poker face. Tousled hair. Eyebrows. Corduroy jacket, top-button fastened. Transparent shades. He opens his mouth to sing: “I need to be myself, I can’t be no one else…”

Tom Oldham. Lighting by James Hole.

Tom Oldham, Getty

It’s a manifesto, a mitigation, and – so it would turn out – his policy for musical governance over the next four decades, all laid out in his ver y first recorded lines sung for public consumption, way back in April, 1994. Give that man a gin and tonic.

And here he is again as the clock strikes noon, in March 2022, climbing from a blacked-out people carrier outside The Standard Hotel, directly across Euston Road from that now-demolished rooftop upon which Liam Gallagher opened his Oasis account almost exactly 28 years ago.

Some water has passed beneath the bridge since then. King’s Cross is revamped, barely recognisable. Gallagher, however, looks more-or-less identical. A little more timber, perhaps, hence the baggy yellow parka and comfy strides. And who knows what lurks beneath that cap? “Bit fucking blowy out there, innit?” he explains, patting down his hair, before quickly replacing the hat.

For a man who’s fast approaching his 50th birthday, however, Gallagher looks in good shape. He could pass as 10 years younger. No, no Botox (“fuck that”). The landmark birthday in September, which he plans to celebrate in Mustique with his family, does not feel like a big deal to the onetime Oasis frontman, despite his reputation for youthful exuberance, or perhaps because of it.

“Once you join a band, it’s your birthday ever y day,” he reasons, as we wait by the lifts. “If you’re not getting up at six in the morning to go dig holes in the road then you’ve sort of made it. Buddhists say that getting up every morning is another birthday, you know.” He considers this. “I mean, it really is my birthday ever y fucking d ay!” he declares, with a laugh. “Ever y day, man.”

We climb into the elevator and head to an eighth-floor suite to further explore this notion.

WHEN OASIS SPLIT AMIDST THE fractured remains of their Parisian dressing-room in August 2009, the future for the two principal leads, singer Liam and guitarist Noel Gallagher, was unknowable.

Predictions could have been made, though. Noel was the brains of the operation, the songwriter. He’d be fine. In fact, he’d flourish without his unpredictable, unadventurous younger brother holding him back. Noel would still be able to turn out a tune or two, but he could experiment, collaborate. It would be Noel’s glorious second act.

Liam’s path looked less certain. He couldn’t really write songs on a reliable basis. He’s a magnificent singer, instantly recognisable, but he isn’t versatile. Could he only really sing those Noel Gallagher belters and anthems? Where would he be without his brother?

Initially, the forecasts appeared correct. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds released a playful debut album in 2011 that went double platinum domestically. Liam Gallagher formed Beady Eye with the remaining members of Oasis. They were not quite as successful, and split in 2014 after two middling albums. It seemed then that Noel would continue his ascent, while Liam was washed up, done. Kaput. Even his haircut looked worse than Noel’s.

Yet here we are in the early spring of 2022 and the tables are turned. Liam’s solo career, launched with his first album under his own name, As You Were, in 2017, has been an era-defining commercial success.

When something works well, its design often appears obvious in retrospect. However, it was not clear in 2015 or 2016 how Liam Gallagher could mend his relationship with the listening public, at a time when he was also navigating divorce from his wife, former All Saints singer Nicole Appleton. His then-management assistant, Debbie Gwyther, became his partner, then his manager, and helped plot a way out, introducing Gallagher to American songwriters Andrew Wyatt and Greg Kurstin, who would write the songs to reconnect Liam with all his fans, both old and new.

Every day is his birthday: Liam gets ready to party, 2022; scenes from the Oasis Supersonic video shoot near King’s Cross Station, 1994.