Johnny Depp's surprising role in helping Noel Gallagher and appearance on Oasis album

Daily Mirror

2 days ago

Hollywood actor Johnny Depp struck up a bond with Noel Gallagher as he went on to help him work through his writers block and ended up playing on an Oasis track
Noel and Liam Gallagher once called in Hollywood actor Johnny Depp to help on their tracks after getting stuck in a writers rut. At the peak of Oasis' fame, the brothers knew they had to keep pumping out tracks for their adoring fans.
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They had mega success with their first albums, Definitely Maybe in 1994 and (What's the Story) Morning Glory? the following year. Oasis certainly showed off their songwriting status with their first two albums, yet Noel struggled to see where to take the band with their third.
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He was never short of confidence, though, as Noel considered the band "bigger than f***ing God" having sold over 20million copies of their second album. By the late 1990s, the Gallagher brothers counted celebrities among their fans and so decided to call on them at a time in need.
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Noel had struck up a connection with Edward Scissorhands star Johnny in 1995 when they teamed up for a cover of The Beatles' Come Together. They formed part of one-off supergroup The Smokin' Mojo Filters alongside Paul McCartney and Paul Weller.
It wasn't Johnny's first time recording music, however, as he had previously been signed to Geffen Records as a member of Rock City Angels. He had also appeared on Top of the Pops with the Pogues' Shane MacGowan, cementing Johnny's rock n roll status.
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Noel went on to ask Johnny to play guitar on Fade In-Out for their third album Be Here Now. "It's going to be weird how that's perceived, having a Hollywood star on the album," he admitted in 1997.
Johnny recorded his part on the Oasis track in the Spring of 1996, and picked a stunning location to so do. Noel and his wife Meg Matthews headed to the Caribbean island of Mustique with Johnny and his then girlfriend, supermodel Kate Moss.
However, they weren't there on a holiday and Noel had some serious work to get done as he suffered from writers block. "In London the phone was going all the time or there was someone knocking at the door or our kid comes round, 'Are we going out on the p*** or what?'" he told Q magazine.
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"Nailing a song together, finding the missing chord that gets it all flowing into one, that takes a lot of peace and quiet," Noel confessed. "The first part of [Fade In-Out] is from the Mustique demo with Johnny Depp playing slide guitar.
"I like it because it's the first blues song I've ever done and Liam does the best singing I've ever heard from him." Explaining how the track came together, Noel continued: "The scream near the end was the last bit we did.
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"Me and Meg went back to Mustique over Christmas and I took the rough mix with me. It needed something and it was bugging me. Meg woke up one morning and there was I in bed beside her with the Walkman on, screaming.
"She thought I'd gone into my drug psychotic phase. Oh, sorry, I'm just filling in a bit of the record." Noel seemed pleased Johnny was able to add his touch to the track and admitted he knew it would come as a surprise to fans.
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"So I don't think 14-year-old girls will be skipping about to this one. 'Ere 'Shelle, wind that one on will yer!' Until they find out Johnny Depp's on it... If he hadn't been around, we'd have had to get some fat old geezer who'd be telling us about how he played with Clapton in '76 and took a slide solo that lasted for f**ing months."
It wasn't the only time Johnny worked with Oasis, as he went on to play on lesser-known track Fade Away (Warchild Version). It also included a tambourine section from Kate Moss. There were reports of other collaborations between the music and acting stars, yet they never came to be officially released.
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