Oasis’ First Producer Recalls Abandoned Album Sessions

The version of Definitely Maybe that made Oasis’ name in 1994 wasn’t the first version of the album. As fans know well, there was a previous and nearly complete set of recordings that were abandoned because the band felt they lacked the vibe they needed to transmit to a waiting world.

Those recordings, made at the residential Monnow Valley Studio in Wales, were helmed by Scottish producer Dave Batchelor, who bonded with Noel Gallagher while both were employed as road crew in the early ‘90s. Several years older than the Gallaghers, he had been a stalwart of live ‘70s sound, working on tour and in the studio with cult Scottish outfit the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. He kept working after the group’s 1977 collapse and found himself traversing through punk, new wave, indie and then the Britpop movements.

“I first met Noel when touring with the Inspiral Carpets,” Batchelor tells UCR in his first interview on the subject of Oasis. “They were all good mates; he was their guitar tech and I was doing front-of-house sound. After shows, on the tour bus, Noel and I got chatting and discovered we had similar tastes in music, including The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.

READ MORE: How Oasis Made ‘Definitely Maybe’

“He told me about the band he and Liam had going and gave me a listen to their demo tape. I was really impressed; it was all there at that early stage – the Liam swagger on vocal, the song composition – it didn’t sound like anything else at the time ... nailed!”

Oasis had management at that point but no record deal. Despite that, the bond between Noel Gallagher and Batchelor was such that he was promised the role of producer when the time came. “True to his work, when the deal was done, I was offered the producer’s contract,” he recalls.

Batchelor was eager to return to studio work, and in particular to work with a hot property like Oasis. “I’d got back into live sound engineering after years producing bands during the punk era,” he explains. “The Skids’ Scared to Dance album was my first production after the SAHB period, and from there I worked with up-and-coming bands – but for me, so many of them had too much attitude, not enough substance, and I got burnt out on that. Oasis was different.”

He says rehearsals went well ahead of the recording sessions. “But as we worked through some arrangement changes to prepare for laying tracks, I felt we’d probably need another week, just to get things bedded in. Instead, we ended up with just a couple of days. So we could have been better prepared going into the studio. And also, given that it was a relatively new experience for the band. Still, the material was so strong and the energy level so high, we were all buzzing to start recording.”

Listen to Oasis’ Early Version of ‘Columbia’

Batchelor says Monnow Valley was the perfect setting for a band like Oasis – although they were out of their comfort zone. “I think Noel was keen to set up as they would on stage and capture that vibe, and I could see where he was coming from. I used that approach when recording SAHB’s first album, Framed, in 1972. With Alex Harvey in a vocal booth, we’d used low-profile screens between instruments so the band could see each other, which was great for getting that reactive performance from everyone.

“But those guys had already recorded two albums as Tear Gas [of which Batchelor had been a member] and were tight with it, so it totally worked. In the case of Oasis, full of potential there, it was still early days for the band, so I felt keeping things isolated was the way to go. Classic vibe albums like, say, the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, didn’t suffer from that approach.

“I remember sitting with Noel at a piano one night. I was busking a Burt Bacharach song, 'This Guy’s in Love With You.' We talked about the great songwriters. He had so much respect for their work and he yearned to be one. And to an extent, it influenced my approach to the production, leaning towards the song aspect. I sensed the band’s swagger and style would make a connection with their audience.”

What Was Oasis Like During Their First Album Sessions?

He recalls the daily recording schedule warmly, noting, “From the get-go at the breakfast table, Liam was focused on the tune of the day; just zoned in, right up for putting a cracking vocal down. Noel, on the other hand, was always in his own space, in his own time; an observer. He didn’t concern himself too much with the mechanics of the sessions – you got the impression he was in charge of what he wanted to do.”

He adds:  It was definitely a gang. The band had a strong awareness of where they all came from and they were proud of it. Creatively the Gallaghers were running the show – maybe Noel’s captain’s hat was a tad bigger than Liam’s. And you could see the clash of their temperaments lurking in the wings.”

Listen to Oasis’ Early Version of ‘Digsy’ Dinner’

He believes his caution over their inexperience was justified. “Laying the studio out at Monnow Valley, with the drum kit set up in the isolated room and instruments in their allocated area, I sensed the band would have felt more at ease being able to eyeball each other; although they totally took on the situation, and I felt there was a good buzz going.

“But there was still a legacy from rehearsals," he continues. "With any band, arrangement changes tend to affect the drummer more, and with Tony Carroll’s inexperience, there was that added challenge for him just to pin down that groove. Thinking back to the rehearsals, the Gallaghers’ impatience to get recording probably didn’t help.”

While hailing Monnow Valley’s location, facilities and staff, he says, “Sometimes the waiting game – marking time while someone else finishes an overdub – can get frustrating, and some focus can be lost. In a city studio environment, you could get totally away from that side of recording if you wanted. There’s always pros and cons.”

READ MORE: The Best Songs From Every Oasis Album

In 1995, Noel told Mojo he began to realize there was a clash of approaches between himself and Batchelor. “When it came to sitting at the mixing desk and I’m like … ‘Let’s get a bit mad here; let’s really let go and be young and compress the shit out of this so that the speakers blow up!’ He’d go, ‘Nope, ’cos this is the way we done it in our day, son.’ … I thought we either go with his saneness or my madness – and I’m in charge so, sorry, mate, you’ve got to go.’”

Batchelor – who suggests that Gallagher was paraphrasing for effect, emphasizing that he never would have spoken to the younger musician in such a patronizing tone – recalls: “I wasn’t in, shall we say, the same recreational headspace as the band! And there were tensions created within that space. I remember quite a few nights when some mates would arrive at the studio and the guys entertained into the wee hours. For me, in the relatively close confines of the studio, sleep was not happening. As the producer I wouldn’t go down that road, having seen what can happen – it’s a cultural thing. But latterly I felt an underlying disconnect with the band.

Listen to Oasis’ Early Version of ‘Bring It on Down’

“The material was strong. The band were fired up and I thought we had cut some solid backing tracks, and Liam put down great vocal performances – it was feeling good. But there did come a point when I felt we were losing momentum, taking longer than it should have. And I could sense some frustration coming from the band.

“When we got to the mixing stage and did the first track, ‘Bring It on Down,’ this was the point where it felt like hard work. I’d become aware the recording engineer wasn’t really giving me the vibe I wanted. An excellent engineer, but too clean and pristine in his approach to things. I knew the mixing stage was going to be a learning curve for both of us. It was early days from my perspective – the band’s attitude and color was yet to be pinned down. But we were getting there.”

After Batchelor left the project, the decision was made to abandon the Monnow Valley tapes and start again, in a recording setup similar to that which he had used in the past. He convinced his recordings didn’t have to be trashed, and in an undated interview with David J. Huggins, sound engineer Anjali Dutt – who was brought in after Batchelor and made the call – said she’d only done so because she felt that was what everyone wanted to hear. “The tracks did not ‘leap off the tape’ as such, but I had the feeling that the decision had already been made to start again. … I just reinforced it with a ‘Let’s be bold’ statement,” she said.

The Benefit of Oasis Abandoning the Monnow Valley Sessions

“I thought we had some great performances in the can,” Batchelor says, “but by the final mixing stage the band felt it wasn’t working for them, so they decided to end things at that point.” He accepts that “in hindsight, some of those early recordings may well have fallen short in delivering the full potential of the band. And in retrospect perhaps I was not quite suited to the project. Certainly, coming out of those sessions, I could not have seen where they arrived at with Definitely Maybe!”

He met Oasis again not long afterward, at a U.K. festival while he was back working front-of-house for live bands and they were commencing their climb to global success. “I spoke with Noel and a couple of the guys and it was all quite amicable,” he says.

Listen to Oasis’ Early Version of ‘Live Forever’

But Batchelor admits the experience of being removed from an album he cared so much about, and distanced from a songwriter whose talent he felt protective over, was a difficult one. “I confess I did not deep dive into Definitely Maybe when it first came out – I was still hurting,” he says.

“And initially I didn’t take to the production approach; I still had my vision of things. But time healed and I could appreciate the production values and how effective they were in creating a classic album. Now, with the anniversary release out there, maybe it’s time for me to dive in and make some comparisons.”

He argues that his sessions helped provide more of the settling-in time Oasis needed before triumphing in the studio. “They have to have served as good grounding for Definitely Maybe. It may not have turned out quite the classic it did had we not taken that first journey together.”

“Even back then, Oasis had spades of individual creative talent and passion, and they had sound with attitude – and they had good people around them. But you still need luck and timing. A bunch of guys’ life paths crossed, stars aligned and we got Definitely Maybe.”