Here’s Bonehead looking back on time in Oasis – and the first first Oasis cover

3 weeks ago 7

With Bonehead reportedly set to join the reunited Oasis line-up, check out the guitarist looking back on his time with the band and their history with NME.

a black and white photo of Oasis' Noel and Liam Gallagher

JULY
04 – Cardiff, Principality Stadium
05 – Cardiff, Principality Stadium
11 – Manchester, Heaton Park
12 – Manchester, Heaton Park
19 – Manchester, Heaton Park
20 – Manchester, Heaton Park
25 – London, Wembley Stadium
26 – London, Wembley Stadium
AUGUST
02 – London, Wembley Stadium
03 – London, Wembley Stadium
08 – Edinburgh, Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium
09 – Edinburgh, Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium
16 – Dublin, Croke Park
17 – Dublin, Croke Park
Since the announcement of the reunion, there has been a lot of talk about who could be joining Liam and Noel in the line-up. Previous reports claimed “no other original Oasis member is expected to join the reunion”, and that “the members of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds will step in”.
It has now been reported that Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs is set to participate in the live comeback. The multi-instrumentalist was a co-founding member of Oasis – appearing in the initial line-up alongside Liam, Noel, bassist Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan and drummer Tony McCarroll.
A source reportedly revealed: “Bonehead is confirmed. They both wanted him in the fold and he was one of the drivers of the reunion. Noel has brought in some of his band too.
“The Oasis family has really come back together. Bonehead is ecstatic.”
The musician has been involved in Liam Gallagher‘s live show for a number of years – had to step away from the ‘Wonderwall’ singer’s previous tour following his cancer diagnosis. He was previously diagnosed with tonsil cancer in April of 2022 and has since announced that it is gone.

Back in April 2013, Bonehead joined NME in the NME archives to look back at previous Oasis magazine covers. While looking at the cover from June 1994, the guitarist shared: “It’s a picture of Liam in the Oasis bar if you can see that. That was in the bar in the hotel we were staying at in Portsmith I think it was. There’s a picture here with the caption ‘There’s nothing more revolting than a stool in a pool.”
He continued: “I remember coming back from the gig and it just turned into chaos. The bar in the hotel, from what I remember, there was a bar like there and directly in front of it was a swimming pool. So there was a pool in the bar and the barman decided to leave his post at one point. He probably nipped to the office to do what he did and that was our cue to just leap over the bar.
“Bottles of whiskey were taken, Brandy’s, went down into the pool, doing backstrokes drunk and of course when Bonehead jumps into the pool, chairs are going to follow. So there’s a picture, I think theres a quote somewhere here, ‘The swimming pool has been cleared of chairs and Bonehead and everyone decides logically that it is the hotel’s fault anyway its a stupid place to put a pool innit, frowns Liam. Just asking for trouble.”
Bonehead continued: “On a scale of one to 10 on Oasis nights out, I’d say that was probably a six. On an Oasis scale, we’ve had a few 10s and that doesn’t come close. To get on the front cover of the NME was something you dreamed of. I remember going out ant buying the NME. I’ve still got a copy and I’ve got a huge scrapbook at home with all of the covers, yeah, brilliant thing.”

The guitarist also reflected on attending and being a part of the NME Awards and their rivalry with Blur.
“This is the cover of the NME from February 4 1995, which was the Brat Awards special. Which I think Oasis and Blur were featured quite heavily in it. In 1995, there was a massive, well everyone would day there was a massive rivalry between Blur and Oasis which I don’t believe there was, I think it was a huge press make-believe rivalry. I mean, when we’d bump into Damon in town or Graham or Alex you know, we’d sit them a chat and everything was alright.
“There was a few nights out around London and I bet Liam would bump into whoever, Damon or Alex and generally we’d be drinking at places and meeting and the atmosphere was always alright, you know, and we all got on. But put Liam in front of a camera with Damon next to him, and Liam being Liam, he would rise to the occasion.
“I think the press would like to make it this big thing. I think it was pretty healthy. You know, create a buzz around it all and people would be like ‘What’s this big rivalry between Oasis and Blur’. There used to be a bit of this sweat like you can see on here Best Album, the winner was Blur with ‘Parklife’, Oasis was second with ‘Definitely, Maybe’ so it was like ‘Oh, are Blur going to win more than us this year. We used to have that sort of rivalry but I don’t think it was anything dangerous.”

Bonehead 🥹 pic.twitter.com/eFyX3jsFIJ

— Liam Gallagher Fans Club (@liamgfansclub) August 27, 2024

He then went on to share that the NME Awards were one of the highlights of the year, describing it as “Rock and roll, everyone was out for a good time. They had free beer.”
“I remember one night we won several awards and normally management would be like ‘Alright we’ve got all the awards and we are going to bring them back to the office and stick them in the shelves,’ and one night one of these awards were left on the table and I was with my wife and Noel’s guitar tech Jason and he was like ‘What are we going to do with this award?’ Management had gone back to the office with the rest of the awards and had forgotten it and I was like ‘I’ll bring it back to the hotel, it will be alright’ and I think we were doing 38 mph in the roundabout near Buckingham Palace in a taxi and I was smoking a cigarette with the window down and I am leaning to the left with my cigarette out the window and I’ve got the NME Award and I dropped it out the window. I was just that moment like ‘Shit, grab it, no, ah, it’s gone’.”
He added that they made the cab driver go around and stop so that they could pick up the award. Jason went ahead and grabbed it from where it had fallen and realised that the finger had snapped off and they couldn’t find it. “We’ve still got that award in management’s office, minus a finger” Bonehead shared.

The former Oasis guitarist also took the time to reflect on the day he decided to depart from the band and the NME headline which broke the news to the nation.
“As you can see from the headline, ‘Oasis exclusive, bye bye Bonehead. Noel: we let him go’, Did you?,” he read, adding “That’s related to the fact that I just put out a statement saying that I had left the band after all the years I’ve been with them.”
“To be truthful, I think the fun had gone. The fun had gone for me and I could see at that stage when I left, I’ve said it before in interviews, we rented a mansion that belonged to Christian Dior and made a studio. It should have been perfect. We should’ve had six weeks of joy, you know, it should have been the most pleasant album to record and it wasn’t.
“Everyone had their personal problems which would sort of scale great heights. We didn’t have a break and I think that showed in the recording. And that’s what really did it for me. I just thought ‘This isn’t fun, no one is smiling, they’re not laughing.’ You cant forget why you got into this and why you joined a band and why you picked up a guitar in the first place.”
In other news, Oasis have responded to speculation over a potential headline set at next year’s Glastonbury Festival.
Yesterday’s tour announcement said the confirmed dates “will be the band’s exclusive European appearances”. Additionally, reports in The Guardian and Somerset Live also claimed that they would not be headlining the festival next year.
Now, Oasis have responded to the the whispers about Glasto in a post on social media. “Despite media speculation, Oasis will not be playing Glastonbury 2025 or any other festivals next year,” it began. “The only way to see the band perform will be on their Oasis Live ’25 World Tour.”