New interview the BBC did with The Real People after the reunion announcement and they're talking about Liam's star quality again:
It was the early hours of the morning, but the bar of the Columbia hotel in London's Lancaster Gate was packed with musicians who were in the capital for gigs, or just hanging out at what had become the go-to haunt for artists and performers in the early 1990s.
Then, like a scene from a western, the noise gave way to a hush, then a near silence, and all eyes turned towards the door.
Ian Prowse, who at that time was in the signed Liverpool band Pele, was among the drinkers, and he too angled his gaze to see who or what had brought everything to a standstill.
"This guy had walked in, and there was just something about him, an aura, some sort of magic," he says.
Behind the enigmatic young man swaggering his way into the bar was Tony Griffiths, one of the two brothers who were the creative engine of the Liverpool band The Real People.
Prowse caught up with The Real People's bass player and singer and asked him who the guy was, and was told it was "his mate Liam".
At this point, the name Liam Gallagher meant little to most people, but to Tony Griffiths, he and his band were going to be "the biggest thing ever".
"This was a few months before they had anything out," says Prowse. "They were unknown. But he was able to just walk into a packed bar at four o'clock in the morning and turn heads."
Liam Gallagherâs charisma had made an impression, but Prowse was yet to hear the fledgling band's sound. When he returned home to Liverpool, he asked his agent â whom his band shared with Oasis â to let him listen to something by this new group.
"He played me this track," he says, "and I just thought, 'Whatever we're doing, it's not this'. It just wasn't capturing the zeitgeist the way this was."
The recording he'd heard was Supersonic, which was written and recorded in one day in December 1993 at the Pink Museum Studio in Lark Lane, Liverpool, with The Real People's Tony Griffiths on backing vocals.
According to former Oasis drummer Tony McCarroll's 2010 book The Truth, Tony and his brother Chris were "integral" to the creation of the song, which would be released in April the following year to huge acclaim.
Oasis, which consisted of Noel and Liam Gallagher, McCarroll, Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs and Paul 'Guigsy' McGuigan, were at that time as much a Liverpool band as a Manchester band, cutting their teeth at venues such as Le Bateau and The Krazy House, where they supported The Real People.
It was striking the relationship with The Real People that put Oasis on the road to stardom.
'Your kid's a star'
The Real People had been around since 1987, and by 1989 were signed to Columbia Records. Soon afterwards they sold 100,000 copies of their eponymous album, whose shuffling drums, overdriven guitars and Beatle-esque harmonies won them an international following.
By contrast, Liam Gallagher was still at school and Noel was yet to pen the soaring sentiments of Live Forever in the warehouse in which he had a decidedly un-rock 'n' roll job as a British Gas sub-contractor.
Chris and Tony would meet the Gallagher brothers in 1992, while The Real People were on tour with the Inspiral Carpets, for whom Noel was a roadie.
"I would always take my own Pot Noodles with me on tour and he'd come over and be after one, so thatâs how we struck up conversation," says Chris Griffiths.
"But when we met Liam, we were saying to Noel, 'Your kid's a star, he is'. And this is before we'd even heard him sing.
[...]
For Griffiths, their success was as much down to Liam's star quality as the music or musicianship.
"Noel was a good musician, but he was no [Ocean Colour Scene lead guitarist] Steve Craddock. A lot of it was down to Liam, his attitude and his voice.
[...]
Read the full article to learn more about The Real People's involvement and the early days here
"But when we met Liam, we were saying to Noel, 'Your kid's a star, he is'. And this is before we'd even heard him sing. The Real People
