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Potty To Blow Oasis Chance?










David Potts knew he wasn't cut out to join Oasis when he attempted to rewrite Wonderwall. Right under the cobalt glare of erm, Noel Gallagher.

"The first song that I rehearsed with Oasis was Wonderwall,'' Potts recalls over a lunchtime pint in a city centre bar.

"But a few bars in, and I was starting to change the song. I tried to rewrite the chords to Wonderwall!

"Noel wasn't too pleased. That's the thing about being in Oasis - and in most bands - there's always a leader with an ego.

"And they're the ones whose instructions you have to follow. They tell you what to play, where to stand, what to wear. I'm not the kind of person who can follow someone's orders just like that.''

At 36 - albeit very boyish, complete with Mod-ish hairstyle, Beatles suit jacket and ruddy cheeks - David Potts is coming to terms with the fact that he simply isn't best suited to performing in the dictatorish confines of a rock 'n' roll band.

Which is why, almost 15 years since he first entered the music business as a tea boy in a Rochdale recording studio, he's decided to brave it on his own as a solo artist.
That said, it's been a 15-year learning curve of some fortitude and involving seriously heavyweight musical figures.

Most infamously, there was that Oasis 'audition' in 2000 after original members Bonehead and Guigsy left the band. Potts was the first man Noel Gallagher nominated to play bass.

Loose end

"Noel knew about me through a friend of a friend,'' Potts recalls.

"He knew I was at a loose end and looking to do something new. At the end of the day, you're not gonna turn down an audition with Oasis are you? You'd be a fool to turn it down!

"But I don't really think I was in the best frame of mind to take orders - I wanted success on my own terms. I wasn't prepared to join another band again.''

That previous band he's referring to is the venture Potts is probably most recognisable for being in - the band Monaco.

Formed with New Order bassist Peter Hook in 1995, Monaco released two albums and had three top 20 hits, most famously their breakthrough radio smash, What Do You Want From Me? They split in 2000 after conflicts with their record label Polydor but left behind a reputation as under-rated Britpop battlers, who were unfairly maligned because of the New Order connection.

Nonetheless, Potts argues that leaving Monaco and disregarding the offer of joining Oasis made him feel "like I was 16 again... like I was in my bedroom playing songs for the fun of it''.

Music biz

And he has a salient point. Having first entered the music biz at the age of 18 to work in Peter Hook's Rochdale studio, Potts has spent a sizeable chunk of his musical life operating at the beck and call of others.

Although Monaco were perceived by many as a two-way partnership between him and Peter Hook, Potts felt compromised a great deal musically, although he does harbour a great respect and admiration for Hooky.

"I look back on Monaco as a learning curve,'' he explains.

"Peter Hook was such a big, established character. I felt inferior next to him. Hooky wrote songs in the style of New Order, so I wasn't expressing myself musically like I wanted. I compromised my ideas a lot. It was only after leaving Monaco that I started sitting down at the piano or with an acoustic guitar and wrote songs. It was like being a 16-year-old again.''

Which is why the 2006 incarnation of David Potts feels less like an 'artist reborn' and all those other cliches and more the work of a spirited, dynamic NEW musical artist. You can certainly feel it in his music, in particular, latest EP, I'm The Greatest.

Potts is a lover of all things Mod, Ska and pop psychedelia and his new material sounds like the work of someone paying glorious pop homage to his idols (Weller, The Beatles, The Who), but there's a questing quality to songs like Stop And Wonder and Different Planet, which makes him more contemporaneous with the new Manc music breed.

Released on his own self- financed independent label, Maximum, and with his big mug plastered all over the sleeve artwork, it's a release which leaves you in very little doubt that this is now David Potts on his own terms, very much his own boss.

Compromise

Potts considers: "Hooky used to call it 'ego'. But I think of it more as making the music you want to without compromise. I don't want to take orders from anyone or pander to the music industry. That's why I'm releasing the EP on my own label with independent distribution, independent press. I get everything my own way.

"There's lots of good music in Manchester at the moment... bands like The Vox, The Children, The Wombats. Apart from the age gap, I don't see much difference between what I do and what they do.''

As CityLife bids farewell to Potts as he makes his way back to his car, we notice one of the ubiquitous fly posters for Oasis's greatest hits compilation, Stop The Clocks, released this week.

Potts offers a wry smile.

He says: "I don't think I would have lasted in Oasis anyway. I'm far too gobby. They would have sacked me after a week! Anyway, I think Noel and Liam are doing fine without me.''

Source: www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

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