If Blur symbolise the cynical and self-indulgent South in popular music, Oasis echo allenated, drug using, Northern unemployed. Who better to meet Oasis songsmith NOEL GALLAGHER than world-famous marxist film-maker KEN LOACH? Noel Gallagher I come from Manchester, Middleton to be precise. Ken Loach Do it like it there? Me, I have a weakness for Manchester. Noel Gallagher When we began to be successful, we realised that It's really a little hole. That's why I've moved to London, Manches. ter is too frustrating for me now. When I was young, It was frustratIng enough because there was no work and only three usable pubs. but l amused myself there. I go back there at weekends, that's enough for me at present. Of course l'll have to go back there to live one day. Ken Loach As for me, I live in a litle dump in the Midlands. All the London trains pass it but never stop. Originally it was a mining city, then it had car factories, a tentative wave of high-tech industries. Noel Gallagher Where do you find the characters in your films? Ken Loach i don't really have to look very far, they are all there, all around us. Noel Gallagher "Kes' was always a reference point for me. I was born in '67, at the time it was released, and i still haven't seen it at ever, I remember perfectly having seen it on telly. I remember that the ending was very sad but, at one moment, a scene 'Under-class' ikons? Oasis: Bonehead, Noel, Liam, Guigs, Alan White took place on a football pitch and that pleased me enormously. Why didn't you set this film in ManLoach: You, you don't have a structure, a framework for your life chester? Ken Loach The bloke who wrote The next year, Riff Ruff won the critPhole: Jill Farmanovsky the scenario wanted it at his place. near Sheffield. I have never written my films, I always work with collaborators: And you, are your records a team job or do you work by yourself? Noel Gallagher I work Ken Loach Do you support Manchester City or Manchester United? Noel Gallagher (offended) City, of course. Ken Loach Shame, they lost last week. Noel Gallagher Since I was born they've only won the championship once, and was one year old. Manchester United only interests people who don't live in Manchester, the people from outside. True Mancunians are only interested in Manchester City. Ken Loach At Sheffield it's the same problem with Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. Sheffield United is the club for those who live in Shetfield. Sheffield Wednesday is for the expatriates in London. Noel Gallagher Because of George Best, United is the club of the local Irish. All my family came from Ireland originally and my grand. mother would kill me if she knew that I didn't support that club. But because we were six brothers in my family. Liam and I, to distinguish ourselves and shut the gobs of the other four, we chose to support city. Ken Loach People ask me what my films and your records have in common. I think they share a proleNoel Gallagher It was certainly true during the 50s and 60s, perhaps during the 40s too, when everyone worked, when Manches. ter was still an industrial city. Now, It's less true. When people of my generation left school, they only had three choices offered them: football, music or the dole. That's why there are so many big rock groups from the North. When I travel in the rest of the country.! notice that people have a more sophisticated culture, more artistic than ours. Northern culture is very urban. In fact, we have developed 'There have been times when ordinary people have been in power' One will be about what is happening in Nicaragua. We will start filmIng in November."
• This feature, and the one above.
translated from les Inrockuptibles by Peter Purton and Fred Leplat.