NEW YORK -- Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher stands up suddenly in a hotel suite in mid-town Manhattan.
Gallagher isn't walking out -- as his less media-friendly and wildly unpredictable younger brother and lead singer Liam has been known to do. He's just explaining his "rock star" indulgences.
"I buy guitars just 'cause I haven't got one that color," says the Manchester-born Gallagher, 30.
"I've bought guitars in shops and gone 'Whoa! F--! Look at that guitar!' Put it back in the case and that's the last I've ever seen of it. It's all investments at the end of the day, I suppose. They're all worth a few quid."
Oasis, who play Maple Leaf Gardens on Thursday night with Cornershop (the show sold out in a mere five hours), have indeed arrived.
In fact, they did so solidly two years ago with their North American breakthrough hit Wonderwall from their second album, (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, which went on to sell 12.5 million worldwide.
Back home, however, Oasis had already become a phenomenon with their first album, Definitely Maybe, which became the fastest-selling debut in British history and debuted at No. 1.
There's even now a symphonic treatment of Oasis songs in the works, making them the first modern rock group since the Beatles to be feted this way.
"Somebody asked me, 'Was it all right if they done it?' And I said ,'Yeah, fine, fair enough,' " says Gallagher. "It's usually reserved for dead people, isn't it? I wonder what that means? I must remember to look both ways when I'm crossing the road from now on."
Oasis's popularity in England is due as much to their Beatle-borrowing lyrics and riffs and loud guitar sound, as to Noel and Liam's football-loving, working class roots and rebellious swagger.
Liam, 25, recently referred to himself as "the singer with the world's most important eyebrows" and claims to be channelling both John Lennon and Muhammad Ali.
"I've got two loudmouth, arrogant bastards living inside me," he told Spin.
Across the pond, meanwhile, no matter what you think of their music -- I'm a fan, although Oasis's latest album, Be Here Now, is my least favorite -- they are a refreshing change.
Unlike their carefully groomed and guarded contemporaries, the brothers Gallagher routinely and entertainingly lash out verbally without apology.
The latest target of Liam's wrath was none other than Sir Paul McCartney, after the former Beatle stated of Oasis, "They're derivative and they think too much of themselves. Really, they mean nothing to me."
Liam promptly challenged McCartney, along with George Harrison, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, to a fight, telling a radio interviewer, "I will beat the f--in' livin' daylight s--t out of them."
Cooler heads prevailed.
"Well, Paul McCartney was supposed to have said something in a French magazine about us. It's like, 'So what?' " says Gallagher. "And George Harrison's had a few digs in the press. But you know, Liam being Liam, I just said to him, 'Look don't even bother answering them. You know what I mean? It's like they're all old men and past it.' Of course, Liam being Liam doesn't see it like that. He has to have his little tuppence worth in there."
Other than McCartney's attack, there are signs that Gallagher's stadium-made guitar-anthems are starting to wear thin.
Despite recently being voted the best album of 1997 by Rolling Stone readers, ahead of Radiohead's OK Computer and Prodigy's The Fat Of The Land, Be Here Now hasn't exactly been flying out of record stores.
Since its release in August, the album has sold 275,000 copies in Canada, 1.2 million copies in the U.S. and three million in the U.K.
"When I was writing the album, I didn't think I've got to write a stadium rock album or anything like that, but that's just the way these things turn out," says Gallagher. "The next album is when the pressure's going to come. I think I've gone as far as I can with this sound, to be quite honest.
"The hype or the anticipation for the next album has already started to build and I've not even sat down to write the f--ing thing yet. So I would imagine the pressure's going to come then, but you know, I've got pretty big shoulders.
"I've done Definitely Maybe, Morning Glory and Be Here Now in the space of four years, so I don't know any one person on the planet who could have pulled off three albums like that on their own in four years and produced all three of them as well and done the amount of touring and written the amount of B-sides I have. So, I'm not frightened. I'm looking forward to the challenge."
And it's still early days -- in North America anyway -- in terms of touring.
Oasis just launched the North American leg of their tour in Philadelphia last Thursday. Otherwise, they've been keeping a low profile, with just two small club dates in New York in October and two dates backing up U2's PopMart extravaganza in Oakland in June.
"I thought the show looked absolutely stunning but I said to Bono afterwards, they want to buy themselves a few more speakers," says Gallagher of PopMart. "It wasn't very loud. I suppose it's inevitable really that you have to do things like that, but I don't know."
The British music press, meanwhile, have been careful with their treatment of Oasis. At least according to the December issue of MOJO magazine, which features written excerpts from an Oasis TV documentary that was banned by the band's management. "Everyone is a little intimidated by them in this business and in this country," Steve Sutherland, the editor of New Musical Express, tells documentarian Nick Kent.
Gallagher, however, maintains the British tabloids "seem to have got it in for us at the moment. Just the fact that we don't speak to them and they think we owe them favors. We promptly tell them to piss off."
Liam, who was busted for cocaine possession, has had it worse than Noel, particularly since marrying actress Patsy Kensit.
The two, who are ironically featured in this month's issue of Vogue as "pop's top couple," have become soap opera-like characters for the British tabloids.
"We've done the loudest album and written the best songs, the longest songs, the best produced songs, blah, blah, blah," says Gallagher. "We've done the biggest gigs and the fastest-selling this, that and the other, so it's like, where do you go from here? And I don't know. But I'll have quite a lot of fun finding out."
THE OASIS FILE
DISCOGRAPHY: Definitely Maybe (1994); (What's The Story) Morning Glory? (1995); Be Here Now (1997).
MEMBERS: Liam Gallagher (vocals), Noel Gallagher (lead guitar-vocals), Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs (rhythm guitar), Paul McGuigan (bass), Alan White (drummer).
FORMED: In 1992, when Noel, originally a roadie with the Inspiral Carpets, returned to Manchester and found the other four floundering in an upstart band.
QUOTE: "I've always been sort of quite steady and settled in what I've been doing. And in the case of Liam, I certainly haven't noticed any amount of changes in his attitude towards anyone or anything so I probably say, 'No. It hasn't.' But then again the wives will probably say, 'Yes, it has.' " -- Noel on whether he and Liam getting married has settled them down.