He was fuckin’ biting the heads off chickens in about a month. Andy Bell was a vegetarian when he joined, but we soon fuckin’ knocked that out of him. He said, “Don’t have any vegetarians in your fuckin’ band.” And I said, “Why is that?” “No fuckin’ stamina”. He really fuckin’ believes in the vegetarian thing. You’ve discussed Morrissey’s role in creating new song “Riverman.” What do you make of his demands on certain venues to go meat-free? But because they are the biggest band in the world and they care about their shows and all that kind of thing, they have to keep outdoing themselves, and it’s great for us as fans because you’re getting to see something different every night. Part of me thinks, “Oh, thank God I don’t have to worry about that ’cause I really don’t give a fuck about that side of it.” Get me up there, plug me in. I’ve been privy to discussions about what they were going to do. God bless that band because they do take that side of it very seriously. Your friends in U2 will have three stages for their upcoming tour, including ones that light up as “I” and “E” for “Innocence” and “Experience.” Would you ever do something similar? I can engage with the audience and we have a good laugh. I said, “Well, fuckin’ hell, that was awful.” But the more that I do it, the more I’m really at home with it now. Liam was getting really stressed about the whole thing. There were these German kids and nobody said a word and it was really weird. We’d been so huge in Oasis for years and then we did this fan club thing in Cologne, Germany, and the crowd was right there and it was the first time we’ve ever done it. It’s more nerve-racking playing in front of people who are two feet away from me.” What’s changed? In 2011, you told Rolling Stone, “I don’t want to see anybody’s face…I’m used to people being a mile away. I feel more at home when the audience is right there and you can interact with some people who stand right there.

The further afield that I get, the smaller the gigs are, the more intimate they become. They’re huge fuckin’ arenas with a huge stage.īut my point being that I’m very much aware I’m just a guy standing at a mic stand singing these songs. It’s everything I thought it would be, and if this doesn’t sound too weird, if there’s a part of the tour that I feel slightly uncomfortable with, it’s the bit in the U.K. The last two tours I’ve done I’ve enjoyed immensely because I know a) I’m going to turn up for the fuckin’ gig b) I’m going to finish the gig. This is a big American tour, particularly doing it all in one stretch. It’s not like I’m touring for touring’s sake.

If I hadn’t made a record, I wouldn’t be going on tour. If I didn’t write any songs, I wouldn’t have made a record.

The tour is the last payoff of the thing. After more than 20 years, what thrills you now about being onstage?

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