Jan. 5, 1996 -- Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher has rarely met a man or a band he doesn't have an opinion about -- often an unflattering one -- but that's wasn't exactly what we were looking for when we spoke to him recently. We wanted to talk about "Wonderwall," the Oasis single which bears the same title as an obscure sixties English movie for which Beatle George Harrison wrote an instrumental soundtrack. Since Gallagher and the rest of Oasis are unabashedly Beatle-esque, this seemed a promising line of inquiry. Here are the results.

NOEL GALLAGHER, Oasis: We don't like anyone. Oh, I listen to this new band just brought a new single out called "Free As a Bird." You might have heard of them, the Beatles. I listen to them quite a lot.

MTV: Unabashedly Beatle-esque Oasis toured in the US recently, supporting its sophomore release, "(What's the Story), Morning Glory?" Part of the set consisted of a solo acoustic version of the song "Wonderwall" by the band's

music and word smith Noel Gallagher.

GALLAGHER: It's about this girl who was a bit, a bit upset because she didn't have a job and all the rest of it, so I wrote this song for her and she was dead happy then, and I got a shag out of it.

MTV: The album features ex-Jam member Paul Weller, who, outside of the Beatles and the Who, may be the only other musician the band can actually stand. And proving he has more uses than a Cuisinart the multi-talented Noel Gallagher also co-produced the album.

GALLAGHER: I write the songs, so I believe that only I know how they should sound. You get these people who come in.... They're not part of the group or part of your circle of friends, and they come in and they try to stamp.... They try to put their mark on your album which you spent five years writing. Which is not on really. I don't think so, anyway.

MTV: "Morning Glory" also featured the percussive talents of new drummer Alan White, hired after original drummer Tony

McCarrol got the boot. Welcome to Oasis Alan.

GALLAGHER: Drummers are really smelly, useless, horrible, talentless losers, man. I mean, fancy having a job where you bang things all day. Orangutans do that, don't they? And gorillas and monkeys, they just bang things, like dustbins on their head. That's what they do, isn't it? And drummers do it and get paid loads of money for it. Sack 'em all. Drum machines, I say.