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When she was called by a grovelling Liam Gallagher apologising, Lynne Brine wondered what on earth was going on.
“Hi, it’s Liam Gallagher here, there’s been a bit of an incident at Abbey Road,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
The Oasis circus was at its 1990s peak and her teenage son was part of the band’s inner circle as an engineer for their third album – as Mrs Brine thought “what has happened to my boy?”.
It turned out a furious Liam had smashed up the guitar she gave to her son Nick, thinking it belonged to Liam’s brother and bandmate Noel.
Nick’s compensation was something money can’t buy and a piece of rock’n’roll memorabilia – a guitar Noel used to create Oasis anthems like Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back in Anger.
“It was the morning after a heavy night and Liam was worse for wear,” recalls Nick, who was at Abbey Road as a studio engineer on their third album Be Here Now.
“Noel had said something about him in the papers and Liam kicked off. I’m in Abbey Road’s famous Studio Two setting up equipment and hungover myself, then looking up I saw a guitar come flying over from the control room.
“It was Noel’s Fender Jag and it smashed to bits. I run to the control room and Liam also made a big dent in Abbey Road’s mixing desk.”
Nick had worked with the Gallagher brothers previously on their hit record (What’s The Story) Morning Glory and had seen flashpoints like this before, so he just left Liam alone.
“Then I see another acoustic guitar flying over the top and in a thousand pieces on the floor – and realise that’s my guitar,” Nick added.
“I thought it best if I didn’t say anything. Noel came in and said ‘what the hell is going on?’. It kicked off.
“Noel saw his guitar smashed up, then points to my smashed guitar and says ‘whose is that?’ Liam replies ‘that’s your guitar too’, to which Noel replied ‘it ain’t mine’.”
It was Nick’s £100 1970s Japanese Fender that was in pieces.
“I sheepishly put my hand up and said ‘actually Liam, it’s mine!’
“Then there was a big argument about who was going to buy me a new one. I told them it’s not valuable but it has quite sentimental value as my mum gave it to me.”
Liam promised to take Nick to Denmark Street, an area of London famous for musical instrument shops, to buy “whatever guitar I wanted”.
“Noel replied to Liam ‘what the hell do you know about guitars?’,” recalled Nick. “He said ‘I’m going to get him a guitar’. There was another kick off about who was going to buy me a new one.”
After giving his temperamental younger brother a telling-off, Noel insisted Oasis frontman Liam call Nick’s mum Lynne, at home in south Wales, to apologise.
“It was like: ‘Hello Mrs Brine, Liam Gallagher here, I’m ringing to apologise…’, he told her what he’d done and was sorry.
“That typified Liam, angry one minute then angelic the next, I’ve always enjoyed his company.”
The Oasis superstar then handed Nick a piece of history – a Takamine Acoustic, the guitar Noel used in their iconic Knebworth and MTV Unplugged concerts.
“Did I give it to you? No way,” Noel said to Nick when the songwriter returned to Rockfield Studio in south Wales in 2020 for the 25th anniversary of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory.
“I used it on this record, so that’s the one I played Wonderwall on.”
For comparison, last year an Epiphone Les Paul electric guitar used by Noel sold for £130,000 while a Silver Sparkle Gibson Les Paul sold for £226,000.
Nick has, in fact, had to insure the guitar as a piece of fine art and auction houses have estimated a starting guide price of £100,000 if Nick were ever to sell it.
“I was gobsmacked, I said ‘it’s OK, it’s fine’ but Noel insisted I take it,” recalled Nick. “It more than made up for the smashed guitar, I couldn’t believe it.”
It’s just another pinch me moment that became the norm for Nick from the moment Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown gave him a lift to pick up his GCSE results.
One of his first engineering jobs was with the Roses for the epic 14-month recording of their Second Coming record at Rockfield.
“Ian was in the studio reading about GCSE results in the paper and asked ‘Nick, how did you get on?’,” recalled Nick.
“I’d got a job at Rockfield straight after leaving school and said ‘I’m working here now’ so I wasn’t bothered.
“He said ‘come on, I’ll take you down. You’ve got to find out your GCSE results’.”
Nick arrived at Monmouth Comprehensive School minutes later in Brown’s red Ford Fiesta and the singer, one of the biggest names in British music at the time, walked in with him to get his results.
“It was surreal, my mates couldn’t believe it,” remembered Nick.
“But the Roses were so down to earth, a great friendly band to work with that allowed my band to use their kit when they weren’t using it. It was incredible.”
The Roses gave Nick his first recording credit too as the then 16-year-old played tambourine on their hit single Love Spreads, still their highest-placing single which reached number two in 1994.
“I still get a nice cheque from it every year,” joked Nick.
It was around this time when Nick first met Oasis as they were recording their debut album Definitely Maybe up the road at Monnow Valley Studios.
They had come down to give their demo tapes to Nick, hoping he would pass them on to the Roses.
The following year he first shared a studio with them at Rockfield as they recorded their seminal album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory in Monmouth in a six-week session – before joining them at Abbey Road to make Be Here Now.
“Those Be Here Now Sessions were crazy,” recalled Nick.
“We had press hounding us all the time to hear the songs, get any info because in 1997 Oasis were headline news virtually every day.
“I was in charge of locking the tapes away every night so if anyone snuck or broke in, no-one could get to the tapes.
“Keeping them secret was almost a military operation which was made difficult as Liam used to bring people back to the studio from the pub to hear the recordings!”
One welcome visitor was Hollywood movie star Jim Carrey who unexpectedly visited the studio made famous by The Beatles while Brine was working with Oasis.
“Jim was a huge Beatles fan and their legendary producer Sir George Martin had invited him in for a look around,” recalled Nick.
“I loved his films, especially Dumb and Dumber. The Mask and Ace Ventura, then all of a sudden he’s standing next to me, whispering ‘this is crazy, I’m in Abbey Road and George Martin’s showing us around!’
“I remember thinking if you think that and you’re a proper Hollywood A-lister, what about me?! I’m just a normal teenager from south Wales!”
