Paul McGuigan

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Paul McGuigan (born May 9th 1971), better known by his nickname, Guigsy (pronounced "Gwigzee"), is an English musician and one of the four founding members of the English rock band Oasis. He was the group's bassist from 1991 to 1999.

The Rain and Oasis (1991–1999)

In the late 1980s, McGuigan started a band with his friends, Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs (guitar) and Chris Hutton (lead vocals), later joined by Tony McCarroll (drums). They called themselves The Rain. After Hutton was fired, McGuigan invited his school friend, Liam Gallagher, to join.

Even in the mid-1990s, with the band's popularity at its zenith, he remained characteristically reserved. Acknowledged as the "Quiet One", there are few recorded interviews with McGuigan. Noel Gallagher said of his bass player "I think he's spoken to me, and this is no word of a lie, since I was 17—thirteen years—for a total of about an hour. All he says is "sweet as" and "alright". That's all."^{[citation needed]}

Though a functional bassist onstage, McGuigan's bass tracks were often replaced by Noel Gallagher on the band's recordings, especially on Definitely Maybe, which features no bass tracks by McGuigan at all. However, there is no sign that the two were on edge.^[2][3]

Post-Oasis (1999–present)

McGuigan left Oasis in 1999. Noel Gallagher claims he quit via fax and avoided phone calls from the Gallaghers in the following weeks. Though he eventually gave up trying to contact him by phone, Noel claims to bear no malice towards McGuigan.^[4]

McGuigan presently lives in Hampstead with his wife and son. He occasionally performs as a DJ. He declined to appear in the 2004 Definitely Maybe DVD, though a polite letter explaining his reasons for doing so appears as a hidden extra, along with a short segment with pundits giving their views on him.^[5]

Trivia

• Although often portrayed as an "all-round sportsman" in unofficial biographies (some sources mention that a torn knee ligament forced him to abandon his ambitions of becoming a professional football player), this later was proven to be untrue, and that McGuigan was a pro at football and cricket statistics rather than the physical games themself.
• Though mentioned in the credits, McGuigan doesn't appear on any of the tracks on the band's first album Definitely Maybe.
• For legal reasons, McGuigan's bass tracks on the band's Standing on the Shoulder of Giants album had to be discarded and re-recorded.

Hobbies

A lifelong sports fan, McGuigan especially loves football. He is a outspoken supporter of Manchester City F.C.. Whilst still with Oasis, he and journalist Paolo Hewitt wrote a book about football player Robin Friday, entitled The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw (ISBN 1-85158-909-0). McGuigan was renowned for his encyclopaedic knowledge of football and cricket. In an interview for a BBC Radio 1 documentary in 1995, McGuigan described his favourite magazine as being FourFourTwo.

References

External links

• Paul McGuigan interview from FourFourTwo football magazine (December 1997)