Liam Gallagher has one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from the ’90s rock scene. We almost missed out on it, though. That is due to the fact that had he not suffered a strangely violent incident that led him to really start “hearing music.”
In 2022, Liam recalled the story during an interview with The Guardian. He explained that while his brother, Noel, was musically inclined, his own musical comprehension started after being hit in the head with a hammer. “Growing up, I wasn’t big into music,” he began. “People say: ‘I was into the Beatles when I was four or five.’ I was the opposite, always out playing football.”
Liam Gallagher was more interested in sports than music as a teenager
“Noel played the guitar, which I thought was a bit odd,” he continued, then shared the hammer story. “I was 14, 15, having a cigarette with my mates. A few lads came down from another school, hoods up, and one of them whacked me on the head with a hammer. Not a big, massive mallet – one of those little, small ones.”
Gallagher said the whack landed him in the hospital, “and, after that, I just started hearing music differently. My girlfriend at the time was really into Madonna. She’d play ‘Like a Virgin‘, and I’d say: ‘I’m not having this s***.’ Then I got hit on the head with a hammer and thought: ‘This is actually a tune.’ So whoever hit me, I’d like to meet and thank, else I’d still be on the dole.”
The Oasis frontman has shared the story of the hammer incident before. Most notably in a 2017 interview with Howard Stern. While chatting with Stern, Gallagher quipped that, as a kid, he “thought music was for weirdos.” That hit to the head eventually changed things, however.
“No, it wasn’t instantly,” he said. “I think it was Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. I was going, ‘That’s a f***ing tune, actually, man.’ So, a week before, I’d be going like that [scowling]. It wouldn’t have even got close, you know what I mean?”
Stern asked the singer how he explained what happened to him. “Who knows? But whoever he was, ‘Thank you for it,” Gallagher replied. “It’s like when people come out of comas, and you start speaking Japanese or Russian. All of a sudden, I heard ‘Like a Virgin’ by Madonna, and I was going, ‘That’s a f***ing tune.’”
The post The Strange and Violent Way Liam Gallagher Became a Singer: ‘I Started Hearing Music’ appeared first on VICE.
