Cigarettes, alcohol and a 5am jog: how to become Liam Gallagher

The makers of a Creation Records biopic want the public to audition for the role of ‘young Liam’. One hopeful explains his approach

In many ways, I am Liam Gallagher. We are both in our 40s. I can rock a £24 Primark version of that £467 orange Oi Polloi parka Liam wore to One Love Manchester. Er … I own a tambourine. Now, finally, an opportunity has come to cash in on my Liamness. A film about Creation Records’ Alan McGee is being made: Nick Moran, Irvine Welsh and Danny Boyle are behind it, with Ewen Bremner as McGee. They have put out an open casting call for the young Liam, and all you have to do is upload footage of yourself reading the script from ITV’s 1994 doc With Oasis. It’s my time to shiiine. So, how best prepare? I need to think like Liam. Swagger like Liam. Live like Liam.

5.30am: go for a run
Who gets up at this time apart from birds and postal workers? Rock stars. “I get up at half five every morning,” Liam told Beats 1 in 2017, “else everyone’s going: ‘When are Oasis getting back together?’ and I’m like, ‘I’m doing a fucking press-up here, mate.’” What’s the Gallagher regime? “I run for about an hour. Up hills, down hills. I ain’t got one of them silly watches and I don’t listen to music,” Liam told Radio X. I last 12 minutes before keeling over with heat exhaustion. Shouldn’t have worn that parka.

11am: vocal training
Liam told Absolute Radio in 2011 he doesn’t do vocal warm-ups because he “doesn’t want to sound like Chris Martin”. He told Shortlist in 2013 he was “sick of fucking idiots saying I can’t sing”.
In 2017, he tweeted: “To all you NG fanboys, I can and will sing any song he wrote bigger, better than him, even if I was kicked in the bollox by a wood pigeon.” Liam’s voice is different these days – more from his diaphragm than his throat – but it takes a fair bit of vocal power to muster an acerbic enough “nice one”.

3pm: get the band back together
In 2018, bookies slashed odds of Oasis re-forming to 3/1 after Liam tweeted: “I forgive you, let’s get the BIG O back together and stop fucking about LG x”. It didn’t happen. In 2018, NG told Radio X he’s rather “go busking” than re-form Oasis. But everyone’s got a price. NG told Vulture in 2015 he’d reform Oasis for “half a billion”. He never said half a billion what, though. Smarties? Grains of sand? I have a whip round, and send Noel a tweet. “I know it’s not half a billion, but I’ve got £9.73p here.” No reply.

7pm: the big audition
I’m ready. All I have to do is read: “I’m not into slapping anyone around … But there’s days when I’ve needed a slap … And there’s days he’s needed a slap …” It’s hardly Shakespeare. It’s not even Shaun Ryder, the WB Yeats of Madchester according to Tony Wilson. Imagine keeping this up for a whole film. I press send and unzip my parka. I’ll let you know if I hear back.