I photographed Oasis at the very beginning – my unseen pictures reveal Liam and Noel before fame changed everything

In the autumn of 1993, photographer James Fry received a seemingly inconseqential phone call. Little did he know, he’d still be talking about it more than 30 years later.

On the other end of the phone was the manager of a new young band - a bunch of Manchester City fans who had just been signed to Creation Records - and they were in need of their first photoshoot for the label. One of them, a youngster named Noel Gallagher, had seen some of Fry's photography for his own band, World of Twist, and requested him.

Fry was given a cassette tape, an early version of what would become the band's seminal 1994 album Definitely Maybe, and took to the streets of Manchester for two days to capture some of the very first portraits of Oasis.

Three decades on, Fry joins Radio Times to look back at his work on that day, including incredible unpublished contact sheets, as he reflects on the band that would go on to captivate the world...

"Peter Swales had resigned from Manchester City - they were in a good mood after that"

This is up in Nomad Studios in Shudehill, just outside Manchester City Centre. There are some shots on that roll that are quite sensible and quite grown up, but my favourite [below] isn't one of them. It just caught their spirit.

Someone came in with the Manchester Evening News at one point, and Peter Swales had resigned from Manchester City, so they were in a really good mood after that. For City fans, that was quite a revelation. The good times were on the horizon.

The great thing about Oasis is they didn't need a stylist. They weren't like heavily groomed and stylised. I don't think they ever were really, but they certainly weren't then. That's what's so good about these photos. They capture that period, that piece of history now.

"Noel didn't let go of his guitar all day"

In this image, you've got Liam being chased by Bonehead. Noel didn't let go of his guitar all day and he was laughing his head off.

That was on the end of a roll of film, and I looked at it and thought, 'This is the one. This is one of the key moments.' If bands are about attitude, and the best bands usually are in my experience, that sums it up. They couldn't give a damn.

This was a complete accident and, as we know, accidents are often more exciting than the plans you make. It was a mixture of flash and tungsten lighting, and the flash just went off by accident.

"Liam is smarter than people give him credit for - and Noel is very perceptive"

This is one of the few shots of just Liam and Noel. It's on Cakebread Street behind Manchester Piccadilly Station. I'd seen this street, it's very northern - a cobbled street, grey sky, and I asked them just to walk up the hill and walk towards me, and I shot on a very wide lens.

I didn't want to force myself on a group that hadn't figured it out for themselves yet. I had a history of working with pop bands, and you can go to five of them, 'Okay, picture!' and they just fall into formation like the Red Arrows. With a group like this, I just said, 'We'll see what happens.'

They were certainly not a difficult group to work with. I think that Liam is smarter than people give him credit for, and Noel was very, very perceptive. I think he knew what he was doing, and I think he was a very smart man. They were very likeable, both of them.

Somebody asked me why I thought they'd been so successful for so long. For me, they, there was a kind of underclass - guys that maybe like football a bit too much, who were kind of looked down on. There was a snooty aspect attitude towards them, and what Noel Gallagher's songs did, and, very importantly, Liam Gallagher's delivery did, was they gave those people a voice.

The film really picks up on that. On paper, it looks like a bunch of guys, a bunch of City fans in trainers and jeans rocking around Manchester. But the reality is, they were delivering something that was actually quite moving.

This shot has ended up in the film [Don't Look Back in Anger]. There's a sequence when they're talking about how important Manchester is to the band - they use the shot of them leaning against the lamppost as a group. They almost look like they're waiting for a bus, just having a laugh.

"Liam naturally sat in the driver's seat"

As we were wrapping up on the Monday evening, Noel said, "Do you fancy catching up with my mate's Jag, near Sharp Dressed Man?" So we met up again in the morning, probably about 10 or 11 o'clock. It was like cold November day in Manchester - Noel's wearing leather gloves all the way through it.

Liam, naturally, sat in the driving seat. I wasn't directing them. I was probably shooting through the window, leaning in the car. We shot this half a roll of film of them sat in the car, but this this ended up being my favourite shot. In terms of composition, it just fell together, everyone looks calm and is doing what they should do. It was easy.

Afterwards we went for a pint near Withington, it could have been the Railway. We talked about Stone Roses and the Beatles and probably the Sex Pistols. We talked about music - as I remember it, that's all we talked about. And afterwards, Bonehead dropped me off at the station.

"There was no friction"

I should point out that I treated them as a five-piece band. They very much were a group of lads that got on well. There was no friction.

It was pretty obvious who the leader of the band was, and it was obvious who the lead singer was. When you take photos of bands, you work that out pretty quickly anyway. But they were a group of five people. I wouldn't have said that at that point the Liam and Noel perspective had kicked in.

"Taking a guitar into the street is corny - but it had to be done"

We took the guitar out into the street - I know that's kind of corny. I know that looks strangely naff. But it's also very much a 1960s beat group thing. It was kind of a cliche, but one that that had to be done.

I'd also seen a photograph of probably one of my favourite bands, Dexys Midnight Runners, and they had instruments on the street. Oasis reminded me of Dexys in that they had a lot of front. I loved the gang mentality that comes with a group, and Oasis had it in skip loads. There was no shortage of that very early on, which was great.

"A band should look like the skyline of a great city"

This session got really good. They were great, and that's quite a Smiths-y sort of shoot. Someone told me that a band should look like a skyline of a great city. The Beatles were very good at this, and the Stones - when they stood together, it suddenly all came together and it was as exciting as going to a new city.

I thought that's a great idea, but when I looked at the Sex Pistols' pictures, for example, there's no construction in any Pistols shot. This falls between those.

"A bit too Smash Hits"

I think the more structured ones, of the the ones where they look like a band on a white background, are a bit pedestrian. It it was a very functional press shot, but it's nothing special. I think they're fine, but it's a bit 'Smash Hits', that one.

They're a good-looking band though. They could have easily morphed into a teen band with a few stylists and makeup artists and some hairdressers!

"More constructed photos wouldn't have been right for them"

We waited in the freezing cold until it went dark. I probably couldn't see, it was so dark - I was just firing into the night. It's not everyone's taste, that kind of ham-fisted photography, but that's how punk rock records were made.

I wanted a light at the back, and outside, I would have just said, 'Come on, we'll just do a few frames here. Everyone look this way,' and fired off a few shots. I could probably see a little bit, but I couldn't see if somebody's blinking - you can't control everything, and I didn't want to.

If I'd been more ruthless, we would have got maybe a few more constructed images. But I'm glad I didn't do that. Really, I don't think that would have been the right thing to do. I don't think we would have taken the right kind of photos for that point in time.

It's somewhere between the Pistols and the Smiths, and streets of Manchester, grainy black and white, not too constructed. It just seemed like the way forward at that point.

I'm glad I did it that way because the bigger story is what happened to them after. The pictures are a very small part of it all, but it's nice to have been one of those bricks in the beginning of the story.

Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger is in UK cinemas now and on Disney+ on 9 October.

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