ANDY BELL

The U.K. shoegaze pioneer discusses the recording of Ride's classic Nineties albums and his 10 years as a member of Oasis

- Andrew Daly

BEFORE ANDY BELL strode across grand stages with the U.K.’s most cocksure band, Oasis, he handled six-string duties for Ride, one of the shoegaze genre’s preeminent acts. Bands like Lush and Slowdive linch-pinned shoegaze on the other side of the pond. And, sure, they were stout, but Ride’s first two records, Nowhere (1990) and Going Blank Again (1992), proved to be high points of the period.

Looking back on his reaction to Nowhere and Going Blank Again, Bell tells Guitar World, “I think there’s one moment that I remember that came after we finished Going Blank Again. When we finished that album, and it was mastered, [Ride guitarist] Mark [Gardener] and I drove back to Oxford, and he put it on his stereo at home. When we sat there and listened to Going Blank Again, we didn’t speak; we just listened. At the end, we were just like, ‘That is so good.’ But I don’t have a similar memory with Nowhere because, at the end, it was so stressful because we were hammering up against a deadline. The last days of Nowhere’s recording were chaotic; we worked night and day to mix it. But the guy who was supposed to mix it had a breakdown, which led us to call [producer] Alan [Moulder] to save the day. I don’t really remember having that same pleasurable playback moment with Nowhere where I said, ‘Ah, that’s a great record.’ I remember it being stressful.”