Johnny Depp playing on an Oasis album might sound like a 1990s fever dream, but in 1997, it became a reality -- and one of Noel Gallagher's favorite vocal performances by his brother and bandmate Liam Gallagher. Depp collaborated with the Gallaghers in the spring of 1996 while on a Caribbean holiday with his girlfriend, Kate Moss. (Yeah, we forgot about that, too.)
The end result was quintessentially Oasis with a touch of blues flavor. Noel's chords are powerful, with a touch of atmospheric harmony that defined the band's Britpop sound, and Liam's vocals were brazen, bold, and nasal. Depp led the charge on slide guitar, rounding out the star-studded track on Oasis' highly divisive 1997 third album, Be Here Now.
By the time Oasis got around to recording their third studio album, Be Here Now, they were some of the biggest rockstars in the world. Songs like "Wonderwall" and "Live Forever" had catapulted the Britpop band into international stardom, which meant the world was essentially their oyster as they continued their reign over 1990s pop culture. If they wanted to, say, collaborate with one of the most famous Hollywood heartthrobs of the decade while he's vacationing on the Caribbean island of Mustique with his supermodel girlfriend, Kate Moss, well, Oasis could do that. So, they did.
To be fair, the collaboration wasn't all luxurious island getaway. Noel Gallagher flew to the Caribbean for a change of pace as he faced the immense task of writing a follow-up record to what would be his career's most iconic album. "In London, the phone was going all the time, or threw as someone knocking at the door, or our kid comes round, 'Are we going out on the p*** or what?'" Gallagher told Q Magazine in 1997, per Louder Sound. "Nailing a song together, finding the missing chord that gets it all flowing into one, that takes a lot of peace and quiet."
While in the Caribbean, Gallagher wrote the first part of Be Here Now's "Fade In-Out." He told Q, "The first part is from the Mustique demo with Johnny Depp playing slide guitar. I like it because it's the first blues song I've ever done, and Liam does the best singing I've ever heard from him."
Johnny Depp was bona fide Hollywood royalty by the time he started working with Oasis in 1996. The actor had already starred in Cry-Baby, Edward Scissorhands, and, of course, his ever-campy 1984 debut, A Nightmare on Elm Street. But Depp was no slouch on the guitar, either. He had already been in numerous musical projects, including with Noel Gallagher. Depp and Gallagher had previously recorded a cover of the Beatles' "Come Together" with a former Beatle himself, Paul McCartney. Depp played with the Pogues' Shane MacGowan. He used to have a deal with Geffen Records.
Simply put, he was a legit musician -- and just the kind Gallagher was looking for when writing "Fade In-Out." "If he hadn't been around, we'd have had to get some fat old geezer who'd be telling us about how he played with Clapton in '76 and took a slide solo that lasted for f***ing months." (Always a way with words, those Gallagher boys.) The Oasis guitarist said the song's harder elements would prevent younger female fans from listening. That is, he said, "until they find out Johnny Depp's on it."
Although the album ultimately performed very well, garnering the title of the best-selling record in the U.K. that year, retrospective reviews are less kind. Within the context of Oasis' gargantuan stardom and subsequent in-fighting, Be Here Now seemed more of an egotistical celebrity showout than an authentic follow-up to (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Nevertheless, Oasis still managed to get a 6x platinum record and a star-studded trip to the Caribbean out of it, so we'd say the Gallaghers still come out on top.