Andy Bell has been a part of some of the most venerated British rock music of all time, serving as vocalist and guitarist for Oxford band Ride – creators of two of the greatest shoegaze albums of all time in the form of Nowhere and Going Blank Again – as well as a member of Oasis, Beady Eye, and a solo artist. Forming Ride with Mark Gardener, Laurence Colbert and Steve Queralt in the late 80s, the band quickly signed to Creation Records and became one of the most successful acts on the label. Over the next decade, Ride would traverse a variety of sounds and styles and work with current and future stars including Nigel Godrich, John Leckie and George Drakoulias.
In the late 90s, Bell formed Hurricane #1, a new Britpop band featuring Alex Lowe, Will Pepper and Gareth Farmer. Finding success with their singles Step Into My World and Just Another Illusion, Hurricane #1 were notable for their genre fusion and surprising electronic elements. In the late 90s, Bell was drafted into Oasis, and began to contribute songs to the band on their later records, including Heathen Chemistry’s A Quick Peep and Don’t Believe the Truth’s Turn Up the Sun, which would later become a staple of the band’s live show. Shortly after Oasis’s dissolution, Bell formed Beady Eye with Liam Gallagher, moving from bass to guitar, and wrote songs for both of the band’s albums.
Amid all this, Bell has stayed an active DJ and collaborator, performing with members of Pink Floyd, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Echo & the Bunnymen, as well as releasing solo music and scoring the short film Midnight of My Life. Since 2014, he’s been working with Ride, touring and releasing increasingly successful records, including 2017’s Weather Diaries and 2019’s Top 10-charting This Is Not a Safe Place, produced by renowned DJ Erol Alkan.
Now, ahead of the release of a new acoustic record based on his recent album Flicker, The Grounding Process, Bell is getting ready to answer all the questions you may have about a 30-odd year career in British rock. Do you want to know what it was like to work with Godrich, or how it feels to write songs for a Gallagher? Perhaps you want to hear more about Ride’s late 90s move into electronic sounds, or even what Bell’s ultimate party-starting DJ tracks are. Post your questions below by 12pm, Monday 21 November, and we’ll ask him the best ones.
• This article was amended on 18 November 2022 because it was Liam Gallagher who formed Beady Eye, not Noel Gallagher as an earlier version said.
