Starkey explained: “It’s not every day that the greatest songwriter of my generation – not to mention Shaun, the greatest beat poet of our times – sends a tune to me, and I was in a daze for a bit cos it’s not something you want to fuck up! It came together great – everyone digs it!
“Noel loves Shaun. He texted me to say: ‘Do you know what you’ve got? The British Bob Dylan’ – and he’s not fucking about because now I’ve witnessed what Shaun does. Noel calls him the ‘king of lyrics’.”
As for Mantra’s upcoming gigs at the Cavern Club – made famous by his father Ringo Starr and The Beatles – Starkey said: “Can’t believe I’ve never even been there. There’s a great deal of family heritage at the Cavern aside from the Beatles my parents courted there… who knows I may have even been conceived there!
“It’s great to be playing there and they’re great people, really looking after us. The Cavern was rebuilt but it’s the original in spirit and I’m buzzing to be doing it.”
Next week’s shows at the Cavern Club will be compered by Philip Regen, aka The Queen Of Scotty Road, with support from Liverpool band Keyside. Chloe Slater is scheduled to open the second set, while Bez and Bell will both DJ at the event.
It’ll mark Starkey’s second visit to Liverpool, as he has been once before to see his grandparents. Tickets are priced at £30 – you can buy yours here.
Starkey began drumming for Oasis in 2004, playing on their last two albums ‘Don’t Believe The Truth’ (2005) and ‘Dig Your Own Soul’ (2008). He is currently rumoured to be joining the new Oasis line-up on their huge 2025 reunion tour, as is former member Andy Bell.
“I first met Noel in a rehearsal room, John Henry’s in Brewery Road in London,” Starkey remembered. “I was in a band called Face during Britpop times and it was early 1995 and he came in and watched a bit. I met his brother for the first time at Oasis’s Earls Court shows in 1996. We’re Mods so we got on straight away.
“Every time I saw Liam, I used to go: ‘Alright Liam, still the greatest rock and roll singer in the world?’ He’d go: ‘Alright Zak, still the greatest rock and roll drummer in the world?’ That was going on for years as a joke. Who knew what was going to happen? Nobody knew that was going to happen, that’s for sure. That was a surprise for everyone, wasn’t it?”
Mantra Of The Cosmos launched in 2023 with the singles ‘Gorilla Guerilla’ and ‘X (Wot You Sayin?)’, and made their Glastonbury Festival debut that summer. Further singles are scheduled for 2025, per a press release.
Speaking to NME in 2023, Starkey revealed that Mantra had recorded “about 175” songs together. Ryder said: “We’ve got a lot of material. If you want some songs that can go on for two and a half or three minutes [laughs], then I reckon we’ve got about 175 songs, haven’t we?
“Or we could have a couple of Pink Floyd-type ones where they go on for 35 minutes each. It just depends what Zak’s gonna turn this into. That’s what’s interesting about it. I leave the studio sometimes and I’ll come back and I’ve put something in there but Zak has just mashed it up into something different. He picks out the stuff that I’ll come out with, which I’m just trying to get a smile on their faces and enjoy it.”
Starkey also told NME that his dad Starr “really loves” Mantra, adding: “He loves Shaun and he loves what he’s singing about. There’s a line in one song called ‘Belly Full Of Lard’, and he said he hadn’t heard anything like it for 40 or 50 years.”
Back in 2021, Gallagher confirmed that a collaboration with Ryder was in the works. He said at the time that the Happy Monday star was “on great form”.
The high-profile team-up was first revealed to NME by Bez in April of that year, with the percussionist/dancer predicting that the tune was “going to be big and going to be number one”. He added: “It’s two Manchester legends singing together and it sounds amazing.”
In other news, it has been revealed that not even Gallagher‘s daughter Anaïs knew about the forthcoming Oasis reunion.
That’s according to Blossoms frontman Tom Ogden, who recalled: “She actually didn’t have a clue. She was texting around people she knew to find out if it was true. She got no word.”
