There He Goes: John Power of Cast on supporting Oasis, and his proud Waterford links

Irish Examiner

19-05-2025

John Power remembers his first meeting with Liam Gallagher. Power was on his way to see a gig by The La's, the band he had just left, when he was approached by a teenage Mancunian.
"This lad came up to me and asked for a smoke, I told him to piss off,' recalls Power. ' A couple of years later Oasis were doing a gig in Liverpool and had appeared on The Word playing Supersonic. Liam came over and said: 'I asked you for a smoke and you told me to piss off'. We just both burst out laughing."
There's been a long history between Oasis and John Power. The Scouse-Irish songwriter and now frontman of Cast was a teenager himself when he first joined The La's in 1986, the Liverpool band fronted by and mercurial magus Lee Mavers.
"At the height of it, it was like nourishment," explains Power of the band's mystical sea shanties, Mersey melodies, and spirited flamenco rhythms. "How can you not be blown away by songs like Son of Gun when you are that age and learning the guitar? There were Biblical highs, there was something eternal within The La's and with Lee's songwriting, the waters were crystal clear and you could baptise yourself within them. I couldn't play before that, with those songs they were the first bass lines I played and understood.
'It all felt very natural, Lee was like a mentor and a massive influence on my songwriting and it was a beautiful part of my life".
While The La's made only one self-titled album, released in 1990, featuring their hit There She Goes, Power would go on to form Cast two years later. The songwriting he had begun when he was with The La's began to pay off with his subsequent band, with hits such as Alright and Sandstorm from Cast's debut album All Change.
Later this year, the band will tour the 30th anniversary of the long-player. Before that series of gigs, they also have the small matter of supporting Oasis on tour, including both Dublin concerts in August.
'It's the biggest tour of the year, if not the decade," says Power.
Though Liverpool and Manchester have keen football-related rivalries, both cities also have much in common, not least large populations of people of Irish origin. "We all have those working-class Irish connections,' says Power of the Oasis tour.
It was in January 2024 that Power posted an image on social media of him holding up his Irish passport with a pint of Guinness. "I feel very proud to be a Scouse Irishman," he confirms. "Power is a big name in Waterford where my dad was from. Unfortunately, he's no longer with us but he would be proud that I've got that passport.
'It's given me an identity because coming from Liverpool there were plenty of times I was asked as a young lad to 'speak the Queen's English'. I don't think we are fully accepted, I used to look at myself as British thinking the shore binds us but the Irish identity has given me something inside, I'm from Liverpool but I'm Scouse-Irish".
Noel Gallagher is quoted as saying Oasis came to finish what The La's started. As Power suggests, Oasis gave Cast "a bump" when asking them to play support in May 1994 at The Venue in New Cross, London. "I remembered Noel from when he was a roadie with Inspiral Carpets back when The La's played at G-Mex in Manchester. We were always zig-zagging and crossing paths.
John Power, on right, with The La's.
'Cast got a record deal from that gig in New Cross and then Noel would give us a shout for gigs like Irvine Beach, Loch Lomond and Knebworth."
After inertia had set in for The La's, Power grew frustrated at just playing the same songs, and departed in 1991. A year later Cast soon managed to build on a head of steam with a memorable sonic force during performances that buried those previous disappointments.
"Before it happens you are working spiritually and physically towards a dream,' explains Power. "As a band, we were all connected to it and cutting it live, through that you are discovering this new ground, it's like heading towards the promised land. We knew we would see it and we were getting there which gave us that strength.
'When you do break, it's all about maintaining it like with Oasis or U2 you go into another stratosphere but for most of us having a top ten record, getting on Top of the Pops and meeting the fans; that's as good as it's ever going to be and that's more than most bands ever get a whiff of. At that time you can feel it happening and no one can get in the way or tell you otherwise.'
Cast and The Verve both made an impact on Oasis fans as support at the 1995 shows at Irvine Beach, Scotland. As Cast walked off stage Noel Gallagher remarked that it was "like a religious experience". The line was picked up by a journalist and quoted in the press. "Fine Time was massive in Scotland before we had a hit with it," adds Power of the experience. "People would go off their nut."
Oasis gifted coveted support slots to both bands at key gigs, and it was fitting that both The Verve's frontman Richard Ashcroft and Cast would both be invited back 30 years later for the long-awaited reunion.
"I think we are all really looking forward to seeing Noel and Liam walk on that stage together again," says Power. "Cast is in such a great place and we've got momentum, it's going to be a big year. The line-up is stratospheric with Richard Ashcroft as well; it's real northern soul rock'n'roll and here we all are thirty years later.'
Age has given Power a slightly different perspective on the experience this time around. 'It was easy to miss things back then because I was always looking forward; when the Oasis tour becomes the present time I'll be in the eye of the hurricane and right in the presence of it in all these places like Dublin, Edinburgh, Cardiff and the rest of them".
Ahead of the Oasis shows, Power has been on a spoken word tour entitled 'Cast, The La's and Me', playing guitar and bass while telling stories about his life and the songs. "There was this no man's land between The La's and Cast," he explains, "but now there's no separation."
It was while writing Cast's last album Love Is The Call that he picked up the bass again. "That was the album that Cast hadn't made and I needed to unify the bass player in The La's and the singer/songwriter in Cast."
John Power performing at the Liverpool fan zone in Madrid in 2019 before the Champions League final against. Tottenham Hotspur. Picture: CURTO DE LA TORRE / AFP.
After Cast spilt between 2001 and 2010, Power and Mavers were reunited for a spell in 2005. Their first show since 1991 was at the Savoy in Cork where they performed two new songs. At the time there was talk of a follow-up album.
"There was a whole second album," confirms Power. "Lee is prolific, he'll never stop writing and he's got the songs. He inspired me at that time because I'd fell out of love with Cast and songwriting. When I went back to The La's I loved playing those songs again, I have such a spiritual connection to them, they feel so close to me, to go back with Lee kickstarted me again."
Next year will mark 40 years since Power joined The La's, and he now performs tracks by the band. "The ifs and buts could go on forever but those two voices together," he says of the hypnotic connection with Mavers. "I did some of the best songs I ever wrote with Lee. Together we were a force to be reckoned with. It's like letting the genie out the bottle. I hope we can get together for a cup of tea and play together again; even if it's just in his kitchen".
Cast will support Oasis in Dublin on August 16 and 17. Later in the year, the band will perform at Dublin's Olympia on October 29; and the Telegraph Building in Belfast on October 30