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Noel Gallagher "Paul Weller's Out There On His Own!"




















Noel Gallagher salutes the British Neil Young's drive and individuality.

"When my musical thing took off, it was The Smiths and Stone Roses but they wouldn't have been anything without The Jam, so The Jam's influence on me has come through them. " I officially first met Paul at Glastonbury in '94, I'd actually met him once before, when I was a roadie for the Inspiral Carpets, going into immigration in Japan. Clint Boon introduced himself, and Paul said, 'I like the organ'. Those were his only words.

At Glastonbury this journalist did this interview with me and said 'Paul Weller's just been going on about Oasis in the beer tent' and I thought I better go and shake his hand. "At the time of meeting, Oasis were similar in stature to The Jam: he wrote all the songs, I wrote all the songs, we both loved The Beatles and the '60's, we had scooters on our first album sleeve, but also we had the same background. My mam was a cleaner, my dad was a builder, his mam was a cleaner, his dad was a builder, and we have the same reference points of going to shitty schools where they couldn't teach you anything and you always knew there was something else waiting for you somewhere.

"I first saw The Jam on the Old Grey Whistle Test doing Eton Rifles, and that's the song I'd put on a Saturday night, to get in the mood. He's such an underrated songwriter. He's a moody f***er too. "With the solo stuff, I hadn't heard anything from him for years, and then he was playing Manchester Academy in 1990...I lived five minutes walk from it, knew the promoters so I went up. He played into Tomorrow and I was like, Wow, f***ing hell!

"I can't think of anybody else, apart from Neil Young, who's doing anything even approaching contemporary music, all the greats were super long-gone after their thirties. He'd say he keeps going because he has always got something to prove, but I don't believe that. He just f***ing loves music. "Whereas most people of his generation dismiss the new generation, for him they re-energise him. The first time I heard The Coral and The Libertines was off him. He's always, 'Have you heard these Kings Of Leon? What are the Arctic Monkeys like? New music refreshes him.

He's forever breaking down what he does and starting again. Like with 22 Dreams In the age of downloads and piracy and doing as little as possible, he goes, 'I'm making a double'. It will be the last double LP ever made. F***ing kids have the attention span of small ants these days so respect to him.

"As a pianist and guitarist he is on the verge of the virtuoso. The things he plays are beyond me. When he did Champagne Supernova with us, I was like, "F**king hell!" He can do anything soul, jazz, blues, rock. He's got it.

"He's not in it for the money, fame, or adulation; he needs to do it. He's never known anything other than being in a band and people respect him for the fact when he gets on-stage he means it. It's in his life blood... but the amount of times he's retired round my house... We were going to start a supergroup with Primal Scream. We'd clubbed together for a van and we were going to play social clubs... and then the sun came up.

"He'll moan about touring but he's always on the road. He'll phone me up at any given time and I'll be watching the telly. He's fidgety and he brings that to his professional life, he can't sit or stand still. If he's not in the studio he's in rehearsals, if he's not in rehearsals he's looking through photos for a book that's coming out, or compiling a box set, or looking for a new drummer...

"Our two daughters are the same age [and] sit together at school, so me and Paul, we got to school plays and Christmas dos and parents' nights together, so it's gone from being the big cheese from up north and him being the king of the south to him being my mate. I'm proud to say that.

"Fashion wise, he's out there on his own! He'll call me up, 'I'm on South Molton Street, do you want a hat? They've got some good uns.' He came around last Thursday, it was pissing down with rain. He's got a full-length leather trench coat over his head, a green leather jacket on, yellow trousers and suede shoes. We're sat upstairs, outside the front window there's commotion like you've never heard, horns blaring,he's got my lad on his lap, going, 'How can you put up with this noise?' It's not usually like this so I open the window and see some c**t's parked his car in the middle of the road. 'Oh yeah,' he says 'Is it a mini? It's his car.

The traffic warden appears, there's a dustbin wagon , two black cabs, he comes to the window going to the traffic warden 'I'll be down in two minutes you f**king c**t.' As he pulls off, he just goes, 'See you later mate.

Source: Mojo Magazine

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