Noel Gallagher Talks Oasis, High Flying Birds And More
IN THE case of the life-long family feud between brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, it's funny until someone gets sued.
From the day they shared a band - Oasis - a fuse was lit. Their public fighting graced stages and interviews, but never a courtroom.
However, when Noel Gallagher claimed Liam had pulled out of one of the final Oasis gigs in 2009 because of a hangover, not laryngitis, the singer took legal action.
"I am used to being called all sorts of things by Noel and I have in the past said things about him," Liam said in a statement in August. "But what Noel has alleged this time went way beyond rock and roll banter and questioned my professionalism. I tried to resolve this amicably, but have been left with no choice but legal action. All I want is an apology."
His older brother validated Liam's illness and said: "If he gets offended by my opinions on such things, then I apologise. It's all getting a little silly and out of hand ..."
Reports at the time claimed their mother Peggy was involved in ending the lawsuit.
"She may have been able to solve family disputes when we were three," Noel says. "I think the time of that authority is long since gone. It is a funky story. But not true."
Noel politely declines to talk about the since-dropped lawsuit. "That's a conversation you should have with Liam, not me. But be very careful because he might sue you," he says.
After the messy end of Oasis, Liam Gallagher made a clean break, forming new band Beady Eye with Oasis members Gem Archer and Andy Bell, who said that spoke volumes about where the loyalties in Oasis lay.
"We agreed it wouldn't be the end just because Noel left," Bell said.
"Andy's entitled to Liam's opinion," Noel says.
Post-split, Noel has formed his own new band, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.
The self-titled album features a few tunes familiar to Oasis trainspotters. (I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine surfaced in demo form on YouTube years ago. "Some thieving bastard put it out there on the internet," Noel says.
Stop the Clocks was written for Oasis - it provided the title of their singles compilation - but has never been released until now.
"Record Machine was almost on the last Oasis album. And the one before," Noel says. "But our (long pause) ... singer never quite got around to finishing it off. It's a shame. Would have made the last album infinitely better. And same applies to Stop the Clocks. That should have been on the last two Oasis albums; he never got around to finishing the singing on that, either.
"I tailored them to suit my voice. I feel a bit of an a--- putting songs on albums that are 10 years old, but they're f---ing good songs and they need to be heard."
When If I Had a Gun surfaced online in skeletal demo form, eager fans tried to finish it off for him. "Hasn't anybody got jobs these days? Sit around on Skype with a guitar going, 'I think it goes like this...'," Noel says.
On the last few Oasis albums, Noel had opened up the songwriting to the group; for High Flying Birds he enjoyed having no democracy.
"It was nice to be able to dictate my own pace. It was also nice to play all the instruments, I don't have to teach anybody else how it goes. If an album is a picture you're trying to paint, imagine five painters with only one paint brush. You're constantly trying to get the paintbrush off the other guys to do your bit. If you're just doing it on your own, you can do what you want - bit of green there, bit of yellow there, trumpets there and there and there."
Noel was so productive he made two albums - a follow-up with electronic act Amorphous Androgynous will be released next year.
"It's like the High Flying Birds album, but more psychedelic and trippy and weird. I've spent a full year in the studio. At the end, to be quite honest, I was f---ing sick of it. But I've managed to get two records out of it. And half a record left over..."
New single AKA ... What a Life! sees Gallagher step out of his stadium rock comfort zone.
"I was in a stadium rock band for 20 years, which I loved and adored. I wrote stadium rock music for that purpose. Look at all the stadium rock bands - Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Oasis, Muse ... Does anybody really change their formula from record to record?
"You tailor your music for that environment. But I haven't stopped writing other more human, mellow..."
Noel stops mid-sentence, post-"mellow".
"I actually said that word then. Put it in inverted commas. With a little asterisk at the bottom of the page saying, 'I didn't mean that'. Whatever the High Flying Birds sound is, I was always writing stuff like that. But I couldn't get a trumpet past Liam. He'd be like, 'No! No trumpets!'"
Noel says the public are the losers in the Oasis split.
"To think I've played the last version of Champagne Supernova, after playing it for 20 years, f---ing hell. That's the saddest thing about the whole thing. It's terrible. The band dying, whatever, who gives a s---? But the songs have died. But there you go. Circumstances ran out of control."
After years taking the occasional lead vocal in Oasis, Noel has now moved from being "sideshow Bob" to "centre-stage Steve".
"I'm not sure how it's going to go or what people are going to expect," he says of fronting his new band.
"But I've got nothing to say. I don't have any new moves. I don't know any jokes. I haven't taken up juggling. I don't look different. There's nothing to see. Unless you want to see a 45-year-old man strumming his guitar."
He has a firm policy on playing Oasis songs in High Flying Birds. "They're not Oasis songs any more, they're my songs. I don't recall anybody being there when I was writing them. Although I was taking a lot of drugs at the time, I don't recall anybody there, apart from the little people that came to visit me in the middle of the night. But they don't require any songwriting credits.
"As the band don't exist any more, Oasis songs don't exist any more. I wrote them all. So I'll be playing as many as I feel like. At the minute, there's four. I could go as high as six. Or five. But no fewer than three. I've written some songs that people really f---ing love. I'm not going to cut my nose off to spite my face by saying I will never play those songs again. Nobody helped me write those songs. I'm not cheating on anybody. If I feel like playing She's Electric, then I'll f---ing play it."
As for an Oasis reformation in the future, Noel is coy. "Is it possible Oasis will get back together? Well, Liam is on record saying the idea of working with me again makes him want to vomit. So in the interests of the boy's health..."
HEAR Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (Universal) out tomorrow.
SEE Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds are expected to be announced next month for the 2012 Big Day Out.
Source: www.adelaidenow.com.au
From the day they shared a band - Oasis - a fuse was lit. Their public fighting graced stages and interviews, but never a courtroom.
However, when Noel Gallagher claimed Liam had pulled out of one of the final Oasis gigs in 2009 because of a hangover, not laryngitis, the singer took legal action.
"I am used to being called all sorts of things by Noel and I have in the past said things about him," Liam said in a statement in August. "But what Noel has alleged this time went way beyond rock and roll banter and questioned my professionalism. I tried to resolve this amicably, but have been left with no choice but legal action. All I want is an apology."
His older brother validated Liam's illness and said: "If he gets offended by my opinions on such things, then I apologise. It's all getting a little silly and out of hand ..."
Reports at the time claimed their mother Peggy was involved in ending the lawsuit.
"She may have been able to solve family disputes when we were three," Noel says. "I think the time of that authority is long since gone. It is a funky story. But not true."
Noel politely declines to talk about the since-dropped lawsuit. "That's a conversation you should have with Liam, not me. But be very careful because he might sue you," he says.
After the messy end of Oasis, Liam Gallagher made a clean break, forming new band Beady Eye with Oasis members Gem Archer and Andy Bell, who said that spoke volumes about where the loyalties in Oasis lay.
"We agreed it wouldn't be the end just because Noel left," Bell said.
"Andy's entitled to Liam's opinion," Noel says.
Post-split, Noel has formed his own new band, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.
The self-titled album features a few tunes familiar to Oasis trainspotters. (I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine surfaced in demo form on YouTube years ago. "Some thieving bastard put it out there on the internet," Noel says.
Stop the Clocks was written for Oasis - it provided the title of their singles compilation - but has never been released until now.
"Record Machine was almost on the last Oasis album. And the one before," Noel says. "But our (long pause) ... singer never quite got around to finishing it off. It's a shame. Would have made the last album infinitely better. And same applies to Stop the Clocks. That should have been on the last two Oasis albums; he never got around to finishing the singing on that, either.
"I tailored them to suit my voice. I feel a bit of an a--- putting songs on albums that are 10 years old, but they're f---ing good songs and they need to be heard."
When If I Had a Gun surfaced online in skeletal demo form, eager fans tried to finish it off for him. "Hasn't anybody got jobs these days? Sit around on Skype with a guitar going, 'I think it goes like this...'," Noel says.
On the last few Oasis albums, Noel had opened up the songwriting to the group; for High Flying Birds he enjoyed having no democracy.
"It was nice to be able to dictate my own pace. It was also nice to play all the instruments, I don't have to teach anybody else how it goes. If an album is a picture you're trying to paint, imagine five painters with only one paint brush. You're constantly trying to get the paintbrush off the other guys to do your bit. If you're just doing it on your own, you can do what you want - bit of green there, bit of yellow there, trumpets there and there and there."
Noel was so productive he made two albums - a follow-up with electronic act Amorphous Androgynous will be released next year.
"It's like the High Flying Birds album, but more psychedelic and trippy and weird. I've spent a full year in the studio. At the end, to be quite honest, I was f---ing sick of it. But I've managed to get two records out of it. And half a record left over..."
New single AKA ... What a Life! sees Gallagher step out of his stadium rock comfort zone.
"I was in a stadium rock band for 20 years, which I loved and adored. I wrote stadium rock music for that purpose. Look at all the stadium rock bands - Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Oasis, Muse ... Does anybody really change their formula from record to record?
"You tailor your music for that environment. But I haven't stopped writing other more human, mellow..."
Noel stops mid-sentence, post-"mellow".
"I actually said that word then. Put it in inverted commas. With a little asterisk at the bottom of the page saying, 'I didn't mean that'. Whatever the High Flying Birds sound is, I was always writing stuff like that. But I couldn't get a trumpet past Liam. He'd be like, 'No! No trumpets!'"
Noel says the public are the losers in the Oasis split.
"To think I've played the last version of Champagne Supernova, after playing it for 20 years, f---ing hell. That's the saddest thing about the whole thing. It's terrible. The band dying, whatever, who gives a s---? But the songs have died. But there you go. Circumstances ran out of control."
After years taking the occasional lead vocal in Oasis, Noel has now moved from being "sideshow Bob" to "centre-stage Steve".
"I'm not sure how it's going to go or what people are going to expect," he says of fronting his new band.
"But I've got nothing to say. I don't have any new moves. I don't know any jokes. I haven't taken up juggling. I don't look different. There's nothing to see. Unless you want to see a 45-year-old man strumming his guitar."
He has a firm policy on playing Oasis songs in High Flying Birds. "They're not Oasis songs any more, they're my songs. I don't recall anybody being there when I was writing them. Although I was taking a lot of drugs at the time, I don't recall anybody there, apart from the little people that came to visit me in the middle of the night. But they don't require any songwriting credits.
"As the band don't exist any more, Oasis songs don't exist any more. I wrote them all. So I'll be playing as many as I feel like. At the minute, there's four. I could go as high as six. Or five. But no fewer than three. I've written some songs that people really f---ing love. I'm not going to cut my nose off to spite my face by saying I will never play those songs again. Nobody helped me write those songs. I'm not cheating on anybody. If I feel like playing She's Electric, then I'll f---ing play it."
As for an Oasis reformation in the future, Noel is coy. "Is it possible Oasis will get back together? Well, Liam is on record saying the idea of working with me again makes him want to vomit. So in the interests of the boy's health..."
HEAR Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (Universal) out tomorrow.
SEE Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds are expected to be announced next month for the 2012 Big Day Out.
Source: www.adelaidenow.com.au
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