Noel Gallagher Talks About His Triumphant Return To Manchester

Of all the subjects CityLife imagined we might discuss with Noel Gallagher, we never saw The Dukes Of Hazzard coming.

But, camped out in his hotel suite in Adelaide, Australia, when he should have been outside soaking up some sun, Noel has embarked on a TV nostalgia marathon.

“Dukes Of Hazzard, Magnum, Knight Rider and The A Team,” he lists in excited amazement. “On Australian national TV – not even an 80s-themed channel.

“Boss Hogg – do you remember him? ******* hell, man, he’s mint.
“Do you remember what the old English fella was called with the ’tash, who lived in the house? ******* mindblowing... Higgins!

“I’ve been sat here texting everyone – ‘Higgins!’. Brown and yellow stripped helicopter - **** me, I wanted one of those.”

International quirks are what keep life as a touring musician interesting, says Noel. And he should know; since Oasis emerged with their smash hit of a debut, Definitely Maybe, back in 1994, Noel has performed in almost every territory imaginable.

There are exceptions: Paraguay for one, which he’ll visit soon with his latest project Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (“You may laugh,” he smiles. “I mean, is there anybody there who’ll have any vague idea who I am?”)
Japan – “still 20 years in the future” – fascinates him, but he reckons nowhere changes at such a mystifying rate as Manchester.

“It changes constantly,” Burnage-born Noel says.

“I go back on average maybe four or five times a year. Every time I go on a night out people are like, ‘Oh, no one goes there any more, they go here now’.

“It changes much more than London.

“But it’s still my home, you know – it doesn’t take me that long to get back into the swing of things.

“I walk down streets and in my head I’m thinking, ‘This is where I was writing Half The World Away.

“When I pass India House (on Whitworth Street), I look up at my old flat window and think, ‘I wonder if they know? If the people who live here now would mind me knocking on the door and saying, ‘I used to live here’.

“I wrote (What’s The Story) Morning Glory and Definitely Maybe in that flat. I’d love to stand and look out of that window again.

“I spent a lot of time staring out of that window smoking. I refer to them as the glory days.”

He may have written two of the most celebrated guitar records of the century, then, but Noel remains affably grounded, despite the fact his Adelaide stop off is because the High Flying Birds have soared far quicker than he imagined.

He’s had to satiate demand to see him play with a world tour before the HFB are even a formal band.

When he hits the UK on Monday, starting his tour in Manchester, he’ll be playing arenas.

As votes of confidence from fan to artist go, this is the ticket sales equivalent of being carried victoriously on the shoulders of your army before anyone’s even sustained a paper cut.

After the split of Oasis and the rift with volatile kid brother Liam, it seems 44-year-old Noel is an artist who can do no wrong.

Unlike Liam, whose new outfit Beady Eye met with a far frostier reception from fans and critics alike (Noel, it seems, is the only person left to see Beady Eye play, or formulate an opinion on them).

And, refreshingly, it’s a scenario he’s utterly surprised by.

“Part of you, when you make a record thinks, ‘This is ******* brilliant and why wouldn’t it be a massive success ’cos I’m amazing’,” he says, in classically tongue-in-cheek style.

“And the other part of you thinks, ‘Well, you just never know’.

“When I was listening to the mixes coming off the desk in Los Angeles I was thinking, ‘This is as good a bunch of songs as I’ve ever been involved in’, so by that rule alone I think it’ll do alright.

“But I never thought I’d have sold so many records in such a short space of time and be playing arenas; I never prepared for any of this.”

With arenas come endless meetings about lasers and light shows, sighs Noel. when all he’s interested in doing is making the music fill the space.

His solution: to assemble on stage upwards of 60 people to bring the album to life, including a full choir and brass section.

“There’s nothing better than watching people rather than a big screen,” he says.

“We’re going to fill the arena with noise and music as opposed to gadgets and charisma.”

The shorthand for what Noel got to experience with Oasis is ‘everything’.

They toured the world several times, cleaned up at awards shows and crucially wrote the final chapter in the Madchester music movement.

But there’s still new things to do. Creatively, Noel’s definitely on a high; he’s already revealed that his debut record is (conceptually speaking) the first part of a two-part album with the second half – written with Manchester production duo Amorphous Androgynous – being a pretty ‘far out’ companion LP.

And why shouldn’t he be brave enough to try something new? Because part of what keeps rock ’n’ roll interesting is fresh experiences, and now the thrill of the new for Noel is in the small details.

His most recent career first, though, is pretty Tom Jones; he’s become the kind of musician people fling bras at. “It was a wonderful moment,” he smiles. “I called my mrs (Sara MacDonald) and she was very proud.

“I’ve kept it as well, like a serial killer’s trophy.”

There’s plenty of time to gather more trophies before the tour ends in November, at which point he’s planning a year off to spend time with his kids (“There’ll come a point when Sara will get ****** off with me and send me back to work, which is what you women are like,” he laughs. “When I’m not there, she’s like, ‘You’re like a lodger’. When I am, she’s like ‘Don’t you have a job?’.”).

But more than anything, though, he’s just puzzling out how to be a contented musician again. “This is gonna sound like an awfully conceited thing to say, but I’ve done so much with Oasis that there’s nothing else to do; it’s about keeping things ticking over,” he considers.

“I’m not desperate to prove myself over and over again, I’m not one for chasing success and fame.

“If this thing becomes boring or about churning out records I’ll do something else.

“The road is open, whereas with Oasis I liked the security of that and I did see myself being in that band until I was 60.

“If someone had said to me in 2005, ‘Tell me where you’ll be in 2010’, I could have predicted where I’d be – with Oasis.

“If someone asks me now where I’ll be five years from now, I genuinely have no idea.

“A lot has happened since I put that album out, and I don’t know how the **** I’m gonna follow this up.

“Putting out an album was daunting after being in one of the biggest bands of all times.

“In Oasis, there was always a five-year plan,” he smiles, tentatively, “and I don’t have one of those plans any more.”

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds play Manchester Arena on Monday. £35-59.50.

Source: www.citylife.co.uk