Why Noel Gallagher Hates Changes

Noel Gallagher walks into London’s posh Landmark hotel wearing a scruffy leather jacket and old jeans. He hasn’t bothered to iron his shirt for the few interviews he is doing today. 15 years ago Oasis – in their usual party mode – climbed up the trees in the courtyard, but today Noel just offers a cappuccino and sits down neatly at the private bar. It seems to be the normal setting: Noel talks about a new album as he has been doing every three years for a decade now. In his office, just around the corner, Big Brother stickers are still glued to the cupboards, Oasis tour posters are everywhere, gold records grace the walls of the restrooms. Time seems to be standing still. But since August 28, 2009, nothing is the way it was.

Noel’s Label is now called Sour Mash, the album that will be released on October 17 is Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Oasis – the notorious brothers, the biggest Brit Pop band of the past two decades – are history. In a press conference in July, Noel explained once and for all how the final break-up with his younger brother Liam happened so that he wouldn’t have to talk about it over and over again: First the singer threw a plum (!) at him, then he attacked him with a guitar. That’s when the older brother who had grown into a pretty peaceful guy had enough. He left. He didn’t get back at Liam, he went to his car. He sat there for five minutes and then declared the end of Oasis.

You can call it clever marketing that Noel paints a picture of himself as the wiser senior who couldn’t stand the constant aggression. But it could very well just be the truth. Liam went on to form the band Beady Eye with the rest of the Oasis guys and released the album Different Gear, Still Speeding in February, while the odd one out kept a low profile. Noel had to look for new musicians first, then recorded his album in Los Angeles. Between the lines you can sense that he was hurt by the other musicians not sticking up for him. Oasis bass player Andy Bell, he said, had just been counting his shoes while Liam went nuts. Other than that, Noel does not have a bad thing to say about Beady Eye. He can afford to be noble.

The surrounding looks familiar: same offices, same hotel for interview, same management. Have you never thought of changing everything after the break-up of Oasis?

No! Why? I’ve got enough to deal with, being in a new band. I don’t need new management or anything. They are my friends, anyway. I’ve been with those people for nearly 20 years. I hate change. I am stubborn, and I am old-fashioned. Some people like change but I’m not like that. I have the same pair of jeans for ten years until they fall off. I have the same hairstyle for years. I am not one of those people that are constantly changing the way they look or the way they act or their outlook on life.

Things tend to get more comfortable the longer you wear them.

Precisely! Why change? Change is shit. Change is great if you’re young, not if you’re old.

Why have you kept so quiet for so long? Didn’t you feel like shouting: I’m on to something!

No. Because I don’t feel insecure. I knew it was coming. We have the same management, and the last few months has been Beady Eye time. The next few months will be High Flying Birds time. There is no point doing two things at once. And I wasn’t sitting there going: I must tell the world I’m brilliant. I don’t really give a shit. I was making a record. I don’t have to let the world know what I’m doing. A bit of mystery is good.

Before you went into the studio, you spent a year moving houses, having another kid. But does that really fill your days?

When I have two years off, I don’t put the guitar in a case, hide it under the bed and never see it again. I write all the time. And when I say all the time, I don’t mean I write everyday but I play the guitar at home everyday. Everyday, I’m strumming away and something will come and I’ll write a song. It might take a week, it might take three months or a year, but I’m always writing. So although I was moving house, getting married and having a baby and all that, I was still working.

When it came to choosing musicians, what was more important – their skills or their personalities?

[Laughs] Well, I didn’t ask anybody to join me. I kind of waited for people to ask me. I could have phoned up a hundred bands and stole guitarists from that band and bassists from another one and so on. But that’s not very cool, you know what I mean? So I thought: I’ll just wait till people ask. And the people that have asked are all kind of friends, and I’ve known them for a long time. Some of them for 15 years.

So the ones in the band are the ones who weren’t afraid to ask?

Yeah, if you want to put it that way. But I’m not that scary. I just didn’t hold any auditions… We don’t look like a band, we’re just a bunch of guys. But then, The High Flying Birds is me, it’s not a band. Maybe in a few years time there will be a settled line-up and it won’t be Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds but just the High Flying Birds. Who knows.

Or just Noel Gallagher.

No. That would be a bit boring, wouldn’t it? I played most of the stuff on the record anyway, apart from the drums and the keyboards. I played everything else. Eventually I might have a line-up that is a real “band band” but I am not going to pursue or chase. If it happens, it happens – great. If it doesn’t, there is always little old me on the guitar. I can still do it. I can sit on a stool, just me with a guitar, in front of a thousand people and I’m cool with it. Or I can be in a band and play guitar like I was in Oasis and I’m cool with that. Okay, I’m less cool with being a frontman in a band. I’m not sure if I might enjoy that. But I don’t feel insecure about it. It will probably be good. And the record IS good, that’s the main thing.

How big can or should a guy be on his own sound?

Everytime I write a song, I play it on my guitar. And when I’m in the studio I try and make it the best that it can be. I know my songs have huge choruses and I can play them all on an acoustic guitar and they would be just as powerful. They would make you listen even more, with just me and a guitar, I guess. But I like things to sound big. Cinematic. Visual.

Is that why you worked with Dave Sardy as a producer again?

We know each other, and we really get on with each other. He’s a good friend. He likes what I do. And if you’re working with a person who likes what you do, then they do the best job. I like Dave’s ideas, and he’s funny and he lives in Los Angeles, so I have to go there to record. Nothing wrong with that! The bottom line is: He’s fucking great at what he does. I don’t see myself not making another record with him. He makes me feel comfortable.

I co-produced it; I did a lot of the work in England myself. But you need somebody to come in halfway through and say what’s great and what’s not. Because to be quite honest, if I’m sitting here banging on the table with just a spoon and singing ”˜Everybody’s on the Run,’ I’d think that was great because it’s my song. Fuck, it’s amazing! You need someone else to take a step back and look at it.

You mentioned Los Angeles”¦

I love it! I fucking hated it when I first went. Couldn’t stand it. It was so quiet, there was nobody on the streets. It was like “ssshhhhh!” all the time. Don’t make a sound! I thought: Fuck, fuck off! As soon as I turned 35, I went: Ah! I get it! I like to be quiet now. I like to “sssssssshhhhh!” And I guess the older that I get, the more I agree with the lifestyle and the sunshine and the palm trees whereas in my twenties I much preferred New York. Now I spent three months in LA this year to finish this record, and I have to say, I could see myself living there at some point in my life. It’s just the weather. And people are so nice. And they love English people! Nothing is ever gonna replace the history that we have in Europe. The oldest building in America is like fucking 50 years old or something. We go back thousands of years. But all that aside – I could live there. Easy.

Did you also enjoy being away from London and the great expectations?

It’s funny. With the internet, you’re never really away from anywhere. You’re always connected to somewhere. Before the internet, you could go to America for three months and not see any newspapers. You would be relying on what somebody told you. Now it’s easy to find out what’s going on back home, so you’re never really away. But I didn’t miss the weather because the weather is fucking rubbish! But when I have to work, I have to work, and I’m not really sentimental about things. I don’t get homesick. In between tours or projects, I make sure I take enough time off to do whatever it is I got to do – whether it be babies, moving house, getting married. So when that comes to an end I am ready to go back to work.

But I guess it’s easier to move around in the US”¦

It’s different here because I can get around London, but in LA you need a car. And I can’t drive. So I’m pretty much standing on street corners going: Fuck, what now?

I was thinking about people recognising you.

Not really. They don’t even do it in London. When I leave here today, I am going to go down to the train station and take the tube. I’m gonna be on the tube for 15 minutes, I’m gonna go right across to the other side of London and not one person will recognise me.

Are you kidding? The tube?

Yeah. Do you want me to show you my ticket? I don’t drive, and it’s easy to get on public transport. The most that happens is that somebody will go, “Hmm”¦ that’s”¦ no, can’t be”¦” And if someone comes up and says, “Are you Noel Gallagher?” You just go, “No. No.” And they look at you and they think, “Is it?” And you just go, “No.” And they’ll walk off.

I couldn’t keep a straight face.

But you are not Noel Gallagher!

*****

He laughs loudly, and of course he is right. There is only one Noel Gallagher, and his reputation always precedes him. So his solo debut is not really a debut at all. It’s just a continuation of his songwriting with different means. It is the first album in years though with only Noel-penned songs on it. Some people have accused him of having kept his best ideas for himself for quite a while, but he is having none of that. “I wasn’t planning any of this. I always tried to make Oasis the best that it could be. But in Oasis, there was another three songwriters. If I had been let to write all the songs on the albums like I used to, then some of the songs of this would have been on the last two Oasis albums.” At least two, that is – ”˜Stop the Clocks’ and ”˜(I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine’. A band is a compromise, Noel states, and he was willing to make that compromise. Still, he always wrote more than the five songs he had on the last Oasis albums – he wrote about 30. “But you gotta understand that I was giving songs to somebody else to sing, so it was all about what he was able to do. And Liam quite frankly wouldn’t be able to sing ‘The Death of You and Me’. Or ‘If I Had a Gun’. Or ‘What a Life’. It’s that simple.”

Analysing his own music isn’t Noel Gallagher’s favourite pastime. He is happy that he managed to write such vastly different songs this time – from the New Orleans-inspired ”˜Death’ to the disco rock of ”˜What A Life’ and some psychedelic noise – but has no idea how that all happened. No conscious decisions have been made, that would be too boring. It just turned out that way. The one thing he knew was that he wanted a first single that is not your classic hit. “Everybody always comes back with a bang. Everybody always gets in your face with the first single. I thought to myself, ”˜No, I’m gonna come back and go: sssshhhh, listen to this! And when ,The Death Of You And Me’ comes on the radio, between fucking Foo Fighters rock and fucking Lady Gaga shit, people will stop and listen to it because it is quiet and soft and they’ll go: Wow, trumpets!’

*****

Along the way, Noel Gallagher has also recorded a second album, one with the electronic duo Amorphous Androgynous. It will be released in 2012. Noel is not willing to share the title yet but he explains the idea behind it. He had 38 songs when he started recording his solo debut. His theory was, “Put out two records now with lots of bonus tracks and B-sides and then the next record has to be brand new.” There will be nothing left, nothing to recycle. He has written a couple of songs since finishing High Flying Birds but is relieved that there are no more old songs lying around. “You can never really move on, you’re always somehow dipping into the past. It may be a kamikaze move because I may never write ten great songs again. But I thought, “Fuck it, I’ve had enough success in Oasis, I had all that shit.” And like I said, I’m not insecure. If I never make another record after this, I don’t care. But I don’t think so. I may not make another one as good as this, that’s for sure. Records like this, they don’t come along that often for me.”

And how is the Amorphous album going to sound? Like Noel Gallagher of course. He sings and plays on it but first he had to get used to the weird work ethic of Gaz Cobain, the mastermind behind Amorphous. An example: He took the vocals from Noel’s song ”˜Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks,’ disregarded everything else and made Noel start again from scratch. Now the track is eight minutes long instead of three and a half. “It’s not dance music, it’s not electronic. It’s just far out,” Noel says and admits that High Flying Birds is the more important album to him. He hates the term “comeback album” but it feels like one.

*****

When you write songs at home, don’t you get disturbed by your kids?

Oh yeah, all the time. I fucking have three kids! You can’t lock the doors – they would still find me. I’ve had studios in my house before, but I found them counter-productive. I found myself never doing anything, just beavering away. I like to snatch the odd moment here and there, just thinking, “Oh, ten minutes. I’ll just go and play the guitar, see if something pops out.” I instantly know if something is great. You can turn an okay song into a good song. Greatness is a 1000 percent inspiration. Either comes or it doesn’t.

How do you look back at Oasis at the moment?

Oasis is a very very proud time in my life. Something I’ll never achieve again. And I don’t look back at that in sadness. I was in one of the biggest bands ever. One of the best bands ever. It was great. I had a great time. There you go, such is life.

No regrets?

I wished after Knebworth we had taken a couple of years off. That’s it really.

When we met in 2008 I thought Oasis were past the point of breaking up.

[Laughs and sighs at the same time] So did I, I gotta say, so did I. I didn’t see my future elsewhere at all. I never thought for a fucking minute that I’d be sat here talking to you today about an album called Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. It wasn’t even a dream, it wasn’t even a thought. But what happened, happened. It was like, “Fuck it, I’m leaving.” It was just too much aggro for me. And there you go, it’s just one of those things.

At that moment in 2009, were you already thinking about what to do next?

I was sure that I was going to go on a plane and go home and go on holiday. I don’t mean to be factitious or sarcastic about it, but seriously, that was it. Every time I came to the end of an Oasis tour, there was never a plan to make another record anyway. If I could do it again”¦ Well, I sat in the car for five minutes and just went, “Oh, fuck him.” If I could turn the clock back now, I would have sat in the car for ten minutes, gone back and done the gig and the next gig, and then gone away. And in my head, after that we could have all done our own things and then”¦ In 2015, it’s the 20th anniversary of Morning Glory. In my own head, I’ve seen us coming back then with a new album, play the Morning Glory album in its entirety in stadiums all over the fucking world – it would have been the biggest thing ever. [Clears his throat] It’s not gonna happen now.

How confident do you feel as a singer these days?

I don’t see myself as a great singer. I’m not a great guitarist. I’m not a great anything. Seriously! But I’m good at a lot of different things. There’s half a dozen things I’m good at. When I join them all up, it makes something that’s really good. In the studio, I’m not thinking how I’m singing. I’m just singing the songs I’ve written. I don’t want to put myself in a league of these two people, but, do we say Bob Dylan is a great singer? No. Do we say Neil Young is a great singer? Sometimes. There you go then. I’m a songwriter singing my own songs, the end. I look at the whole picture. I was never in the studio going, “Ah, I’m gonna show these people.” I’m not like that as a person. I’m not that insecure because I don’t think I have anything to prove.

No thoughts of revenge then, as a lot of people think?

I understand that, it’s a great story. In every interview I’ve done it’s this versus Beady Eye. They are a rock & roll band. They’ve devoted themselves to rock & roll – if such a thing exists. And I am me. There is no competition. My songs are more important than that. More important than competition or revenge or chart positions or any of that shit. I will admit that sometimes, down the years, chart positions and all that was more important. That’s probably where my songwriting suffered a little bit because I was a bit too worried about it. Now I’m not worried.

You probably don’t have to be. You announced a few tour dates and they sold out in six minutes”¦

Yeah, but to be honest, they’re not big gigs – about 1500 people. I’ve had bigger parties! Seriously, I’ve fucking thrown bigger parties for more people, so let’s not get too excited just yet. I just hope people don’t come to see a show. Because there is no show. Not like Oasis. No flashing lights or a singer that stands very still. I hope against hope that the songs will be enough to carry the night through. And if not, then it will be a very short tour.

But that’s probably not your dream scenario.

The only thing I know what’s gonna happen is this: After about the 12th gig, I’m gonna be in my dressing room after a show, sweating, smoking a cigarette, and I’m either gonna be thinking, “I am better than Elvis. I think I am as good as Bob Dylan and Neil Young and Elvis, all rolled into one. I am fucking brilliant.” Or I’m gonna be going, “This is shit, I fucking hate it, can’t stand it, I wanna go home.” That’s what’s gonna happen. We’ll see.

Don’t you ever miss your brother? Not the singer, the sibling?

[Unusual long silence. Sits back and crosses his arms.] Not really. I’m a very private person. We’ll leave it at that. I have six friends in the entire world, and that’s it for me. That’s enough. And I’m thinking of getting rid of one… I don’t think about it. I’ve got family. I’ve got three kids and a wife. That’s enough for me.

Where do you see yourself in five years from now?

2016? Probably somehow still promoting the 20th anniversary of Morning Glory. Not with Oasis I might add. It’s a hard question to answer. Because if somebody

Noel Gallagher walks into London’s posh Landmark hotel wearing a scruffy leather jacket and old jeans. He hasn’t bothered to iron his shirt for the few interviews he is doing today. 15 years ago Oasis – in their usual party mode – climbed up the trees in the courtyard, but today Noel just offers a cappuccino and sits down neatly at the private bar. It seems to be the normal setting: Noel talks about a new album as he has been doing every three years for a decade now. In his office, just around the corner, Big Brother stickers are still glued to the cupboards, Oasis tour posters are everywhere, gold records grace the walls of the restrooms. Time seems to be standing still. But since August 28, 2009, nothing is the way it was.

Noel’s Label is now called Sour Mash, the album that will be released on October 17 is Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Oasis – the notorious brothers, the biggest Brit Pop band of the past two decades – are history. In a press conference in July, Noel explained once and for all how the final break-up with his younger brother Liam happened so that he wouldn’t have to talk about it over and over again: First the singer threw a plum (!) at him, then he attacked him with a guitar. That’s when the older brother who had grown into a pretty peaceful guy had enough. He left. He didn’t get back at Liam, he went to his car. He sat there for five minutes and then declared the end of Oasis.

You can call it clever marketing that Noel paints a picture of himself as the wiser senior who couldn’t stand the constant aggression. But it could very well just be the truth. Liam went on to form the band Beady Eye with the rest of the Oasis guys and released the album Different Gear, Still Speeding in February, while the odd one out kept a low profile. Noel had to look for new musicians first, then recorded his album in Los Angeles. Between the lines you can sense that he was hurt by the other musicians not sticking up for him. Oasis bass player Andy Bell, he said, had just been counting his shoes while Liam went nuts. Other than that, Noel does not have a bad thing to say about Beady Eye. He can afford to be noble.

The surrounding looks familiar: same offices, same hotel for interview, same management. Have you never thought of changing everything after the break-up of Oasis?

No! Why? I’ve got enough to deal with, being in a new band. I don’t need new management or anything. They are my friends, anyway. I’ve been with those people for nearly 20 years. I hate change. I am stubborn, and I am old-fashioned. Some people like change but I’m not like that. I have the same pair of jeans for ten years until they fall off. I have the same hairstyle for years. I am not one of those people that are constantly changing the way they look or the way they act or their outlook on life.

Things tend to get more comfortable the longer you wear them.

Precisely! Why change? Change is shit. Change is great if you’re young, not if you’re old.

Why have you kept so quiet for so long? Didn’t you feel like shouting: I’m on to something!

No. Because I don’t feel insecure. I knew it was coming. We have the same management, and the last few months has been Beady Eye time. The next few months will be High Flying Birds time. There is no point doing two things at once. And I wasn’t sitting there going: I must tell the world I’m brilliant. I don’t really give a shit. I was making a record. I don’t have to let the world know what I’m doing. A bit of mystery is good.

Before you went into the studio, you spent a year moving houses, having another kid. But does that really fill your days?

When I have two years off, I don’t put the guitar in a case, hide it under the bed and never see it again. I write all the time. And when I say all the time, I don’t mean I write everyday but I play the guitar at home everyday. Everyday, I’m strumming away and something will come and I’ll write a song. It might take a week, it might take three months or a year, but I’m always writing. So although I was moving house, getting married and having a baby and all that, I was still working.

When it came to choosing musicians, what was more important – their skills or their personalities?

[Laughs] Well, I didn’t ask anybody to join me. I kind of waited for people to ask me. I could have phoned up a hundred bands and stole guitarists from that band and bassists from another one and so on. But that’s not very cool, you know what I mean? So I thought: I’ll just wait till people ask. And the people that have asked are all kind of friends, and I’ve known them for a long time. Some of them for 15 years.

So the ones in the band are the ones who weren’t afraid to ask?

Yeah, if you want to put it that way. But I’m not that scary. I just didn’t hold any auditions… We don’t look like a band, we’re just a bunch of guys. But then, The High Flying Birds is me, it’s not a band. Maybe in a few years time there will be a settled line-up and it won’t be Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds but just the High Flying Birds. Who knows.

Or just Noel Gallagher.

No. That would be a bit boring, wouldn’t it? I played most of the stuff on the record anyway, apart from the drums and the keyboards. I played everything else. Eventually I might have a line-up that is a real “band band” but I am not going to pursue or chase. If it happens, it happens – great. If it doesn’t, there is always little old me on the guitar. I can still do it. I can sit on a stool, just me with a guitar, in front of a thousand people and I’m cool with it. Or I can be in a band and play guitar like I was in Oasis and I’m cool with that. Okay, I’m less cool with being a frontman in a band. I’m not sure if I might enjoy that. But I don’t feel insecure about it. It will probably be good. And the record IS good, that’s the main thing.

How big can or should a guy be on his own sound?

Everytime I write a song, I play it on my guitar. And when I’m in the studio I try and make it the best that it can be. I know my songs have huge choruses and I can play them all on an acoustic guitar and they would be just as powerful. They would make you listen even more, with just me and a guitar, I guess. But I like things to sound big. Cinematic. Visual.

Is that why you worked with Dave Sardy as a producer again?

We know each other, and we really get on with each other. He’s a good friend. He likes what I do. And if you’re working with a person who likes what you do, then they do the best job. I like Dave’s ideas, and he’s funny and he lives in Los Angeles, so I have to go there to record. Nothing wrong with that! The bottom line is: He’s fucking great at what he does. I don’t see myself not making another record with him. He makes me feel comfortable.

I co-produced it; I did a lot of the work in England myself. But you need somebody to come in halfway through and say what’s great and what’s not. Because to be quite honest, if I’m sitting here banging on the table with just a spoon and singing ”˜Everybody’s on the Run,’ I’d think that was great because it’s my song. Fuck, it’s amazing! You need someone else to take a step back and look at it.

You mentioned Los Angeles”¦

I love it! I fucking hated it when I first went. Couldn’t stand it. It was so quiet, there was nobody on the streets. It was like “ssshhhhh!” all the time. Don’t make a sound! I thought: Fuck, fuck off! As soon as I turned 35, I went: Ah! I get it! I like to be quiet now. I like to “sssssssshhhhh!” And I guess the older that I get, the more I agree with the lifestyle and the sunshine and the palm trees whereas in my twenties I much preferred New York. Now I spent three months in LA this year to finish this record, and I have to say, I could see myself living there at some point in my life. It’s just the weather. And people are so nice. And they love English people! Nothing is ever gonna replace the history that we have in Europe. The oldest building in America is like fucking 50 years old or something. We go back thousands of years. But all that aside – I could live there. Easy.

Did you also enjoy being away from London and the great expectations?

It’s funny. With the internet, you’re never really away from anywhere. You’re always connected to somewhere. Before the internet, you could go to America for three months and not see any newspapers. You would be relying on what somebody told you. Now it’s easy to find out what’s going on back home, so you’re never really away. But I didn’t miss the weather because the weather is fucking rubbish! But when I have to work, I have to work, and I’m not really sentimental about things. I don’t get homesick. In between tours or projects, I make sure I take enough time off to do whatever it is I got to do – whether it be babies, moving house, getting married. So when that comes to an end I am ready to go back to work.

But I guess it’s easier to move around in the US”¦

It’s different here because I can get around London, but in LA you need a car. And I can’t drive. So I’m pretty much standing on street corners going: Fuck, what now?

I was thinking about people recognising you.

Not really. They don’t even do it in London. When I leave here today, I am going to go down to the train station and take the tube. I’m gonna be on the tube for 15 minutes, I’m gonna go right across to the other side of London and not one person will recognise me.

Are you kidding? The tube?

Yeah. Do you want me to show you my ticket? I don’t drive, and it’s easy to get on public transport. The most that happens is that somebody will go, “Hmm”¦ that’s”¦ no, can’t be”¦” And if someone comes up and says, “Are you Noel Gallagher?” You just go, “No. No.” And they look at you and they think, “Is it?” And you just go, “No.” And they’ll walk off.

I couldn’t keep a straight face.

But you are not Noel Gallagher!

*****

He laughs loudly, and of course he is right. There is only one Noel Gallagher, and his reputation always precedes him. So his solo debut is not really a debut at all. It’s just a continuation of his songwriting with different means. It is the first album in years though with only Noel-penned songs on it. Some people have accused him of having kept his best ideas for himself for quite a while, but he is having none of that. “I wasn’t planning any of this. I always tried to make Oasis the best that it could be. But in Oasis, there was another three songwriters. If I had been let to write all the songs on the albums like I used to, then some of the songs of this would have been on the last two Oasis albums.” At least two, that is – ”˜Stop the Clocks’ and ”˜(I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine’. A band is a compromise, Noel states, and he was willing to make that compromise. Still, he always wrote more than the five songs he had on the last Oasis albums – he wrote about 30. “But you gotta understand that I was giving songs to somebody else to sing, so it was all about what he was able to do. And Liam quite frankly wouldn’t be able to sing ‘The Death of You and Me’. Or ‘If I Had a Gun’. Or ‘What a Life’. It’s that simple.”

Analysing his own music isn’t Noel Gallagher’s favourite pastime. He is happy that he managed to write such vastly different songs this time – from the New Orleans-inspired ”˜Death’ to the disco rock of ”˜What A Life’ and some psychedelic noise – but has no idea how that all happened. No conscious decisions have been made, that would be too boring. It just turned out that way. The one thing he knew was that he wanted a first single that is not your classic hit. “Everybody always comes back with a bang. Everybody always gets in your face with the first single. I thought to myself, ”˜No, I’m gonna come back and go: sssshhhh, listen to this! And when ,The Death Of You And Me’ comes on the radio, between fucking Foo Fighters rock and fucking Lady Gaga shit, people will stop and listen to it because it is quiet and soft and they’ll go: Wow, trumpets!’

*****

Along the way, Noel Gallagher has also recorded a second album, one with the electronic duo Amorphous Androgynous. It will be released in 2012. Noel is not willing to share the title yet but he explains the idea behind it. He had 38 songs when he started recording his solo debut. His theory was, “Put out two records now with lots of bonus tracks and B-sides and then the next record has to be brand new.” There will be nothing left, nothing to recycle. He has written a couple of songs since finishing High Flying Birds but is relieved that there are no more old songs lying around. “You can never really move on, you’re always somehow dipping into the past. It may be a kamikaze move because I may never write ten great songs again. But I thought, “Fuck it, I’ve had enough success in Oasis, I had all that shit.” And like I said, I’m not insecure. If I never make another record after this, I don’t care. But I don’t think so. I may not make another one as good as this, that’s for sure. Records like this, they don’t come along that often for me.”

And how is the Amorphous album going to sound? Like Noel Gallagher of course. He sings and plays on it but first he had to get used to the weird work ethic of Gaz Cobain, the mastermind behind Amorphous. An example: He took the vocals from Noel’s song ”˜Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks,’ disregarded everything else and made Noel start again from scratch. Now the track is eight minutes long instead of three and a half. “It’s not dance music, it’s not electronic. It’s just far out,” Noel says and admits that High Flying Birds is the more important album to him. He hates the term “comeback album” but it feels like one.

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When you write songs at home, don’t you get disturbed by your kids?

Oh yeah, all the time. I fucking have three kids! You can’t lock the doors – they would still find me. I’ve had studios in my house before, but I found them counter-productive. I found myself never doing anything, just beavering away. I like to snatch the odd moment here and there, just thinking, “Oh, ten minutes. I’ll just go and play the guitar, see if something pops out.” I instantly know if something is great. You can turn an okay song into a good song. Greatness is a 1000 percent inspiration. Either comes or it doesn’t.

How do you look back at Oasis at the moment?

Oasis is a very very proud time in my life. Something I’ll never achieve again. And I don’t look back at that in sadness. I was in one of the biggest bands ever. One of the best bands ever. It was great. I had a great time. There you go, such is life.

No regrets?

I wished after Knebworth we had taken a couple of years off. That’s it really.

When we met in 2008 I thought Oasis were past the point of breaking up.

[Laughs and sighs at the same time] So did I, I gotta say, so did I. I didn’t see my future elsewhere at all. I never thought for a fucking minute that I’d be sat here talking to you today about an album called Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. It wasn’t even a dream, it wasn’t even a thought. But what happened, happened. It was like, “Fuck it, I’m leaving.” It was just too much aggro for me. And there you go, it’s just one of those things.

At that moment in 2009, were you already thinking about what to do next?

I was sure that I was going to go on a plane and go home and go on holiday. I don’t mean to be factitious or sarcastic about it, but seriously, that was it. Every time I came to the end of an Oasis tour, there was never a plan to make another record anyway. If I could do it again”¦ Well, I sat in the car for five minutes and just went, “Oh, fuck him.” If I could turn the clock back now, I would have sat in the car for ten minutes, gone back and done the gig and the next gig, and then gone away. And in my head, after that we could have all done our own things and then”¦ In 2015, it’s the 20th anniversary of Morning Glory. In my own head, I’ve seen us coming back then with a new album, play the Morning Glory album in its entirety in stadiums all over the fucking world – it would have been the biggest thing ever. [Clears his throat] It’s not gonna happen now.

How confident do you feel as a singer these days?

I don’t see myself as a great singer. I’m not a great guitarist. I’m not a great anything. Seriously! But I’m good at a lot of different things. There’s half a dozen things I’m good at. When I join them all up, it makes something that’s really good. In the studio, I’m not thinking how I’m singing. I’m just singing the songs I’ve written. I don’t want to put myself in a league of these two people, but, do we say Bob Dylan is a great singer? No. Do we say Neil Young is a great singer? Sometimes. There you go then. I’m a songwriter singing my own songs, the end. I look at the whole picture. I was never in the studio going, “Ah, I’m gonna show these people.” I’m not like that as a person. I’m not that insecure because I don’t think I have anything to prove.

No thoughts of revenge then, as a lot of people think?

I understand that, it’s a great story. In every interview I’ve done it’s this versus Beady Eye. They are a rock & roll band. They’ve devoted themselves to rock & roll – if such a thing exists. And I am me. There is no competition. My songs are more important than that. More important than competition or revenge or chart positions or any of that shit. I will admit that sometimes, down the years, chart positions and all that was more important. That’s probably where my songwriting suffered a little bit because I was a bit too worried about it. Now I’m not worried.

You probably don’t have to be. You announced a few tour dates and they sold out in six minutes”¦

Yeah, but to be honest, they’re not big gigs – about 1500 people. I’ve had bigger parties! Seriously, I’ve fucking thrown bigger parties for more people, so let’s not get too excited just yet. I just hope people don’t come to see a show. Because there is no show. Not like Oasis. No flashing lights or a singer that stands very still. I hope against hope that the songs will be enough to carry the night through. And if not, then it will be a very short tour.

But that’s probably not your dream scenario.

The only thing I know what’s gonna happen is this: After about the 12th gig, I’m gonna be in my dressing room after a show, sweating, smoking a cigarette, and I’m either gonna be thinking, “I am better than Elvis. I think I am as good as Bob Dylan and Neil Young and Elvis, all rolled into one. I am fucking brilliant.” Or I’m gonna be going, “This is shit, I fucking hate it, can’t stand it, I wanna go home.” That’s what’s gonna happen. We’ll see.

Don’t you ever miss your brother? Not the singer, the sibling?

[Unusual long silence. Sits back and crosses his arms.] Not really. I’m a very private person. We’ll leave it at that. I have six friends in the entire world, and that’s it for me. That’s enough. And I’m thinking of getting rid of one… I don’t think about it. I’ve got family. I’ve got three kids and a wife. That’s enough for me.

Where do you see yourself in five years from now?

2016? Probably somehow still promoting the 20th anniversary of Morning Glory. Not with Oasis I might add. It’s a hard question to answer. Because if somebody asked me five years ago – and I’m sure somebody did ask me five years ago – I’m sure I didn’t say, “I’ll be starting again at 44. And I’ll just have gotten my first computer.”

Usually, you never seem to have trouble finding answers.

Sometimes that gets me into trouble. I still haven’t mastered the term “no comment”. I always have to say something. I don’t know why. Makes your job easier. I can instantly form an opinion, tell it to you and then be criticised for it in the British press. But that’s okay, I don’t mind. As a rockstar, or whatever the term is, you are kind of obliged to say something. Other than that just go away, we don’t need you. That’s why we love Morrissey or Paul Weller or John Lydon. They got something to say. Don’t just sit on a couch and be polite and boring. Be yourself.

asked me five years ago – and I’m sure somebody did ask me five years ago – I’m sure I didn’t say, “I’ll be starting again at 44. And I’ll just have gotten my first computer.”

Usually, you never seem to have trouble finding answers.

Sometimes that gets me into trouble. I still haven’t mastered the term “no comment”. I always have to say something. I don’t know why. Makes your job easier. I can instantly form an opinion, tell it to you and then be criticised for it in the British press. But that’s okay, I don’t mind. As a rockstar, or whatever the term is, you are kind of obliged to say something. Other than that just go away, we don’t need you. That’s why we love Morrissey or Paul Weller or John Lydon. They got something to say. Don’t just sit on a couch and be polite and boring. Be yourself.