He's the voice of a generation – but don’t dare call Noel Gallagher a singer- songwriter.
As he heads for No 1 with his brilliant debut solo album, the Manc favourite is very much the reluctant frontman.
Noel is outselling X Factor winner Matt Cardle, 28, two to one in the midweek charts.
And while legions of fans still miss Oasis, the truth is that if Noel hadn’t had that particularly heated row with brother Liam in August 2009, we’d never have heard this collection of immense songs.
During our candid face-to-face chat, it soon becomes clear one thing hasn’t changed as Noel continues to make thinly-veiled digs about his former bandmate.
“If you’ve changed the world once, you can’t do it again, not in your 40s – f*** that,” admits Noel.
“I thought: ‘I’ll have to find a singer, but they’re all f***ing c***suckers.’
“So the only noble path was to go solo and I got around that by calling the act Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – but that’s mainly so when I see it written down it doesn’t freak me out. The High Flying Birds don’t actually exist, it’s just a name.
“I get referred to as a singer-songwriter, which is a dreaded term. I hate it. If anything I’m a songwriter-singer.
“Never mind singer-songwriter, that’s James Morrison or James Blunt – and makes me want to give up.”
In an age in which rap and pop rule the charts, Noel is keeping rock ’n roll alive.
A true icon, charismatic, smart and downright sharp as a pin, he’s written some of the best songs of all time and spouted some of the finest quotes to boot.
His solo record is his best work since Oasis’s triumphant What’s The Story, Morning Glory. And in another jibe at Liam, who fronts new band Beady Eye, Noel, 44, reckons it’s pointless to join a group who will never top Oasis.
He says: “When you’ve been in Oasis, there’s no point making another band.
Oasis took up so much of everyone’s time, I would have had to have put out a solo album in between Oasis records and tours. I don’t think my wife would’ve been too happy if, after a two-year world tour, I’d come home one weekend and said: ‘I’m back off, I’ll see you in a year.’
But there are some tunes which were earmarked for Oasis albums that Noel has kept for himself.
“The two songs that are from the Oasis years are a) really good, b) too good to be left and c) if I don’t put them out now, when am I going to release them? Next album? F*** it, let’s get them out.
“The rest of the songs are post-Oasis,” he added. “Although I was writing them while I was in Oasis they’d never been recorded or demoed or anything.”
While the siblings haven’t formally spoken since their barney in Paris, which saw Liam destroy one of Noel’s guitars, their bitter rows have continued through the press.
Noel accused Liam of bailing out on what would have been the band’s final UK gig – the Virgin Media V Festival in 2009 – because of a hangover.
His younger sibling smashed back and threatened legal action over the claim his laryngitis was a cover-up and wrote “S***BAG” on Twitter the day Noel announced his solo album.
Noel could have put his feet up and lived off royalties but he is refreshingly honest about why he chose not to – so he can line his own pockets now rather than allow his children to reap the rewards.
“What am I going to do, let my kids discover these demos in years to come and say: ‘Get this. We’re rich – the old fart didn’t put these out’?” says Noel.
“I have a duty to put the songs out. The more music that’s in the world the better.” And he freely admits that cash is the only reason his latest single AKA... What A Life is soundtracking the new Vauxhall advert.
“I don’t give a f*** about Vauxhall – it’s not for a free car because I don’t drive,” explains Noel.
“I was only ever thinking of the money.”
Despite the High Flying Birds’success, Noel warns fans to make the most of it.
“I’ll be soon enough retired,” he says.
“There’ll come a day when I don’t want to do it anymore.
“One day I’ll get up and think: ‘F*** this for a game of tennis – can’t be arsed.’”
Source: www.dailystar.co.uk
