Record Collector: Did you find it difficult to write during lockdown?
Noel Gallagher: "No. I wrote more songs in that first three month period than I would have done otherwise because I've always got songs in various stages of completion. I found it easy to write. And then there was this box in the cupboard under the stairs with all these blank CD's in. I went right, today I'm going to fucking take that... I'm putting on these CDs and I found a load of old Oasis stuff, like songs I'd never recorded but I'd demoed. I'm going, no fucking way!".
Record Collector: What a find!
Noel Gallagher: "There's a great version of Eleanor Rigby, a punk version of Eleanor Rigby, and an amazing version of (1969 George Harrison Beatles track) 'It's All To Much' we did on the day George died. We went to the studio and did it as a tribute, and Johnny Marr's on it. There are two drummers: I was playing with Alan White and Johnny is on Guitar. It's fucking amazing. I'd forgotten all about it. It was just the backing track; Liam hadn't got round to doing the vocals. So I found all this music, which was gonna come out. You know that Don't Stop demo that we put up. We had planned to do an Oasis 'best of the 2000s' because it's a period of Oasis that the masses are not interested in but for the actual fans there's some great tunes. With Don't Stop it was like, well, people are fucking floundering, put this out, the fans will love it".
Record Collector: Oasis fans would probably love the idea of a box full of more unreleased songs...
Noel Gallagher: "Well we did this best-of and the bonus disc was gonna be all these unreleased songs/ But - ha! Unfortunately we couldn't agree on something and it got dropped by the wayside. Because it was all set up and everyone was gearing up to release it, I was like, well hang on a minute, it's 10 years since I went solo, why don't we just do a best-of".
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Responding to Liam's claims last year that he'd turned down £100m for a comeback tour...
He said "Why do you say "it's not necessarily untrue" - because it is untrue. There isn't £100m in the music business between all of us. If anybody wants to offer me £100m now, I'll say it now, I'll do it. I'll do it for £100m. Ludicrous. What is funny though is that I think Liam actually believes it, which is the funny thing."
He added "It was all wrapped up in youth and camaraderie and all that. Once that has gone you cannot put that genie back in the bottle. It would just be for showbiz and for a mere paltry £100m"
He also discussed that he thinks it's a shame there's not a new band like Oasis for younger music fans to support...
He said: "I find it a bit sad that there's a whole generation of kids, working class kids, who have got nothing of their own to buy into and they're projecting all that onto a couple of 50-year-old fellas. Where's the new Oasis? Where's that? The thing about bands is, they're hard work. It's hard work to do, what we did is hard work. It's graft. You've got to graft it out. Now it's easy to buy a laptop and make it in your bedroom."
On the Oasis Knebworth documentary...
He said "It's actually quite emotional watching it. That amount of people, pre-internet with no phones, nothing, the fans in the moment with the band. I can see what all the fuss was about now. You're so close to it [at the time]. I [couldn't] perceive it like other people. But yesterday listening to it - Liam was at his absolute peak and the band was. I was like watching it thinking we were amazing, we really were. It's something I don't think of on a day-to-day basis. When I was watching it yesterday I was like, it really is amazing.
On record labels...
He said "Record labels trot out this thing about that they're desperately looking for the 'real deal'. If we were to come along now with our band, the record company would split me and Liam from the band. They'd say, "Bald fella, don't need him, don't need the other three" and they'd build it around that and because of the way the music business is, you'd be grateful for them. Back when we started, the record companies used to work for us. Now the artist works for the record company."
On his 'Back The Way We Came Vol 1. (2011 - 2021)' album...
He said "In lockdown scrabbling around for things to do. 10 years since I went solo. I thought let's do a best of for the first 10 years. I've been married 10 years this year. 10 years going solo, it's a significant milestone.'
He added I'd had songs that I'd never quite finished off. They came out great. I didn't want to do it if I didn't have new music on it.'"
On the collaboration with Dizee Rascal...
"We did a tune, yeah. I have no idea [what happened to it]. He got in touch during lockdown, and said, 'Shall we do something?' Sent me a beat and I sent something back… I sent it to him and he loved it and I haven't heard from him since… it was great. It is a great tune. I think what he was rapping about was lockdown. So it wouldn't be that interesting now. It was right in the middle of the first deep one. I think the moment might have passed now.'
On paying his band and crew during lockdown...
He said "We had some festivals lined up for the summer [in 2020]. All got blown out. I got messages off all my crew – 30 of them - saying, 'Thanks, that's a great gesture'. I called my manager, he said, 'What we've done is we've paid them all for summer gigs'. Who is we? We? We haven't paid anybody, I've paid them.'
He joked: 'I just said to them, 'I will claw that back, bit by bit over the next 10 years.' It was nice to do that for them. You're nothing without the crew.'
It was recorded at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London and will feature interviews and ten songs from his career.
The new copy of MOJO that features an interview with Noel Gallagher is out now in stores and available digitally here below is an extract from it.
MOJO: What's the first song you wrote that you thought was any good?
Noel Gallagher: "Before I left home I met this guy Pete through an ad in the Manchester Evening News. He had a little 4-track and we wrote these songs together. I remember playing the demo tape to people and the overriding reaction was a look of of surprise "Fucking, hell, is this what you do?"
MOJO: And the first song you thought was generally great?
Noel Gallagher: "Live Forever. I wrote it on John Squire's Gretsch Country Gent because one of the roadies lived at Mark Coyle's house and it ended up at my house. When I played it at the next rehearsal Bonehead said, "You've not just written that fucking song. That's from somewhere else." I'd listened to enough music to know that was a classic. It was Mark Coyle that came up with the drumbeat because when he was checking the drums on the last (Inspiral Carpets) tour I would play these chords. It's funny how a song changes everything".
The never knowingly under-loquacious Mr G tells of his lockdown hell, questions Paul Weller’s sanity, frankly critiques the latter days of Oasis and reveals a hitherto hidden passion for electronic dance music.
On sale now in stores and from recordcollectormag.com
MOJO: Did you always know if a song would be sung by you or by Liam? Could any of them have gone the other way.
Noel Gallagher: "No. The only time I laid down the law was Wonderwall and Don't Look Back In Anger. I was so fucked off with him walking off stage and me having to take over and do the gig. I remember thinking, If I'm going to keep doing this, I want a big fucking song to sing. I said, "You're singing one or the other but not both." He hated Wonderwall. He said it was trip-hop There speaks a man who's never heard trip-hop. He wanted to sing Don't Look Back In Anger but it came apparent during the recording that Wonderwall was going to be the tune. If I'm being honest I shouldn't have sung either of them because I wasn't really a singer then".
MOJO: So you don't like the recording of Don't Look Back In Anger?
Noel Gallagher: I don't like any of the recordings on (What's The Story) Morning Glory? It's the only album we never did demos for. I was writing on tour and I'd planned on finishing the songs when I got to the studio and we never got around to it. Cast No Shadow is half-written. Wonderwall. Morning Glory.
MOJO: Last year Wonderwall became the first song from the 1990s to exceed one billion streams. Any theory as to why it's become The One?
Noel Gallagher: I have no idea. It beggars belief. Wonderwall is one of my least favourite songs because it's not finished. If I could somehow twist time and go back there, I'd pick a different song for our calling card. Probably Some Might Say.
