Noel Gallagher On David Bowie

Please note that this interview was conducted in English first, then translated into Japanese for the December issue of 'Rockin' On' and has been translated back into English by mimmihopps. 

The interview took place before Noel went on tour with U2 earlier this year.

From all the songs in the new album, 'It’s A Beautiful World' is the song with the most David Bowie influence.

Holy Mountain is also influenced by 'Aladdin Sane' era’s Bowie.

Top secret! 'I still don’t know what I was waiting for' from 'Waiting For The Rapture' was 'borrowed' from 'Changes'.

He’s always been listening to David  Bowie since his childhood. His cassette tape he always took with him on the road (his roadie years and Oasis years), was filled with Led Zeppelin, Bowie and Slade.

The reason why Noel got into Bowie's music was Mick Ronson. Mick is his guitar hero next to Johnny Marr

Noel’s favourite Bowie album is Hunky Dory. His favourite Bowie era is Space Oditty to Ashes to Ashes. He doesn’t like Bowie’s Berlin era.

Heathen and Next Day are great albums. To Noel, Let’s Dance is the best album of Bowie’s entire career

Noel met Bowie a couple of times (at Brit Awards etc) and exchanged emails with him 4 or 5 times.

The first email he received from Bowie was something like “Thank you for your kind words about me. Keep making great music. I’ll always support you”. Then a couple of months later he passed away.

Thanks to Mimmihopps

Noel Gallagher: Oasis Would Never Have Formed If It Wasn't For Slade

Noel Gallagher has paid a remarkable tribute to Slade – insisting that without them Oasis would not have been formed.

Writing in Slade guitarist Dave Hill’s newly published autobiography, Gallagher said: “No Slade = No Oasis. It’s as devastating and as simple as that.”

“The Stone Roses? Yeah, they played their part. The Beatles? Well they were undeniably great... but Slade?

“I felt their songs could’ve been written at the end of my street... in a house just like mine.”

Listen To Noel Gallagher's New Playlist

Ease into February with Noel's latest playlist, featuring tracks from the likes of Toots & The Maytals, Leonard Cohen, Toydrum & Bowie...

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY
LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC

For the rest of you, here's the playlist track listing:

Sexbombe Uber Alles - James Clarke Five
Funky Kingston - Toots & The Maytals
Peace Trail - Neil Young
Can I Have It Like That - Pharrll & Gwen Stefani
Silver Timothy - Damien Jurado
Nightclubbing - Iggy Pop
Death Of A Ladies’ Man - Leonard Cohen
Lark On My Go-Kart - Asher Roth
Red Lady - Phil Cordell
The Silent Sun - Genesis
Cactus - David Bowie
Know One Will Ever Know - Gavin Lark & Toydrum
Come on Baby Hold My Hand - Marie Knight
Did You No Wrong - Sex Pistols
I Exhale - Underworld
Platoon.- Jungle
My Life Is Natural - Slade (not available on Spotify)

Source: www.noelgallagher.com

Bonehead On The Definitely Maybe Re-Release

It’s been two decades since Oasis forged the soundtrack to a generation with all-conquering debut Definitely Maybe.

The sound of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Slade and The Stone Roses rolled into one glorious masterpiece is being rereleased this week.

Noel and Liam Gallagher haven’t been overly excited by the reissue but one former member was well up for it.

Ex-Oasis guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs told me: “I was really excited when I heard it was going to happen.

“The masters arrived at my house and it was the first time in years that I’ve sat down and listened to it from start to finish.

“It really brought back tons of memories and feelings.”

Part of the album’s success was finding the right producers, says Paul, 48.

He said: “We struggled at first, and I think we had the wrong producer and the wrong studio and the wrong approach to recording.

“Then we went to Sawmills and Mark Coyle, our front-of-house engineer, properly understood how we worked and got us down as a live band. It sounded like us and we got it right.

“We captured a feeling and our sound.”

Bonehead has his favourite moments from the album.

He said: “I might not think of a song for a while and then I’ll hear Rock ’n’ Roll Star or something, but broadly it’s Slide Away.

“I think it’s the most passionate vocal Liam’s ever done.” Bonehead quit the band in 1999 but he has no regrets.

He said: “It wasn’t a decision I came to overnight, I thought about it for ages.”

But he has got lots of memorabilia to reflect on those days.

He laughed: “I’ve got the fire surround, the chair, the ornaments, ash trays, all sorts from the album cover.”

Source: www.dailystar.co.uk

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Oasis Were Confident Of Fame And Fortune

Britpop band Oasis were always going to make it big, says radio presenter Pete Mitchell in the run up to 'Definitely Maybe' being revamped for its 20th anniversary

One of the greatest British albums of all time ‘Definitely Maybe’, the debut by Oasis released in 1994, is to be reissued to mark its 20th anniversary on the 19th of May. A re-mastered version of the album will be released, which will include rare and unreleased recordings, all presented in a rather impressive deluxe box.

This album is a perfect generational rock record that retains the raw energetic attitude and sound of a band out of the north, who oozed total self-belief.

Oasis were going to make it big no matter what and nobody would have the courage or audacity to stop them.

I knew Noel and Liam in the early days, Noel was a quiet unassuming individual, who worked for the Inspiral Carpets, until he joined Liam's group the Rain. I remember him telling me he had joined the group and was writing and recording with them. When I asked if I could hear something he said “No, you will hear it, when I want you to hear it”.

His total self-belief even back then set him apart. Liam gave me a demo of the group and told me “it is the best thing you will hear this year”. The hyperbole fell short, if my memory serves me well, it sounded a little like U2. I lost one of the two studio copies they had paid for. Noel was working to pay for the studio time. They rehearsed at a venue called the Boardwalk and they played a number of early shows there to less than enthusiastic crowds. They were raw and unpolished, Liam back then lacked the swagger and grit of his future self, but these things needed to gestate.

I was the DJ at one of their small gigs at the venue when they were on the same bill as ‘That Uncertain Feeling’, a local band who were managed by writer and actor Craig Cash of ‘Royle Family’ fame. He had hired extra lighting to show off his band, but Oasis looked more the part swathed in blue and red and Craig's band disappeared.

I know time warps your memory and it’s like looking back through a prism, but they had that certain je ne sais quoi. They were far from the finished article and we both went away thinking about them. Craig would use ‘Half the World Away’ by Oasis, as the theme to the Royle Family, one of the most successful TV shows in decades.

Their rise came as no surprise but how quickly it happened caught most of us off guard. It seemed like no time had elapsed between those early gigs and their triumphant two nighter at their beloved Maine Road - the former ground of premier league winners Manchester City. I was stood with Slade frontman Noddy Holder as the group performed his song ‘C'mon Feel the Noize’, to an ecstatic stadium filled to the brim with grown men holding their plastic pint pots aloft, full of warm lager, arm in arm singing every word. They are one of the few bands who have this extraordinary connection with their audience. It is one love.

No matter what you think about this band, they connected with their football crowd audience like no other, it was undoubtedly rock for the terraces. These days the sibling rivalry and the shenanigans of Liam Gallagher occupy the front pages but if we could turn back the clocks to a time in British music when everything seemed possible, we probably would. There was an air of expectation and energy of positivity. The everyman could wrap his arms around his mate once again and kiss him on the cheek, while lovingly singing Wonderwall at the top of his voice. Just look at the comeback of the Stone Roses for instance and you can imagine the eventual return of Oasis. It will be like nothing you have witnessed before.

We all knew where we stood, who we listened to and what we were all about. Oasis were the band of the hard man, the working class kid, they were the group from the streets who knew their audience like no other. Oasis gave them a voice and a sense of belonging. They were more than music.

The rallying call has changed but the attitude has not as Liam Gallagher has called on fans to boycott the 20th anniversary reissue of one of the best albums of all time. He took to twitter stating “how can you re-master something that's already been mastered. Don't buy it. Let it be”. He has a point, it was a moment in time that will never be replicated and the album will go down in history as one of the defining records of the nineties.

Liam finished off his comical rant with “the Oasis years. They forgot to mention that Bonehead used to stick fig rolls up his arse. Ha ha X”.

Do we really need to know what went on behind closed doors? Of course we do!

The deluxe box set of Definitely Maybe is reissued on the 19th of May

Source: www.express.co.uk

Check out the current collection and offers from Pretty Green here.

Watch Noel Gallagher Feature In A Slade Documentary Later Today

It's Slade

Documentary, narrated by Radio One's Mark Radcliffe, about one of Britain's greatest and best-loved bands. Slade scored six number ones in the 70s, a feat rivalled only by Abba. Formed in Wolverhampton and led by Noddy Holder, Slade sold over 50 million records worldwide during a 20-year career which saw them re-invent themselves as skinhead yobs, then mirror-hatted platform-shoe-pioneering glam gods, before finally re-emerging as hard rock heroes. 

Their poorly-spelled, self-written selection of terrace anthems included Cum on Feel the Noize, Coz I Luv You, Take Me Bak Ome, Mama Weer All Crazee Now and, unforgettably, Merry Xmas Everybody. 

Apart from Noddy and his bandmates - Dave Hill, Jim Lea and Don Powell - the cast here also includes Noel Gallagher , Status Quo, Toyah Wilcox, Suzi Quatro and Ozzy Osbourne.SUB REP

Documentary

Tomorrow at 1:50am (24th December) on BBC Four (UK only)

Thanks to Michael