Over the phone from his London office, Noel Gallagher looks back at the Standing on the Shoulder of Giants year, which many consider the lowest point in Oasis's history. "During that tour Liam was always drunk and just a pain to be with, so I just walked off," he says. "But after a while it was like, 'Well, what the fuck else can I do?' Being in a band is all I know how to do," he adds. Staying home and eating chocolates all day was an option. "Let me tell you I can do that but it gets boring after a while. And at the end of the day, I love being in a band with Liam," he admits.
The approach to making their fifth studio album turned out to be business as usual for the brothers, drummer Alan White, and newer members, guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell. Furthermore, Noel says that they were never under any pressure to deliver, say, another Morning Glory because as he puts it, "We exist by our own rules." The attitude of the band is always the same: "We do what we do and if you like it, great. We never set out with a bunch of ground rules, like, 'We've got to take a new direction,' or 'The songs have to be like this or like that.' That sort of limits you in the studio," he says. "The only thing we decided was that we were gonna produce it ourselves. And that's not very exciting 'cause people want to hear you say something else," he admits. "But, you know, I read the reviews sometimes where the lead singer says they've taken this amazing new direction and blahdy blahdy fucking blah. Or, 'We feel like we invented a new genre of rock music.' And then you listen to the album and it's like, 'What fucking drugs are you on? It sounds exactly like the other four.' So I think people will draw their own conclusions about it," he says. Noel Gallagher is not keen on contemplating his own album but, if push comes to shove, he will say this much about it: "I hate analyzing it but I think it sounds a lot warmer and a lot more natural. It flows out of the speakers. God, that sounds so pretentious. It is what it is."
After the lukewarm reception of the last two albums, Heathen Chemistry finds Oasis back in top form with Noel providing his quintessential guitar hooks all around and Liam closely mastering Lennon's solo-year vocal stylings. But the biggest surprise is not the younger brother's top-notch singing but his songwriting! The fact that he delivered three brilliant songs for the new album is baffling. This is, after all, the same man who wrote the mediocre (to put it gently) "Little James."
"I knew it wasn't good," Noel says of his brother's first attempt at songwriting, yet he still chose to include it on Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. "Honestly, since he had the guts to say he had this tune and played it for me, if I had said, 'That's appalling,' he might have gone back into his shell and never wrote these three songs. It's all about encouragement, really. I see myself as a musical Yoda," says the massive Star Wars fan. One listen to "Songbird" and all is forgiven. Liam does it again on the brooding rock number, "Born on a Different Cloud," before closing out the album with the psychedelic "Better Man." They're so good, in fact, that one wonders how much of a hand Noel had in writing them. "I'll help with people's music but I'm not gonna write anything for anybody, fuck that. Fucking write your own tunes, mate," he says.
Indeed for the first time almost every Oasis member contributed new songs. "I feel like everyone is gonna say that I relinquished the power. Or that the band came banging on the door of songwriting and said, 'We wish to be heard.' But the fact of the matter is that it was a very natural thing. The band before existed in a state of semi-drunkenness and nobody else was prepared to contribute anything to the making of the record except me. That's just the way it was," Noel explains. This time around he decided to ask if anyone else had any ideas. It turned out that everyone did. "So it was like, 'Alright, let's fucking hear them then.' And it just came out of that. Gem and Andy were songwriters in previous bands so I knew that they could write," he adds.
With a brilliant new album out and a world tour under way, Oasis could once again go for the "Biggest Band in the World" title. So how does it feel to tour again? "I never used to get nervous when I was a young boy. I'm 35 now. My body is starting to catch up with my mind, which has been quite mature for a long time. But it's not nerves. It's excitement and anticipation and you just want to get on and start playing. And within about ten or fifteen minutes you know whether you're gonna have a good show or not," he claims. Fans all over the world would concur. But what does he do if he feels it will be a bad show? "Really suffer for about the next hour and a half," he laughs.
For the last few years some fans did suffer, and many a cynic thought Oasis should have thrown it all away. But how quickly the tune can change; some might say that they'll be around, touring and recording, well into their forties. "I just take it as it comes. I get asked this question, 'How long do you think this is gonna go on?' The answer is always the same. At the moment I feel like going on tour so it will last another eighteen months. Ask me again at the end of that. And if I feel like making another record then, damn you, I'll make one." And that's good enough for fans who are willing to put their lives in Oasis's hands.
