For Tamsin Mitchell and Miriam Randall
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter 1: HIGH FLYING BIRD
Chapter 2: BURNAGE, MANCHESTER
Chapter 3: AFTER THE RAIN
Chapter 4: UP IN THE SKY
Chapter 5: ROUND ARE WAY
Chapter 6: THIS IS HISTORY
Chapter 7: AROUND THE WORLD
Chapter 8: THE MASTER PLAN
Chapter 9: TO BE FREE
Chapter 10: FORCE OF NATURE
Chapter 11: OUT OF TIME
Discography
Plates
Copyright
I wasn’t entirely sure what I would find when I approached a subject like Noel Gallagher. As a star who has been in the public eye for so long he seems to have always been with us. Would there be much more to do than just point at Oasis – look at that? What first interested me was his solo album. It sounded very much as if it had come fully formed from nowhere. A lush, symphonic work, it seemed not only passionate and achingly mature but also to owe very little to Oasis – or at least those early albums which remain what most people know best about them. It was just a guess, but maybe there was another way of approaching the familiar story of this most familiar of bands.
Fortunately, Noel Gallagher turned out to be fascinating – all I found out about him suggested he was not just charismatic, but surprisingly enigmatic, warm and engagingly contradictory. So thanks are due to him for providing the character to follow here. What I’ve made of the material I’ve found is, of course, entirely my responsibility, though to me the Noel Gallagher story was more nuanced than it’s been told in the past. In some ways, though probably more seasoned Oasis-watchers might discount this, his life has been one of someone who, despite all his enormous success, has spent many years finding his own voice. For all his confidence and talent that found expression in Oasis, it was Noel Gallagher’s High Birds that marked him out as having developed into a multi-layered and quietly commanding artist rather than the musical carpet-bomber of the 1990s. This was someone who saw the effects of a hedonistic, rock’n’roll lifestyle and turned away from it. Although not, it has to be said, immediately. This was also someone who left the band he’d spent almost two decades building up and almost immediately began work on not one but two albums simultaneously, one solo and one experimental collaboration. It was an awe-inspiring work ethic he’s done well to hide behind the ‘fuck it, that’ll do’ persona the press find so entertaining.
Thanks to John Blake for seeing some merit in the idea of tracing the story from Gallagher’s own point of view. Thanks also to Rosie Virgo at Blake, a great friend. Writing this has deprived us of at least one good lunch and that’s something to be addressed as soon as this is finished. And I have to say it’s always good to work with Blake’s Joanna Kennedy too – dzięki.
Allie Collins has been a fantastic editor and extremely relaxed about making this book happen on time. She does support United rather than City – but let’s just not tell. It goes without saying that any errors and omissions here are my own and I’ll endeavour to correct them for any future editions. It’s been much harder to get this right than it seemed it would be when I first thought of it.
Stephen Fall provided encouragement and perspective which was extraordinarily helpful and has a seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of great music. And a very useful library which he kindly shared. Chas Newkey-Burden was also incredibly knowledgeable and provided an inspirational start point for much of this book to flow from. He also carried out additional research and writing without which completing this project would have got very difficult indeed.
Over the years a great deal has been written and said about Oasis. Among the best and most detailed online resources are oasis-recordinginfo.co.uk for the first three albums and oasisinterviews.blogspot.co.uk, a hub of collected interviews from way back. In addition, revisiting 1990s’ journalism in the NME, Q, Mojo and the late Select gave a sense of the breathless urgency of the times.
The many books providing a perspective on Noel Gallagher include Paul Gallagher’s Brothers (Virgin, 1996), an account of the early family years by the other brother, co-authored with Terry Christian off The Word. The most comprehensive accounts of the era are not just authoritative and exhaustive but also compulsively readable for anyone with even a passing interest in pop. On the scene that defined music in the 1990s, The Last Party: Brit Pop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock, John Harris (4th Estate, 2003) and on what happened at its heart in Creation, My Magpie Eyes are Hungry for the Prize, David Cavanagh (Virgin, 2000). For a hair-raising insight into the band on the road at their commercial peak, there is the considerably shorter but no less gripping diary account of the Be Here Now tour, Forever the People, Paulo Hewitt (Boxtree, 1999). Other useful works included Going Deaf for a Living, Steve Lamacq (BBC Books, 2000) and Was There Then, Jill Furmanovsky (Ebury, 1997).
Most of all I would like to thank Tamsin Mitchell for her support and cheer as the summer got swallowed up by this project. I wouldn’t have been able to complete this without your belief in me and I can hardly find the words to express my love. And also Miriam Randall for being endlessly delightful – by the time you’re old enough to read this, people will still be listening to Noel Gallagher’s music. And even as late as 1997 who, apart from him, would have been sure about that?
Lucian Randall, November 2012
twitter.com/lucianrandall
‘THE LAST POSTCARD FROM THE OASIS YEARS…’
NOEL GALLAGHER ON ‘STOP THE CLOCKS’
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds faced an unusual situation when they played on 23 October 2011. Not so much that the gig had come just weeks after Gallagher’s debut album had been released and they had to introduce the audience to the new material. But that this was the first time that Noel Gallagher was appearing with his new band since he left Oasis in 2009. This wasn’t one of his charity appearances or a guest slot or an acoustic sideline. This was Noel Gallagher fronting his own band.
On one level, of course, there was nothing for him to prove. He was the acknowledged mastermind behind the Oasis masterplan. Over the years he had written not just their hits but the vast bulk of their songs. It had been his vision guiding the band from the moment he had joined them. He had shown he could perform alone many times with the solo sections that had become a regular highlight of Oasis shows. He was relaxed and confident without backup in front of the gigantic crowds the band attracted. When he and brother Liam had one of their almost regular fallouts he might be called upon to take over vocal duties even on the biggest hits. And he had built most of their back catalogue, certainly the ones that everyone remembered, from