December Australian press interviews
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=340420Long gone are the days of cocaine-fuelled drug binges for Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher.
But he's far from mellowed and is still quick to fire up with little provocation.
"I was fuelled on some of the finest cocaine known to man back in the early days so that would make me a little more edgy, shall we say," he said.
"But I am not like that any more.
"I haven't taken any proper big boys drugs for eight and a half years now.
"I am sticking to the ... I won't tell you what I stick to ... but no I haven't taken any proper hard drugs for years now."
Gallagher was in Australia this week, performing a number of acoustic shows with Oasis guitarist Gem Archer.
He's also been promoting the new Oasis album, Stop the Clocks.
Gallagher is quick to point out that it isn't a greatest hits offering - it's a best of.
"Your greatest hits are the hit singles that are most popular ... your best of is what is considered your best work," the Brit said.
"Thereby lies the difference."
The double CD features a selection of what Gallagher considers the band's best work, including such hits as Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, Don't Look Back in Anger and Morning Glory.
"It could easily have stretched to three CDs, but that doesn't really appeal to me, do you know what I mean?" Gallagher said.
"Three CDs is a bit much, seeing how the Beatles only had two on their best of. It would be taking the piss to have three I think."
Gallagher, 39, put the album together, with little help from brother, Liam, who is also in the band.
"I done all that," he said.
"I get to pick the songs, that is my right as the oldest living member of Oasis."
The Gallagher brothers, famed for their thick Manchester accents and bitter sibling rivalry, burst onto the British music scene more than a decade ago before going on to sell millions of albums worldwide.
Their volatile relationship, fights, drug problems, celebrity relationships - and their prodigious talent for producing catchy pop songs - have filled thousands of news pages around the world.
It seems the brothers are going through a rough patch at the moment.
"We are not on the best of terms," Gallagher said.
"I haven't seen him for a couple of months. I am not interested.
"I am generally not interested because he is generally not doing anything interesting."
They're not fighting though, he said.
"We aren't fighting at the minute ... but there could well be the next time I see him though."
Gallagher has never shied away from saying what he thinks.
He's not a fan of pop musicians, particularly Kylie Minogue, Madonna and Robbie Williams.
He hates the Australian soccer team, but he likes Melbourne rockers Jet.
His acerbic tongue has often gotten Gallagher into trouble, most famously in a 1995 interview when he expressed a wish for Blur's Damon Albarn and Alex James to "catch AIDS and die", a comment which he quickly publicly apologised for.
"I hate Kylie Minogue ... I hate Madonna ... I hate Robbie Williams," he said.
Gallagher doesn't care what is written about him in the press.
In fact, he finds it funny.
"I find that quite amusing," he said.
"It was written once in the newspaper that I was going out with Naomi Campbell. Have you seen Naomi Campbell? Have you seen me? It is preposterous.
"It is like one of the Seven Dwarfs going for it with Snow White - a ridiculous story."
Despite his frequent controversial outbursts, British music news website NME.com once labelled Gallagher the wisest man in rock.
"I have a lot of experience at these things - whether I am wise or not, I don't know," he said.
"It must mean my opinion counts for something I think - does it make me like Yoda then?
"Are you saying I am like a Jedi, cause I can live with that. I am right up for it, light sabres and karate moves, that is my bag mate."
Having completed their six-album deal with Sony Music, Gallagher is keen to take a break because for the first time since 1994, Oasis are without a recording contract.
"We only got back off the Don't Believe The Truth tour in March, that is only seven months ago," he said.
"I don't want to earn any more money just yet - I have got too much."
Brotherly feuds and record label contracts aside, Oasis have enough material to release another album in 2007.
"There is this project going on that will probably take us to spring next year," he said.
"We have got most of our next album already recorded, stuff that was left over from the last one - we could start mixing it tomorrow."
Stop the Clocks is out now.
-----
Online Link (The Age)
It was literally in a matter of days that Noel Gallagher went from being unable to pay for a round of pints at his local, to receiving a phone call informing him that a £1 million royalty cheque was to be deposited in his bank account.
"With hindsight, they were crazy times," he said in a room upstairs at the Forum Theatre this week where he was preparing for the first of two Melbourne shows. "You suddenly just waste a lot of money on shit, utter rubbish. God knows how much money I've blown on drugs, shit cars I can't drive, and daft houses I've never lived in.
"It takes you ages to get back on an even keel. I went mad with it for a good three and a bit years before I started to come around. You forget who you are."
Gallagher, now 39, is in town as part of a three-month world tour for Oasis' new best-of album, Stop the Clocks. The jaunt has been an outstanding success - tickets sold out in less than an hour.
On this tour, in which Gallagher is accompanied by Oasis guitarist Gem Archer, brother Liam Gallagher is a conspicuous absentee. On stage on Sunday, when a punter inquired of Liam's whereabouts, Noel was typically candid. "He couldn't be with us," he declared. "He was washing his hair . . . Actually, truth is, he couldn't be f---ed."
Offstage, he was a tad more decorous.
"Liam lives in Disneyland, y'know what I mean?" he said. "He's started to carry a man bag, which is very disturbing. Apart from that, he's the usual him. I kind of give him the wide berth. Liam doesn't do acoustic shows or interviews, anyway."
The best-of campaign has hardly lacked controversy. Two weeks ago, a widely reported tirade about troops in Iraq landed Gallagher in hot water with veterans' associations.
"I'm regularly grossly misquoted in the press," he said. "They made it sound like I was saying British soldiers deserved to get shot at. I was talking about soldiers in general in America, and I was just, like, 'If you don't like getting shot at, don't join the army.' "
Gallagher was also bemused by the storm that surrounded his sarcastic remark about the Socceroos.
"All things like that I've said very tongue-in-cheek," he said, with a grin. "But I'm yet to master the art of making my quotes look good in print. My point was, Australians are that good at cricket and rugby, why do you bother about football? Please leave football to the rest of us."
Last night, after a show at Vodafone Live at the Chapel, Gallagher also participated in a Q&A session at the Kino cinema for a screening of the band's new documentary film, Lord Don't Slow Me Down. He will also take in the Ashes Test in Perth.
Gallagher says that after spending more than two years recording and touring their last album Don't Believe the Truth, the band agreed to take a year off. They plan to reconvene in June. Gallagher has spent most of his time in his eight-bedroom mansion in Buckinghamshire. He also took his daughter to Sea World in Florida.
"I took my little daughter to see the killer whale," he said. "She was more underwhelmed than I was."
The band has experienced an odd history in Australia. Due to various internal calamities, the band never made it out here in their mid-1990s heyday. It was a tension-filled, bleary-eyed 1998 tour that introduced Australian fans to the band's live show.
"I wouldn't like to think I'm apologising to the Australian nation," Gallagher says, "but we let ourselves down on that tour. I was here for about a month and was out of it every day. We almost had to start from scratch when we came back again. We've only really had a career here for the last five years. I do like coming here, though."
Next year they will be honoured at the Brit Awards, the UK equivalent of the Grammys.
"We've been gently pushed into all this," he says. "Let's get this out of the way before I'm 40. I don't want to be like Pink Floyd going up there as an old fella. I might as well do it while I can still look good in a leather jacket."
-----
Online Line (News.com.au)
WANT to know the Ten Commandments of Rock? I can't reveal them to you unless you're a rock star. Oh, all right. Here are a few:
• Thou must wear shades at all times (especially indoors).
• Thou must own at least one black leather jacket.
• Thou must have a taste for the finest wines and the hardest drugs.
These were given to me by that learned older brother in rock, Oasis guitarist-songwriter-everything-man Noel Gallagher, 39.
It's what he tells young bands when they meet him for the first time, he says.
"What, when they come up shaking, going, 'You're, like, the coolest man in the history of all the world.' I just go, (adopts super-cool, calm, God-like voice) 'I know. Stop shaking. What can I do for you?' And they go, 'Please tell us how to be better rock stars!'
"And I say, 'Well, you have to follow the 10 commandments I've set out for myself'. And they go, 'Wow, you're like a Jedi!' And I say, 'Well, yes I am.' "
Australian Oasis fans will share space with the Cool One when he performs at Brisbane's Tivoli with Oasis rhythm guitarist Gem Archer this week.
After more than a decade leading one of Britain's biggest bands, Gallagher can indeed claim Jedi status. He has weathered the storms caused by his tempestuous younger brother, Liam, as well as various musical feuds and the ups and downs of a fickle industry. Somehow, he's managed to stay down-to-earth and funny. British music mag NME dubbed him "the wisest man in rock".
He's on the phone to promote Oasis's new (whisper it) "best of". But didn't Noel say he wasn't going to release one until the band split? What's the story? Oasis are jumping ship from record label SonyBMG. Sony decided to release a "best of" and the band had the choice to be involved or not. So Noel got involved.
He chose the 18 tracks on the collection, entitled Stop the Clocks, which begins with Rock 'n' Roll Star and ends with Don't Look Back in Anger. The other members didn't get a say.
"Well, they're all my songs! I can't have (bassist) Andy Bell telling me that Rocking Chair is better than f---ing Half a World Away."
What about Liam, the band's singer?
"F--- him. He's an idiot," he says, almost to order.
Liam recently turned 34. Noel didn't get him a gift. "We don't have that kind of a relationship. I'm not even interested in how old he is. 'Cos I know deep down he's still acting like a f---ing 14-year-old."
The highlight of his career, Noel says, has been meeting his own idols, such as Paul Weller, Neil Young, Morrissey and Johnny Marr. In his 15 years in the band he's learned "nothing and everything".
"When you start off, it's all magic. To be in a band and 'in the music scene, man', it's all magic. I guess you learn cynicism as you go along. You learn a lot of things that you thought were true, they're not true at all."
So what's a day in the life of a Jedi-cum-rock star like?
"I haven't got like a fireman's pole running down through my house; I don't descend from the heavens into my kitchen in a catsuit and eat breakfast and then go maraud around London and act like a rock star. Underneath it all, we're kind of all the same. I get up in the morning. I eat breakfast. I watch the news. I smoke some cigarettes. I have some tea and the phone will start ringing in the office and they'll tell me what I've got to do today, and if I don't have to do anything, I just go and annoy my girlfriend."
I tell him that Oasis have been nominated for the British Q Magazine Award for Best Act in the World Today. He says: "Well, what can I say? We've won that award quite a few times, so the novelty has worn off."
There will be more Oasis albums. But he's in no rush. He has slowed down, but his ego is as big as ever.
"It was pretty f---ing big to start with, I've got to say. And I have mellowed a great deal and it's still huge."
Would you expect anything less from the Best Band in the World Today? You might like to know that Oasis did win the award.
Noel Gallagher plays the Tivoli, Fortitude Valley, on Tuesday. Stop the Clocks is out now.
-----
Online Link (Sydney Morning Herald)
When Noel Gallagher was growing up, rock stars didn't come from Manchester. At least not until a band called the Stone Roses emerged in the 1980s.
"I'd always been interested in music, but the idea of what Oasis eventually became came from seeing the Stone Roses live," Gallagher says. "Rock stars then looked different to us. We were normal lads who went to the football, took drugs and hung out on the street. When the Stone Roses came along, they looked like us and made the goal seem nearer."
Oasis, with Noel and brother Liam out front, would become the biggest-selling band in Britain. Twelve years on from their debut, Definitely Maybe, the band are in hiatus. A two-disc best-of, Stop the Clocks, is released this week and Noel Gallagher holds court in his Buckinghamshire home.
After several patchy releases, the band was reinvigorated last year by strong sales and reviews of their sixth studio album, Don't Believe the Truth. A well-received world tour followed.
Sadly, neither success has served to mend fragile relations between band members. Noel says that with the exception of rhythm guitarist Gem Archer, he has not spoken to any of his bandmates, including brother Liam, since March.
"The minute of the last gig of the tour ends that's me f---ing gone," he says, cheerfully. "I don't speak to any of those geezers. It keeps it interesting for me. I wouldn't want to come back off the road and then go straight back into the studio."
From the band's infancy, the tension between Noel and frontman Liam saw them develop into something of a caricature. There were fearful public shouting matches, fist fights, bust-ups and walk-outs. Noel, 39, who was raised with Liam and elder brother Paul by his mother after their father walked out, is philosophical about their relationship.
"A lot of the negative stuff in this band has been very unnecessary and a lot of it caused by Liam," he says, matter of factly. "He's a very antagonistic young chap."
It was during his mid-1990s songwriting purple patch that he conceived Definitely Maybe and (What's the Story) Morning Glory - 27 million copies sold worldwide - and some of the best B-sides recorded in the past 15 years such as Talk Tonight, Acquiesce and The Masterplan.
Gallagher places Talk Tonight among his favorite vocal performances. It was written on Oasis' first American tour in 1994 after a "massive row" with Liam in LA.
"I took all the tour money and a big bag of drugs and went to stay with a young lady friend of mine," he recalls. "I wrote it about brief experiences of running around America for a week. At least something positive came out of it: a great f---ing song."
In spite of the band's inner turmoil, Gallagher still fondly recalls Oasis' early days, so vividly captured in the artwork for Definitely Maybe. The cover was shot in former guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs' front room and captures the band as they were, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and playing guitar.
"The only thing manufactured about that was the drummer was there," Gallagher says. "I'd always be around at Bonehead's house playing guitar. They were f---ing great days. I'd love to relive them, but they really can't be relived."
The mid-1990s saw an embarrassment of musical riches concluded by the release of 1998's cocaine-plastered Be Here Now.
Mercilessly panned on its release, Gallagher considers the album's main flaw was that it wasn't Morning Glory. "But I'd ran out of gas. In hindsight it could have been better, but it's an expression of its time."
Live Forever, a recent documentary featuring the Gallagher brothers at their amusing best, focused on the rise of Oasis and Britpop in general. Gallagher says that those involved (including his former nemesis, Blur leader Damon Albarn) are portrayed "as we are".
"Damon come across how I know him, as a confused individual," he says. "He always wanted to be the man, the voice of that generation, but what he failed to understand is that that's a mantle you can't take yourself, it's given to you."
On Oasis' last Australian tour just under 12 months ago, Noel noted the band had arrived at the end of their contract with Sony, and were not going to re-sign with them. He also suggested his own life had taken a re-signing.
These days Noel uses the services of a personal trainer and the hedonistic lifestyle of the 1990s is a distant memory. So, we have to ask, what's the better high, drugs or stepping out on a stage?
"I'd say being on stage, that's just incredible. Drugs are a very personal and selfish thing; stepping out on stage is a very communal thing that involves you and thousands of people. I'm more about others now," he says, with a knowing chuckle. "I'm not that selfish any more."
"I took all the tour money and a big bag of drugs and went to stay with a young lady friend of mine," he recalls. "I wrote it about brief experiences of running around America for a week. At least something positive came out of it: a great f---ing song."
In spite of the band's inner turmoil, Gallagher still fondly recalls Oasis' early days, so vividly captured in the artwork for Definitely Maybe. The cover was shot in former guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs' front room and captures the band as they were, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and playing guitar.
"The only thing manufactured about that was the drummer was there," Gallagher says. "I'd always be around at Bonehead's house playing guitar. They were f---ing great days. I'd love to relive them, but they really can't be relived."
The mid-1990s saw an embarrassment of musical riches concluded by the release of 1998's cocaine-plastered Be Here Now.
Mercilessly panned on its release, Gallagher considers the album's main flaw was that it wasn't Morning Glory. "But I'd ran out of gas. In hindsight it could have been better, but it's an expression of its time."
Live Forever, a recent documentary featuring the Gallagher brothers at their amusing best, focused on the rise of Oasis and Britpop in general. Gallagher says that those involved (including his former nemesis, Blur leader Damon Albarn) are portrayed "as we are".
"Damon come across how I know him, as a confused individual," he says. "He always wanted to be the man, the voice of that generation, but what he failed to understand is that that's a mantle you can't take yourself, it's given to you."
On Oasis' last Australian tour just under 12 months ago, Noel noted the band had arrived at the end of their contract with Sony, and were not going to re-sign with them. He also suggested his own life had taken a re-signing.
These days Noel uses the services of a personal trainer and the hedonistic lifestyle of the 1990s is a distant memory. So, we have to ask, what's the better high, drugs or stepping out on a stage?
"I'd say being on stage, that's just incredible. Drugs are a very personal and selfish thing; stepping out on stage is a very communal thing that involves you and thousands of people. I'm more about others now," he says, with a knowing chuckle. "I'm not that selfish any more."
posted by Mr. Monobrow @ 2:10 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home