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Noel Gallagher: David Bowie Is In The Same League As John Lennon












There was a time when Noel Gallagher walked the earth with the imperious swagger of a rock ’n’ roll demigod. His band, Oasis, was in the process of selling 70 million records and earning roughly twice that many headlines in the United Kingdom alone.

Gallagher and his younger brother, Liam, were the faces of the band, and to describe them as “quotable” is inadequate beyond all measure. Everything they said, every backstage brawl they had and every single they released caused earthquakes.

This was in the latter half of the 1990s, when copies of 1994’s “Definitely Maybe” and 1995’s “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” were flying off the shelves — yes, there were still shelves — at a dizzying rate. The band continued for five more albums and dozens more fistfights before Noel had enough and left the band in 2009.

The headlines, however, have never stopped, and most of them are about a reunion.

“They live in hope, and good for them,” Gallagher said. “I get asked it every day and it’s written about virtually every week in Britain, but it’s not gonna happen. The three reasons bands re-form are for money, unfinished business and to get the rightful acclaim that they thought was theirs in the first place. But we had all that.”

Rest assured that Gallagher remains as quotable as ever. While chatting about his strong new album, “Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds,” and a tour with Snow Patrol that stops at the Louisville Palace Sunday night, he was charming, very funny, spectacularly profane and said “D’you know what I mean?” roughly 140 times in 22 minutes.

In America, Gallagher vacillates between headliner and opening act, while in Europe he performs in stadiums. He seems happy with life as a solo artist, and his band’s first tour has done well enough that it was extended from six months to 12, while the album has spawned a pair of Top 20 singles in the UK, including the excellent “If I Had a Gun ... .”

A few things have changed. He quit smoking, has cut back quite a bit on drinking and even goes to bed early, all due to the responsibilities he now has with his name above the title.

“I used to kind of shuffle onstage with Oasis and nobody really took much ------ notice of me, but now you’ve got to be on it, from first song to the last,” he said. “The way I used to be with Oasis, staying up until 5 o’clock in the morning debating whether David Bowie was in the same league as John Lennon, I can’t do that anymore. Got to go to bed.

“And for the record, David Bowie is in the same league as John Lennon. ... Song for song, they’re pretty equal until you realize that Bowie has got one green eye and one red eye. What the ----? ----- hell! He might be better than Lennon. He’s got two different-coloured eyes! Unbelievable.”

Gallagher didn’t rush into a solo career, working on his album for nearly two years (he actually recorded two albums, although he said that he’ll re-record the second before releasing it). The result is less a collection of singles and more of what he calls “a proper album,” with a unified story. It’s a result, he said, of writing songs that he would sing instead of Liam.

“With a song like ‘If I had A Gun ... ,’ for instance, I know who that song is about, so I as the writer am able to deliver that song in the correct way because I ------ wrote it about something that’s real to me,” he said. “If someone else is writing words for you, how can you possibly have any connection to that, d’you know what I mean?

“The happy accident is that whatever I was writing about that was going on around me, people have taken it and they see it as about them, d’you know what I mean, and that’s ------ mind-blowin’. It’s just ------ magic, that’s what it is. I am as in awe of that as you are, trust me.”

Gallagher’s show Sunday — his first time in Kentucky — comes near the end of his year-long tour. Soccer will be getting serious soon in Britain and Gallagher is eager to watch Manchester City, his home team. He’ll miss America, though.

“One of the great things about touring America, and this is a fact, is that you get to do concerts in America where people are there to listen to the music,” he said. “In England, it’s a bit more about fashion and who you’re sleeping with and what shoes you’re wearing.

“In America, people aren’t interested in what shoes you’re wearing. They want you to play the ------ songs and be good. Don’t look good, be good. Look good if you can, y’know, but actually be good. And fortunately for me, I’m pretty ------ good.”

Source: www.courier-journal.com

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