Inside The Mind Of Noel Gallagher‎

Quite aside from 'Wonderwall' and all the songs he wrote for Oasis, Noel Gallagher is surely one of the most gifted ranters of his generation. Middle age, marriage, fatherhood and a successful solo career may have mellowed him, but still, when the 44-year-old songwriter is in full flow, it's the vituperative equivalent of the guitar solo from 'Live Forever'.

'Margaret Thatcher?' he spits, face creasing, eyebrows arching. 'I don't know what they're glorifying in that film. I f***ing hated her. We should celebrate when she dies. Serious. We're already talking between a few of my friends of doing a "Thatcher is Dead" gig.'

He won't reveal who else might be involved but does say they are 'prominent' musicians. 'She ruled the country with an iron fist. She started that thing that's been prevalent since, where politicians really only give a s*** about London. People say the Queen brings so much business to this country. No, no, no, she brings business to this city. How does the Queen benefit the people of Manchester, or Newcastle, or Leeds?'

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up. A recent interview in the Mail on Sunday painted Gallagher as a 'True Blue Conservative', after he said he preferred the music in Thatcher's day. Warming to his theme, he turns to the subject of David Cameron ('Let's be honest, he's just making it up as he goes along'), Nick Clegg ('No one gives a f*** what he thinks'), and Ed Miliband ('Nor him'). Oh, and modern music: 'I can't buy into bands nowadays, cos they're f***ing idiots. I read interviews and none of them have got anything to say. You're required to have a f***ing opinion.'

Gallagher takes this requirement very seriously, even if his opinions do usually end up a) contradicting each other and b) getting him into trouble. But looking lean, energetic, and unfussily dressed in a Paul Smith striped blazer, he seems happy. He may not like doing photo shoots - 'I'll never understand why 167 images have to be taken of one scowling middle-aged man' - but he has made the transition to solo artist gracefully since Oasis split in 2009.

His debut album, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, has done far better than anyone expected, going straight to number one late last year and hanging around the top ten for months after its release. It finds him branching out in ways many former Oasis fans gave up hoping he ever would: moving suspiciously close to disco on the single 'AKA… What a Life'; lobbing in a trombone solo on 'Dream On'. His tour has already been upgraded from theatres to arenas. 'If I'd have sat down on the first day of recording and wrote a script of how I'd have liked it to go… it's gone better than that,' he says.

His second album, likely to be released next year, is a collaboration with the psychedelic
duo Amorphous Androgynous. He is clearly revelling in his freedom. 'Oasis was a big cruise liner and now I'm like a Sunseeker speedboat. When you're out in LA, someone asks you to write a song for a film, and you can just do it,' he says. He can work at his own pace - fast - now. He can also put a trumpet solo on a song without first having to counsel his brother Liam.

Speaking of Liam... he eventually dropped his lawsuit against Noel on their mother Peggy's advice, and they're talking again, though Oasis, unlike Pulp, Blur and The Stone Roses, won't be re-forming any time soon. 'I'm tired of talking about it. That band isn't together any more. That's it. I've nothing more to say on the subject of a hypothetical reunion. 2015? Is that what we're talking about? I might have cancer! F*** off.' What does Noel think of Liam's new band? 'Beady Eye? I like them.'

Noel is in a good place. He married his long-term partner, Sara MacDonald, 39, a publicist, last year (they have two sons, Donovan, four, and Sonny, 16 months) and is fairly domestic these days in his new Maida Vale home. 'We've been together for 11 years. I just got to the point where I'd introduced Sara as my girlfriend one time too many. I was like, "I sound like Rod Stewart. We should all have the same surname in our house." ' His daughter Anaïs, 12, from his first marriage, to Meg Mathews, has recently been signed up (somewhat controversially) by the top model agency Select and has already been photographed by Mario Testino. Still, Noel ascribes his recent prolific output to needing to get out of the house. 'If I can give you any advice, it's this: every hour that you spend sat on the couch doing nothing, put it to good use, because when you have kids, an hour is like a lifetime.' His favourite hobby at the moment is shopping online at mrporter.com. He'll over-buy and then get his assistant to send 90 per cent of it back. For today's shoot he insists on dressing himself and on his blazer sits his latest purchase, a Lanvin pin.

Songwriting is a calling for Gallagher but he'll joke about everything else. 'Music is a thing that changes people's lives. It has the capacity to make young people's lives better. Music got us through school, break-ups, whatever - so it's more than just entertainment, the way I see it. It's like, if you can write it, you should do. You've got a duty to the world to put it f***ing out there. There's not enough good things in the world. You've not got a duty to make more guns, or synthesise more drugs, or f***ing design more cars. But you've got a duty to make music. If you can, you should.'

When he describes the seven years he spent on the dole in the 1980s, taking drugs, his 'kids these days have it too easy' line makes a lot more sense. He used to have to traipse halfway across Manchester to be able to use a four-track recorder. 'I'd risk certain death if I was seen by any football hooligan: "Who do you think you are with a f***ing guitar, you f***ing poof?" ' The idea that you can now carry a recording studio around on your iPhone clearly troubles him; it's all too easy nowadays.

'Gone are the days when Virgin Records was owned by Richard Branson, a fan of music. Now they're all owned by some guy who bought it off some guy who bought it off some guy who wants a return on his investment,' he says. He refrains from slagging off Simon Cowell (he turned down an invitation to be an X Factor judge, much to Anaïs's disappointment), but he does say, 'With the greatest respect to him and that TV show, that's not music. It only works cos it's been on television and stupid people buy it.' And he believes the Brit School (alma mater of Adele and Jessie J) has made all chart acts the same.

'Fact of the matter is that great music died quite a while ago. Remember when there were all cool bands in the chart? Oasis, Blur, Pulp and The Verve. Manic Street Preachers could be in the top ten for a month! Now it's Jessie J and f***ing Duffy. Everybody's got records "featuring" somebody else: it's either a s*** rap about somebody's struggle, or just… f***ing s*** music set to some reggae backbeat sung in some trans-atlantic f***ing accent. And then they'll throw some Cockney in just to keep it f***ing "real".'

He narrows his eyes wryly. 'Still, saying that, when these kids make the music, I'm sure they're not trying to please a 44-year-old dad of three. You know what I mean? It's for kids, innit. We had our shot, it was f***ing great, and now it's different.' It's all warm nostalgia with Blur these days - back in 1995, he expressed a wish that Damon Albarn and Alex James die of AIDS. He is pleased they are due to win the lifetime achievement award at the BRITs this year. 'Aw, it's great. Their one will be designed by Peter Blake [the pop artist and designer of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper cover]. Our one just looks like a bubble-bath holder. I met Damon recently for the first time in about 15 years. We had a beer and a catch-up. We were actually talking about the state of music, like two old fellas.' Since the release of Noel's latest album he has won NME's Godlike Genius award, Q's Icon award and been nominated for British Male Solo Artist at the BRITs.

He holds his hands up when he considers Albarn's recent experiments with Chinese opera and Elizabethan ballads. When I ask about his own proudest achievement, he says, 'Knebworth. I'm really proud of that phase, what became known as Britpop. The fact that Definitely Maybe still gets voted in the top ten albums of all time, the fact that different generations discover it once every five years. I'm proud of not being Pete Doherty, do you know what I mean? Someone like him, who evidently has all the tools to be a great songwriter and a great lyricist, but is f***ing too busy getting off his head. I'm glad at one point, I said, "Drugs are a good laugh - but the art is better." '

Noel snorted his last line of cocaine in 1998, shortly after finishing Oasis's Be Here Now tour. 'There was one afternoon where I said, "You know what? No more." The initial plan was to go straight for two weeks. Two weeks turned into two months… two years…' He describes his wife Sara as the 'catalyst' who made it all work.

Our talk turns to current affairs - he is addicted to Sky News and has been glued to the Leveson Inquiry. He reckons his phone was tapped, back in the day. 'Why do the c***s not tap people's phones that work for us?' he wants to know. 'If you've got phone-tapping equipment, do some good with it! Phone-tap a f***ing vicar who's molesting children! Oh no, no, but Jordan's bought a f***ing Mini.' He is spitting mad at the riots, a variant on his 'kids have it too easy' theme. 'It was like a Monty Python sketch. There was all this doom and gloom on the telly, people saying the riots spread through Twitter. Isn't it amazing that the riots spread through really expensive technology, through £500 BlackBerrys?'

For someone who considers that what people took most from his songs was 'the spirit', he is fundamentally pessimistic. 'Protest, it's not going to change anything,' he says. 'It's like when they had that protest in Hyde Park when the second Iraq war was about to kick off. They were all marching through Marylebone, where I lived at the time, trying to get me to come along. I was going, "What are you marching for?" They were going, "Against the war, man!" I said: "Do you seriously think George Bush is going to stop his war machine because there's a lot of people in Hyde Park?" ' I don't know, I say, if you'd have taken your guitar down there, regaled the masses with a spot of 'Talk Tonight', who knows? 'Oh everyone would have had a good time. But Occupy Wall Street… what are they doing?'

Hang on, I say. Is this because you're part of the one per cent now? 'I don't give a f***. Whatever I got, I earned. Nobody gave it to me. I got it through going out and f***ing working. So if I am one of the one per cent, f***ing good. I didn't get it through robbing you. You bought my records. And for every pound I earned, I guarantee you, there's somebody else earned seven. Occupy Wall Street? Bring down the banking system? All right, well, what happens after that?' But Oasis was so much about empowering people - positive energy, get out and do something. 'Of course! But Oasis was about people changing their lives for themselves.' That's so Thatcherite, I say. And he bursts out laughing, reminding me why I stopped listening to Oasis, but also why I loved them so much in the first place.

Source: www.thisislondon.co.uk