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Noel Gallagher On Manchester, Oasis And More











Absolute Radio’s Pete Mitchell spoke to Noel Gallagher in an exclusive interview as part of a 2-hour documentary special to air on digital stations Absolute Radio 00s on Wednesday 14th March from 6pm and Absolute Radio 90s on Thursday 22nd March from 9pm. The man, recently crowned Godlike Genius at the NME awards revealed just how important his hometown was in shaping his career, explaining that:

“Manchester, as a musician, is a great place to grow up because you’ve got everything you need is there; little venues, big venues, nightclubs, or you had then nightclubs, music shops, if you needed a bass player you can get one, it’s got a musical history, it had great DJs at Piccadilly Radio, yourself being one”

Noel’s critically acclaimed album High Flying Birds has flown off the shelves both physically and digitally and Noel explains that he was confident that it would do well:

“I expect greatness from myself. So when people are saying ‘Wow, this is amazing’ and it’s selling, I don’t feel very proud of myself, I think that’s what I should be doing anyway, and I’m quite critical of myself, but, by the same rule, it’s great, I’ve got to say, but I kind of knew it would be well received because I’ve made so many records in the past and I knew that this collection of songs was a good collection of songs, if nothing else, you know.”

Noel tells Pete how he isn’t chasing success anymore and only really makes music now to please wife Sara:

“There was a point in the 90s and in the early 2000s where I was obsessed with success, do you know what I mean, and chasing the big hits and all that, but I’ve had enough of that now. Like I say, I don’t make records to be number one in the charts, but when it happens it’s great. I make them because, you know, my wife won’t let me sit round the house for more than 11 months, as has now become apparent.”

Noel talks about his creative process when it comes to writing:

“Sometimes I can write five songs in a row, very quick, over like a five week period, and then sometimes I go months and months without writing anything, and that’s when I used to get a bit edgy and nervous and like ‘Oh, I’ll just write something’. I’ve learned now to just let it find me, and I don’t know what it is. There’s no special room that I go to, I’ve not even got a music room in my house, my kids have taken over my house and are slowly demolishing it, and I don’t even have a music room. I don’t have a place where I keep all my notes or anything like that, do you know what I mean, it’s purely inspiration, my whole thing is pure inspiration, it’s just ‘There it is’.”

Noel reflects on the success of Definitely Maybe:

Well that record is just a phenomenon that’s just… you know, to think that when I was writing those songs in a bedsit, a council bedsit in Manchester in 1991, ’92, that those songs, 20 years later, would still mean as much, not to people in England, but you take that for granted. I’ve just been out to Australia and Singapore, kids, you know what I mean, who wouldn’t have been born then, Cigarettes and Alcohol means the same to then as it did to me then, and that is an amazing thing, and I don’t know why that is. You know, I’d love to say it’s because I’m a genius and all that, which quite evidently I am, but it’s just a magical thing that we were all involved in and long may it continue. It’s just a great… I love that record.

Listen to Noel Gallagher “The Boy From Burnage” on Absolute Radio 90s on Thursday 22nd March from 9pm.

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