Leave it to former Oasis songwriter and current High Flying Bird Noel Gallagher to consistently break the unwritten rule that says, "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all."
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In a recent interview with NME, the elder Gallagher was asked about the influence his former band Oasis continues to have on bands and artists today, even though the beloved Britpop group has been officially disbanded since 2009. His response was just about everything you would expect, but probably a little out of left field given his superfan target.
“Oasis’ influence, I think, was for people to f***ing start a band in the first place,” Noel began. “I do meet loads of guys who say that and that’s great. There are a lot of them around, it’s just a pity guitar music has become marginalized. You’ve either got to be rock, or that f***ing 1975. At the BRITs, The 1975 won Best Rock or some f***ing s***,” Gallagher said pointedly but, of course, he was not at all finished. “I was watching it with my kids, two teenage lads, thinking, ‘Is it me being a grumpy old man, or is this s***?’” he continued. “They were both going, ‘Oh no, this is f***ing s***’. The 1975, ‘Best Rock Band’? Someone needs to redefine that immediately because that is… I don’t know what that is, but it’s certainly not f***ing rock. Whatever rock is, that’s not it.”
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That's not to say he believes all of his own work is without flaw. "If you ever did make the f***ing most perfect album and accepted that it was perfect, it’s over. What's the point after that?" he asked. For example, his latest High Flying Birds album, Council Skies, left him wishing he made better decisions about the tracklisting. "‘I’m Not Giving Up Tonight’ should be the closing track and ‘Think Of A Number’ should be the opener," he admits. "But I didn’t think it was strong enough until it was too late. What a d***, but there you go – I’m allowed to be a d*** when it’s my own music.”
Diving even deeper, Noel admits of Oasis, “I don’t like the sound of ‘Morning Glory’ at all.” Adding “The only album that is perfect would be ‘Definitely Maybe’. ‘Be Here Now’, the songs are too long. ‘Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants’, not enough good songs and a lot of filler on that. ‘Heathen Chemistry’ had a couple of good tunes: ‘Little By Little’ and ‘Stop Crying Your Heart Out’, the rest of it is a bit ‘meh’. ‘Don’t Believe The Truth’ is pretty good, ‘Dig Out Your Soul’ kind of tails off towards the end. They’re all flawed in some way.”
He was just as hard on the rest of his solo work as well: “The first one – ‘Stop The Clocks’, no chance, not having that. Second one – ‘The Mexican’, yeah, dreadful. ‘Who Built The Moon?’ – yeah, sonically it could do with a bit more work. With this one, yeah, the tracklisting is slightly skewed."
“There are great moments on them all," he admits, "but they’re not perfect by any means."
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Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds and Garbage -- featuring special guest Metric -- are currently on the road throughout the summer. For official dates and ticket info, click HERE.
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