ראיון עם הצ'יף
ראיון ארוך אבל כל-כך, באמת כל-כך, שווה לקריאה עם נואל גלאגר. מדבר על הרבה דברים: ביטול הופעות שכל אחד היה קופץ עליהם, סמים, ילדים, השפעות בשירים, דפנטלי מייבי, ליאם גם ואנדי, על המבקרים, על להקות אחרות (קולדפליי, U2, קין) ועל האלבומים שלהם. מי שאמר שנואל איבד את כשרון הכתיבה שלו, או בולשיט כזה, מומלץ לקרוא מה דעתו של נואל על כך. ואגב, השורה האחרונה אחת החזקות בכל הראיון - "מה יהיה כתוב לך על המצבה? : 'כאן שוכב נואל גלאגר. שהיה פאקינג צריך לעשות אלבום סולו'."
הראיון:
ראיון ארוך אבל כל-כך, באמת כל-כך, שווה לקריאה עם נואל גלאגר. מדבר על הרבה דברים: ביטול הופעות שכל אחד היה קופץ עליהם, סמים, ילדים, השפעות בשירים, דפנטלי מייבי, ליאם גם ואנדי, על המבקרים, על להקות אחרות (קולדפליי, U2, קין) ועל האלבומים שלהם. מי שאמר שנואל איבד את כשרון הכתיבה שלו, או בולשיט כזה, מומלץ לקרוא מה דעתו של נואל על כך. ואגב, השורה האחרונה אחת החזקות בכל הראיון - "מה יהיה כתוב לך על המצבה? : 'כאן שוכב נואל גלאגר. שהיה פאקינג צריך לעשות אלבום סולו'."
Reflecting on almost 15 years of success with Oasis, Noel Gallagher, despite a £14m fortune, insists he is still working class. But, he tells John Meagher, the 'baggage' of kids and ex-wives has made him grow up 'The boredom is driving me f***ing mad." Right now, Noel Gallagher is supposed to be in the middle of a world tour. Instead -- thanks to an on-stage attack by a fan in Toronto on September 7 - he is recuperating at his London home. And he's not happy about it. "There's always some f***ing calamity that happens to us on the road, and I'm just glad we got it out of the way quickly. I just didn't see this one coming." Quite literally, as it turns out. YouTube footage shows the intruder running up behind the guitarist, pushing him to the ground. He sustained broken ribs. His attacker was subsequently arrested. Today, in his management company's office near Paddington, London, he looks pale and drawn - something he puts down to being the father of an 18-month-old son, Donovan. The last thing he expected to be doing a week before the release of Oasis's seventh album was babysitting. "I just can't get my head around the fact that we still aren't on the road," he says. "I'm waiting for the doctor to give me the all-clear for the UK dates, but it should be fine. I'll go out of my f***ing mind if I can't play them." The British arena tour kicks off in Liverpool on Tuesday and includes two sold-out dates at Belfast's Odyssey Arena at the end of this month, will give fans an opportunity to hear the new songs for the first time. The album, Dig Out Your Soul, could only have been made by Oasis and there are plenty of moments on it that are likely to sound incendiary live. But after something of a creative upswing with their last offering, 2005's Don't Believe The Truth, this collection is considerably less inspired. Tellingly, Noel - once Oasis's sole songwriter has penned roughly half the tracks - with the remainder contributed by brother Liam, guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell. "People ask my why I don't write all the songs any more and I say, 'What's the point of being in a band if I write all the songs?' I might as well go solo if that's the case." Noel wrote everything on the band's milestone 1994 debut Definitely Maybe - as well as fantastic b-sides like The Masterplan and Acquiesce. It was a prolific time - and a far cry from today's relatively spartan output. "When I was writing those songs, I was 26 or 27. Everything I had was in an adidas holdall - that was my life. The older you get, the more baggage you get - kids, ex-wives. I've started to write quite frequently again, but not as much as back then. Who knows? Why hasn't Paul McCartney written a good song in a hundred f***ing years?" What does he say to those who suggest that he writes the best songs and Liam should stick to his frontman duties? "I'd congratulate them on their taste. I like Gem and Andy's songs. I genuinely like what they do - and Liam as well. If I didn't, they wouldn't be on the album." Yet, there were a pair of his own compositions that got squeezed out. "They were left off because of Liam ... " he trails off. "F*** knows what happened, but he got a bit emotional one day and stormed off and the songs got shelved. They'll be on the next one. "It wouldn't be an Oasis album if there wasn't a point where Liam decided he didn't want to be in the band any more. Oh, and there was an incident when some f***ing lunatic turned up at the studio saying he'd written all the songs that we hadn't yet recorded. The police had to be called -- he threatened to kill us, although not Liam funnily enough." The lyrics feature a myriad of references to The Beatles -- no surprises there, then -- and snatches of a John Lennon interview conducted by the BBC shortly before his death. The album was recorded in Abbey Road, the first time the band have used the fabled studio since their bloated 1997 album Be Here Now. "It wasn't like we went to Abbey Road to rekindle our f***ing mojo," he says. "The ghost of John Lennon -- Liam and Gem feel it, but I f***ing don't. I don't believe in ghosts. Sometimes, the pair of them act like f***ing cats producing their own LSD -- and I'm a bigger Beatles fan than either of them." There's a psychedelic, druggy feel to some of the songs but Noel says the days of "snorting my own body weight in cocaine" are over. "Haven't touched any class A drugs since 1998. I did it all, I enjoyed some of it and I decided I didn't need it any more. But if somebody invented a new drug ... yeah, I'd be having some of that. I'm a 41-year-old father-of-two - those days of a three-day bender are over for me." He has little time for the much-publicised benders of Pete Doherty et al. "They're attention seekers. Doherty and Amy Winehouse romanticise about being dirty little f***ing street urchins carrying guitars around with them and living some kind of poetic f***ing torture.