Yesterday, we brought you Part 1 of our interview with Noel Gallagher which saw the former Oasis man give his thoughts on a reunion with his brother Liam, scrapping albums and tour documentaries due to his high standards, and more.
Today, he talks about his writing process, getting older and why going to the gym in Los Angeles turned him off public gyms forever.
'Chasing Yesterday', the second album by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds is out tomorrow - and they play Dublin's 3Arena on March 4th.
Check back tomorrow for the final - and funniest - installment.
Are you the sort of songwriter who's always gathering songs?
Oh yeah. I've constantly got twenty-five to thirty songs. Always. There was periods when I didn't have that; before Oasis got a record deal, I had pretty much the first three albums written. But because we were so busy in those four years, when it came to Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, I had no songs – so I had to write from scratch and it freaked me out a little bit. Ever since then, I write all the time. I could play you thirty songs now, on the guitar. And some of them are pretty fucking good. 16 or 17 of them will be finished; others are waiting on a second verse. Some are waiting on lyrics, but they're all there.
How do you write, generally? Do you use a notepad for lyrics? An iPad? A Dictaphone?
Not really. I write by not writing. It's a funny thing. I get stuck on a tune. I haven't got a music room or a studio at home, or anything like that – I sit with the telly on with the sound down, just strumming, fucking about. Then I'll play a couple of chords and think 'Hmm, that's quite good, I like that.' You wait for something to fall out of the sky, and if something does, I'll just pursue it. But I don't write stuff down; I can play the same set of chords for weeks, six months even, and be writing it in my head. Little phrases or melodies will stick, and it'll come time to go into the studio and then luckily enough I can remember most of it. Then I commit it to an iPad. (laughs)
A song like 'The Right Stuff' on the new album is pretty different to what you've done before. Is that really saxophone on a Noel Gallagher song?
Well, it's about as far removed from Supersonic as you can possibly get. It was the last song that was recorded for the album, and I kind of like that: Supersonic was the first thing I ever recorded and The Right Stuff is the last thing I recorded, and the journey in between has been fucking amazing as well. My songwriting is hopefully still going somewhere.
Do you feel like you've earned the right to be musically adventurous by this stage?
I don't really look at it in those terms. When I'm recording a song like Riverman or The Right Stuff – or even The Death of You and Me [from the first album]– it validates my decision to leave Oasis, because I think those songs would never have seen the light of day in Oasis. Or they would have been b-sides, because we were a 'macho rock band'.
When I'm writing, I don't really think 'Oh, wait 'til people hear this.' I'm not even sure when write a song whether I'm going to like it when it's finished – I'm just writing. It's 'Get that song finished, we'll look at it in the studio. On to the next one.' When I go into the studio, I go through the list of things that I've got, and I think 'Right, out of these twenty-odd songs, these five are absolutely gonna make it onto the record'. And then you're just filling in the gaps around them. You're just moving the bits around, really. The Right Stuff was never meant to be on the album, but the more I worked on it it became so good that it was definitely going on. As you're getting into the project, it's constantly shifting.
In what ways did this album change as you went along?
When I started off making this album, it was very similar to the last one. Then I wrote Riverman and The Right Stuff, and all of a sudden you're making a very different record, so then you've got to re-evaluate everything. I love that; it's probably my favourite aspect of what I do – creating records. You're kind of walking the tightrope, because you're thinking 'Fucking hell, I'm putting my balls on the line here'. It's difficult to explain it to people who don't have that. It's all on me. And it's great and I like that, but at the same time I don't really get hung up on it.
Tell me about the female backing vocalists on this album.
There's three. On Riverman and Dying of the Light and While the Song Remains the Same, it's a girl called Beccy Byrne, who sang on the last record. On The Right Stuff, it's a jazz singer called Joy Rose – fuckin' psychedelic name that is – and on The Mexican, it's three of Basement Jaxx's backing singers. Three young black chicks. Very funny. Hilarious in the studio, great laugh. I like working with girls, though. Again, it's another thing that would never have happened in Oasis.
Why not?
The idea would never have come into my head; it was a lads' club. And that was great, but having girls in the studio gives you a different perspective on things. When I was doing The Dying of the Light, for instance – and I think it's a great song – but when Beccy comes in to sing, she'll listen to it and go 'Wow, it's fucking beautiful!' and you get a woman's perspective on it, which is interesting for me because I've never had that. It was interesting, because when she sang on the last record, she sang on five or six tracks, and she was saying 'Oh god, this is really great stuff'. She said 'You're gonna get more girls at your shows from now on.' And she was right! All of a sudden there was more girls, unbelievable. It's nice having girls in the studio. Better than sweaty old men in glasses.
What's the biggest difference between mid-twenties Noel and mid-forties Noel?
Well, the differences are…. (pauses)… the differences are great. With age comes experience and you kind of take things at a more serene pace. You have perspective and you're a lot less neurotic about it. In your twenties, you've got so much power and energy and the days aren't long enough – and they're great times. But the difference is age itself. Like, I could never have written Riverman in '94. I could never have written Riverman ten years ago – or The Right Stuff. Now, whether it's a case of me getting to a place where I'm willing to accept that actually, I do listen to a bit of jazz – that's important. (laughs) But equally, what's important is other people are willing to accept that I'm willing to accept it.
It's a funny thing. I see a lot of people at my shows who've been coming for years, but I also see a lot of people at my shows who weren't even a glint in their father's eye when Definitely Maybe came out. So it's a funny old thing. But again, it's something I refuse to overthink. There's going to be enough time for looking back when I go to write my memoirs when I'm 73 or something; there'll be enough time for that. Right now, I'm in the midst of it and I'm only really making sense of the Oasis thing now, having stepped back and looked back at over twenty years. I know it's a thing that journalists like people to do – sit and analyse it – and most pop stars or rock stars are idiotic enough to get into it. But really, I don't know. It's just great. I just enjoy it. I enjoy it as much now as I did then, but for vastly different reasons. I used to fucking love staying up for three, four days. Love it. I was the best at it. But now, I like coming home at a fucking decent hour, like four (laughs). I like the fact that I don't fucking do drugs anymore.
Does that mean that you've started looking after yourself a bit more?
I do go to the gym most days when I'm at home, hangover permitting – but when I'm on the road, fuck that. I remember going to LA; when you turn 40 or whatever it is, you think 'Yeah. The moment has come.' I don't know what it is I was doing, but I was in LA and I remember thinking 'Yeah, I'm gonna go to the hotel gym'. You get on a treadmill beside this bloke - who happened to be the biggest Oasis fan in the world - who said to me [adapts American drawl] 'Oh my gawwwd. Noel Gallagher in a gym? What's the world coming to!'. So you're just decreasing the speed and walking off, thinking 'I'm not gonna ruin it for him – or me.' (laughs) So I do that kind of shit behind closed doors.