Noel Gallagher, the former guitar player and singer-songwriter for the iconic rock band Oasis and current frontman for his eponymous rock group Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, is at peace. For the once-bad boy of Brit Pop, known as much for his altercations as hit songs, a sense of self-security has settled in. Truth be told, he’s something of a joy to talk to—calm, thoughtful, clear-headed. And these same adjectives could be used to describe Gallagher and company’s new LP, Council Skies, which is set to drop on Friday (June 2). The new record showcases the artist’s knack for composition, tone, and magnetism. The titular single is like a blue sky and a wide-open highway forward. For the songwriter, age has brought wisdom and a sense of satisfaction.
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“I’m comfortable with who I am and where I’m going,” Gallagher tells American Songwriter. “If you’re not comfortable with yourself by 55 [years old] then you’ve fucking done something wrong. Yeah, my reputation proceeds me. But there’s nothing I can do about that. I live in the moment. I worry about today and tomorrow and that’s it.”
Born in Manchester, England, Gallagher says music was all around him as a young person. He comes from an Irish family and songs were often in the air. He says he began to take the art form seriously when he got his first guitar at 13 years old, the impact of which was “profound.” It changed his life, he says.
“And saved my life,” Gallagher adds.
Prior to joining Oasis, Gallagher was a roadie for another local British band. He was traveling the world, getting paid, and getting high. It was a great time, he notes. At the time, his younger brother Liam was in a group and when Noel joined the outfit, he began writing songs for them. At that moment, he knew what he was going to do for the rest of his life.
“That’s when I wrote the song ‘Live Forever’ and it all changed,” he says. “I wrote that song and said, ‘Wow, it’s going to be some fucking ride from here on in.’”
For fans of Gallagher or Oasis, what often sticks out most are the lyrics and melodies of his songs. There is often a high bar of orchestration, catchy language, and vivid dream-like vibes. In the 1996 song “Champagne Supernova” from Oasis’ album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, which Gallagher wrote, Liam sings, Slowly walkin’ down the hall / Faster than a cannonball / Where were you while we were getting high? These are memorable, vivid words in an iconic song. Yet, Gallagher says, language doesn’t exactly come easy—perhaps a surprising statement to some longtime listeners.
“[Lyrics] are the last component part of a song [for me],” he says. “I put everything into the melody and the tune itself. The lyrics are—they don’t come naturally to me. The words have to support the melody. Sometimes they can be quite profound and meaningful. But I don’t worry about them too much.”
When it comes to Gallagher’s innate sense of melody, he says it’s just that. He doesn’t know where his gift of song comes from, nor does he want to know. He doesn’t want to “label it or limit it.” For him, it’s just “magic” that “falls out of the sky.” In a way, it doesn’t make sense. Gallagher can be strumming a chord sequence for days on end and then—poof—one afternoon, he could find sonic or lyrical clarity and a new composition. Either way, speaking of skies, Council Skies and its titular single were born, like many records coming out these days, from the 2020 pandemic and ensuing lockdown.
“I just got back off tour in 2019,” Gallagher says. “And I wasn’t planning on writing any music until 2021. And then the pandemic happened and isolation happened.”
All of the songwriting for the new LP was written in that isolation, he says. That’s why the LP has a “reflective” tone to it. It also offers a bit of a “melancholy” sensibility. For the album’s opening song, “I’m Not Giving up Tonight,” Gallagher had actually started it during the writing process for his previous LP, Who Build the Moon? It began as an instrumental for that record but it “didn’t really go anywhere.” Then, one night, he was “fucking around” and the first verse came to him. And it just went from there. Again: unexplainable but very welcomed. In fact, Gallagher says, the freedom to accept whatever comes to him is a mark of his current band—a group he appreciates for its “eclectic nature of the styles of songs.”
Of course, when it comes to Gallagher’s acclaimed career, it’s impossible to separate him from his award-winning group Oasis. While one might expect him to have harsh words about the group or his brother, the former lead singer of the band, or just seem avoidant of the subject, Gallagher embraces the memories fondly.
“It’s a glorious chapter in my musical life,” Gallagher says. “It’s a period in time that can never be replicated. I don’t intend on replicating it anytime soon. So, yeah, it’s just a beautiful memory.”
Looking ahead now, the singer-songwriter is preparing to go on tour and road-test his new music. He’s excited about the prospect, he says. He’s set to tour the U.S., something that he’s grown to love as he’s gotten older. The tour is the “final payoff of a project,” Gallagher says. One doesn’t totally know an album or collection of songs fully until they’re played in front of an audience. So, that will be fun, to see how a crowd responds to the new tunes, he says. For the album, which was begun in 2020, now, three years later, Gallagher will really see what he’s got. Then, when he returns home after the gigs, he’ll likely begin something new. For the artist, the surprises that music brings into his life, that’s what keeps him invested.
“What’s fascinating more than anything else,” he says, “is that if you take 20 people and play the same song, six of them will fucking hate it. Five will love it and nine will be indifferent. [I love] the way that music elicits a response from people.”
Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images
