Noel Gallagher’s songs for his third solo album have been rejected by producer David Holmes because they sound like Oasis tracks.
The 50-year-old singer and songwriter – who quit Oasis in 2009 after he and his brother Noel had a blazing row backstage at a concert – has admitted he has penned a number of records for Noel Gallagher’s high Flying Birds latest LP ‘Who Built The Moon?’, which David has "refused" to release if they had been written outside of the studio and are "remotely" similar to hits the English rock band created.
Speaking to Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio, the ‘Wonderwall’ hitmaker said: "My producer, David Holmes, he just refused any song that I’d written outside of the studio, he didn’t want to know. He wanted to be there, at the genesis of this idea, and then he would point me in a different direction.
"Every time I would come up with stuff that sounded remotely like Oasis, or what I’d done before, he would stop me and say, ‘We’ve heard all that, you can do that next time. Why don’t we focus on this germ of electronic music, and turn that into a song?’"
Noel – who has 17-year-old daughter Anais with ex-partner Meg Matthews, as well as sons Donovan, 10, and Sonny, seven, with his current wife Sara MacDonald – found it "frustrating" getting his work rebuked, because he could have released an extra "two albums" easily if they were not scrapped.
He continued: "And I found it, for the first 18 months, 2 years, quite frustrating, because I’ve got a bank of songs at home, completed, ready to go out, I’ve got another two albums worth, easy. I’ve got a lot of songs that just need knocking into shape."
And the only reason Noel went along with David’s words of wisdom was because of the sweet complements he would receive from him, which boosted his ego.
Noel added: "But David Holmes would stroke my ego by saying, ‘The acoustic guitar thing, you’re the greatest! You’re the best in the world, nobody can touch you, but… you know, I don’t like it!’ …okay, well, okay – pass me the synthesiser."
But when Noel is in the creative process he doesn’t think about his fans and what other listeners want to hear.
He said: "[Fans] they do have a sense of ownership of your thing. It’s like with this record now, that’s coming out, it’s quite different to what I do, it’s more electronic, people singing in French. The thing with Oasis is, it generates a new generation of fans every five or six years, and it feels like there’s a generation that’s come along now and they’re really young, and they have an image of what they think you should be and they take ownership of it.
"It’s definitely nice and all that, but when you’re in the studio creating something, you can’t think: what do my fans want? You can’t think that. So, when you go to do the gigs, as long as you can play what you want, then you play what they want as well, you know, you give them a blast from the past then you’re all good."
Noel Gallagher’s songs get rejected if they sound like Oasis tracks
