Noel Gallagher’s debut solo album was supposed to be “the next Oasis” record.
The 53-year-old rocker formed the High-Flying Birds in 2010 in the aftermath of his group’s demise the previous year and he had initially penned many of the tracks that appeared on his self-titled ‘Noel Gallagher’s High-Flying Birds’ LP while on tour with his former band.
Asked if the solo record was originally conceived as a side project, he said: “No, that was going to be the next Oasis album.
“On the last tour I wrote ‘If I Had a Gun’, ‘Everybody’s On the Run’ and ‘(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine’.
“’’AKA… What A Life!’ was the last thing I wrote. That’s my birth as a solo artist.”
In the latter years of Oasis, Noel felt frustrated that the band weren’t experimental enough, while he thinks his own vision for the group was one of the reasons why Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs and Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan quit.
Speaking to MOJO magazine, he added: “It’s difficult to make this statement without sounding like I’m slagging Liam off but… he was way more conservative in his tastes than I am.
“He literally listens to The Beatles and John Lennon and that’s it.
“When we were doing ‘Standing On The Shoulder of Giants’, Spike [Stent], who was producing, got the drum machines out and I saw, ‘Our kid will be up in 40 minutes. Have them out of the room before he gets here because it will frighten him. All these flashing lights will freak him out.’
“Oasis were such a brand, it was difficult to step outside that. Bonehead and Guigs never really said why they left but I think they thought, ‘This music is changing and it’s not the way that it was.’
“[But it was] not enough for me. When you play a song to your bandmates, you need them all to stand up and say, ‘That’s amazing.’
“If one of them is going ‘Pthrrrrt’ and that one happens to be the singer, forget it, it isn’t happening. It’s like you want the love of a parent. You do things to please people.”