The only musician who ever intimidated Noel Gallagher
Noel Gallagher has never backed down to any rock legend in his way. Since he saw himself as among the greatest songwriters in the world before he even had an album out, it should be no surprise that Gallagher has seen his fair share of songwriters as equals rather than star-studded legends. Although Noel has been able to work with many of his musical heroes over the years, he claims that one artist had him knocked out cold the first time he saw him.
When talking about Gallagher’s favourite acts, it would be easy to surmise that such rock legends would be someone like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. Looking through his back catalogue, Noel has been known to write songs indebted to the work of his 1960s record collection, especially with the John Lennon nasal croon emanating from his brother Liam.
If there were one decade that had the most significant impact on Noel, though, it would have to have been the 1970s. As opposed to the bright sounds that he heard from the Fab Four, the next decade would beget artists with a more biting slant to their sound, from David Bowie redefining gender norms with the glam rock scene to every piece of rock being torn down by the sounds of punk rock.
From day one, Gallagher was proud to identify himself as a punk. Rather than squeak by with the standard rules of the music industry, Noel saw a lot of himself in these new artists, saying that he would have given anything to have written albums like Nevermind the Bollocks. Before Sex Pistols and The Clash, though, one other artist was going against the grain as far back as the 1960s.
At a time when the ‘Summer of Love’ was beginning, Neil Young was slowly turning into one of the most singularly strange characters the rock world had ever seen. Although he could make breathtaking pieces of sonic art, Young was never content staying in the same place for too long, constantly shifting his sound to suit his feelings.
When asked about the one artist that he was intimidated by, Noel said that he was blown away when introduced to Neil Young, saying, “I’ve met everybody including Beatles and Rolling Stones, but the only person that I was like, ‘FUCK’ was Neil Young. I mean, he was at Woodstock…the end. I’ve loved him since I started playing the guitar, and he knew my name, which freaked me out. The fact that he said my name was amazing”.
While Oasis had always written songs more inspired by British music, Young’s effect on Noel’s songwriting cannot be understated. Throughout his time working with his old band and solo, Noel has twisted pieces of Young’s work to suit his needs, eventually covering his work on the live stage while keeping the mix decidedly unsophisticated, just like his idol on albums like Definitely Maybe.
More than anything, Noel took the sounds of tracks like ‘Hey Hey My My (Into The Black)’ to heart whenever he played live onstage. Rock and roll may go out of fashion now and again, but Noel firmly believes that as long as there are people like Young willing to go against the grain, the genre will never truly die.
