Why Noel Gallagher called Oasis “a hindrance” to his career: “Very rigid in its sound”
There comes a point in every band where people need a break from each other. As much as you might have to compromise for the greater good most of the time, it feels like pulling teeth trying to get everyone to agree on something enough to commit to it every time they step up to the microphone. While Noel Gallagher could swallow his pride a lot of the time when he played with Oasis, he admitted that they may have become a bit too omnipresent in his career for his taste.
Then again, no one will be the defining band of a generation and not overshadow the members’ solo careers. As much as Paul McCartney or John Lennon may have made great music, no one’s sitting there wondering why they didn’t succeed as well as a solo artist and not in the shadow of being one of the greatest bands of all time.
By the time Oasis broke up in 2009, it felt like it was a long time coming for most of them. Noel and Liam hadn’t been on good terms in years, so the idea of them continuing on as a happy band of brothers was not going to happen, especially after coming off of one of their most caustic albums, Dig Out Your Soul.
After Noel decided to leave a crowd in Paris right at the end of their tour, he initially didn’t know if he really wanted a solo career. No songwriter loses the itch to create, though, and Noel was soon back in the studio with his own band, putting together the pieces he had left over from Oasis.
Despite Beady Eye taking everyone not named Noel Gallagher and starting their own group, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds might actually be the better album to come from the breakup. The lyrics are a lot sharper than before, and given that a lot of the songs were meant to be on the next Oasis album, it feels like a companion piece to the end of Oasis rather than the start of an entirely new band.
However, Noel did find himself getting a lot of hate from people who preferred the classic Oasis sound. There was still the amazing songwriting, but why were there little guitars in the mix and something that could have come off a Pink Floyd record on some of his later material like ‘Riverman’ off Chasing Yesterday?
Looking back on his history, Noel admitted that being in Oasis may have put a damper on how well his solo career could go, telling Gibson, “When I was writing for Oasis, you’re writing for something that is very rigid in its sound…Looking back on it, it was a hindrance. It was like, ‘He’s singing, he’s playing the guitar, he’s playing the bass’, whereas this is anything goes. It’s more freedom. The more free you are, the less records you’re going to sell, but that’s alright”.
Granted, there are the odd songs that jump out as distinctly Oasis-flavoured in the High Flying Birds catalogue, like the acoustic ditty ‘Dead to the World’, which could have been a decent B-side back in the 1990s. Still, if Oasis hadn’t split, perhaps Noel wouldn’t have taken as many chances, and maybe Liam wouldn’t have felt inclined to create his own stellar solo career.
