Noel Gallagher on why it has taken three years for Oasis to come back on top form

By TOBY MANNING

There's something rather uncanny about Noel Gallagher's ability to imitate his younger brother. When relaying a conversation he's had with Liam, Noel simply adopts his stroppy sibling's voice – with such accuracy that it's as if the singer is right here in the room.

""Where've you been for the last two weeks?'" he demands, parodying an aggressive Liam.

"Been on holiday," Noel replies as himself.

""Where?'"

"Out to Spain."

""What you been doing?'" he asks, the Liam voice now sounding confused.

"I've not been doing anything."

""Didn't you write any songs?'"

"I didn't even take a guitar."

""You lazy bastard!'"

At his management offices in Marylebone, London, Noel – nattily dressed in chocolate brown Fred Perry, matching pinstripe jacket, designer jeans and slightly suspect fawn leather shoes – makes much of his brother being Oasis's current motor.

"He drives it along," he says. "Which is quite a paradox 'cos he's also the one who kicks the wheels off every six months and brings it crashing to a halt."

Noel, who turns 38 on Sunday, was once famously the band's boss, but he now says he prefers to take his time over his craft. In fact, the band's new album, Don't Believe The Truth, even contains a track entitled The Importance Of Being Idle.

But although they've certainly not rushed this release – it's three years since Heathen Chemistry – Noel's relaxed attitude seems more to do with knowing that Don't Believe The Truth finally puts a stop to the creeping malaise that has infected Oasis ever since 1997's Be Here Now rather than any innate indolence.

"If it was down to me, there'd be five years between records," he claims. "I spent five years working on the songs for Definitely Maybe – that's why they're so good. And we followed up Morning Glory too quickly. If it was down to me I reckon we'd have been following up Morning Glory now.

"Be Here Now was when the real partying was at its peak and it was a token gesture making that record. Again that's all part of the legend, isn't it?"

He's quite right. And now that legend is about to be tweaked again, for this album really does feel in many ways like the long-delayed follow-up to Morning Glory. And in Let There Be Love, they have an anthem that makes Oasis not just good again, but important.

The funny thing is, most of us had given up on Oasis. They felt like a relic, stuck in a faded Cool Britannia past, increasingly – in Liam's case – caricatures of themselves. And all that news of smashed teeth, scrapped sessions (with producers Death In Vegas in 2003), Noel's admission of a lack of decent songs and sacked drummers (Alan White left the band earlier this year) really didn't help. They sounded like a group slowly shuffling off into irrelevance.

But perhaps it's that very situation – the lack of expectation and pressure – which has enabled Oasis to pull off this record. For when Noel talks about idleness, he's not really talking about being lazy.

"It was a very, very warm day," he recalls of The Importance Of Being Idle's genesis. "The front door was open and I was sitting looking out the window and my missus is going, "You've been staring out the window for three quarters of an hour. What you doing?' And I go, "I'm working'. "On what?' "I'm thinking'."

"The point is, creativity needs space. If it takes three years to get it right, then it takes three years to get it right. I can't work to time constraints. I done that with Be Here Now."

Liam may be down at the studio all the time with Gem Archer (guitar), Andy Bell (bass) and Zak Starkey (drums), he may have written three songs for this album – a fraction of what he presented to the band – but it's still Noel's five compositions that are the record's cornerstones.

Not that Liam sees it like that.

"He gets a bit tetchy about me singing more these days," Noel says, with an impish innocence. Then he does that impression again.

""Well, I'm supposed to be the singer…'" he says as Liam.

"Well I'm supposed to be the songwriter."

""But I should be singing more'."

"Well I should be writing more songs."

""Yeah, but... Yeah but you're not'," he says, Liam getting confused.

""Then you're not singing more'."

There's a long pause as Liam ponders this. ""Are you saying that if we stop writing songs then I can start singing more?'"

""That's pretty much what it boils down to, yeah'."

This doesn't sound like a man who's taken his foot off the pedal, nor indeed one inclined to indolence. It just sounds like someone who knows his value in the scheme of things.

"I've absolutely not stopped being a control freak," Noel says, as if such a suggestion were insulting. "But now Gem and Andy have been in the band long enough they go, "You're not playing that right, give it here'.

It's back to the old days where you just grabbed the bass off Guigsy and said, "Psst, put the kettle on'."

Did you play some of his parts?

"All of 'em," Noel admits. "He wasn't fussed about that. Guigs will quite happily tell you that he was the luckiest man in the world. But he was a mate of ours, he supported Man City, he was in the band and that's the end of that. But on record, I played most of the stuff in the early days. Equally, Bonehead's on the records, but if you took him out of the mix you wouldn't notice. Bonehead was never interested in guitars, he was into having it. But they had the spirit of the band, which was, "If we can do it, anybody can do it'. And I admired them for it.

"It's quite telling that when Bonehead left, Guigs soon followed because he knew that we'd get someone in who was the b******s."

Do you think the spirit departed with them, then?

"What was one supposed to do?" Noel replies after a long pause. "Say, right well that's it then?" He looks slightly wistful. "But I miss them in a way. They had a kind of innocence about music. We can get a bit picky these days."

You're a more professional unit? Noel raises the famed monobrow in response.

"I wouldn't say it's professional," he counters. "Cancelling 12 gigs last year 'cos the singer's got his teeth rolling round a bar in Germany? Is that professional? Would you class Liam as professional? It's not a word that springs to mind."

Everyone's so used to the sparring between these siblings that the affection within Noel's bitchiness often goes unnoticed. It's the same when he dismisses Scissor Sisters and Keane as "music for squares".

What's your definition of a square?

"People who watch CD:UK," he smiles. "Robbie Williams fans. Ian Beale types. People who don't really like music. People who don't really like football. People who don't really like anything at all.

"And I hate people who drink outside pubs. Get inside the pub man, that's what it's for! You've got to be in the bar, coughing."

Despite his tongue in cheek venom, Noel is the first to admit that it's the "squares" who made him rich. Again, it's the sound of a man at ease with the world. It's good to have him back.

l Don't Believe The Truth is released on Monday. Toby Manning writes for The Big Issue.

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