Gallagher brothers are getting along as Noel adjusts to sharing creative control


By Ricardo Baca
Denver Post Pop Music Critic



Noel Gallagher credits producer Dave Sardy with bringing Oasis out of a slump.

For Noel Gallagher, growing up meant letting go of past stigmata, relinquishing creative control and learning how to get along with his brother.

It sounds relatively easy, sure. Unless you're a Gallagher.

Noel Gallagher has long been the primary creative force behind storied British rock band Oasis. It was his music on 1994's "Definitely Maybe" and "(What's the Story?) Morning Glory" a year later that broke the group into the popular lexicon, and it was the hothead's legendary ego that kept the band in the news via countless public spats with his brother, Liam, and others.

And so it's surprising news that Noel wrote only five of the 11 songs on Oasis' new "Don't Believe the Truth," which is a poignantly poppy portrait of where Oasis is in 2005. And it's dumbfounding that the band not only hired a producer - Dave Sardy - for the first time ever to work the record, but also is crediting him for bringing Oasis and its signature Brit rock back from a three-record, 10-year slump.

"Dave was telling us what Oasis should sound like," Noel said recently from a Mexico tour stop. "We had forgotten. We were so close to it.

"Working with a producer means that you have
to spend twice as long in the studio, which we don't like. But he was telling us what was great about Oasis records, and it was the kind of stuff we'd forgotten. If we'd done this record ourselves, it would have been completely different."

It has been more than 10 years since Oasis made a noticeable blip on the radar. The last three records - 1997's "Be Here Now," 2000's "Standing on the Shoulder of Giants" and 2002's "Heathen Chemistry" - were lackluster, redundant exercises in self-indulgence. The band had lassoed us with "Morning Glory" and its epic pilfering of 30-year-old monster riffs, sweeps and choruses. Songs like "Wonderwall" rightfully took over the radio, and others, such as "Don't Look Back in Anger," picked up the back as some of the best album tracks of the post-grunge era.

On the previous three albums the band misstepped electronically and woefully attempting experimentation. But instead of coming up with an "OK Computer" watershed moment, it only lost fans, momentum and credibility. "Don't Believe the Truth" isn't the band's comeback - it still doesn't have the commercial appeal of "Morning Glory," although it is artistically sound - but it has Oasis sounding more at home than it has in a long while.

"It's basically the best batch of songs we've had on an album since 'Morning Glory,"' said Noel Gallagher. "On 'Morning Glory,' even the album tracks were great - 'Champagne Supernova.' (With the new record) we have 'Keep the Dream Alive,' and 'A Bell Will Ring' and 'Part of the Queue' and 'Mucky Fingers' are all really great songs."

And that's not just O.H., or Oasis hyperbole, which was more prominent than the band's hits in the mid-'90s with the band and certain supporters dubbing the group "the greatest rock band alive." The new record is really a masterwork that blends Oasis' shiny optimism with its romantic weepers, the group's penchant for a sweet ballad with its need for the big sing-along number.

Noel's surrendering of the controls - both to a producer and to his bandmates, a few of whom (Andy Bell and Gem Archer) have been in the band for only five years - came surprisingly naturally.

"The song arrangements were done, but we'd gotten a bit bored with that and we reached a dead end in chemistry with what we do," he said. "I couldn't take it any further than that, really. The songs are fantastic. And it makes it easier with a great batch of songs.
"But those guys have been in the band for five years, and Liam's now more of a songwriter. With them writing, it makes it more of a collaboration, more of a 'band' band."

But contrary to popular opinion, Noel was never the control-hungry visionary reigning over the band and its product with a closed mind and an iron sense of direction.

"(I wrote everything) because nobody else was bothered," he said. "It wasn't that I had to be the guy behind the band, the creative force. Liam wasn't interested in anything musical between 1991 and 1999. Now he's writing songs and he wants to contribute more, and he comes up with more ideas. He wrote 'Love Like a Bomb,' which is OK, 'The Meaning of Soul,' which is fantastic, and 'Guess God Thinks I'm Able,' which is another great song."

As for Noel's contributions to the record, he considers this a very London-centric recording.

"All of mine came from just sitting around the house in London," he said. "'Definitely Maybe' was about life in Manchester. But then the songs I've written here are my London songs, not specifically about life in London but they were written in my front room in London. 'Part of the Queue' and 'Mucky' and 'The Importance of Being Idle' are all about living a life in an overcrowded European capital, which is getting to be more gray and dull, really."

When asked about the terrorist bombings in London earlier this year, Noel responded simply: "It was a very strange place for a few days. I didn't realize the police force had that many cops, to be honest. A couple of the bombs went off right around the corner from my house. My girlfriend would have been on the train that morning. It's weird, but you can't let it color your entire life.

"You have to come back. It was fairly quiet where I lived for 48 hours, but now it's the same as it ever was. Maybe there are a few more police. But I never take the Tube. It's a vile form of transport."

So far with "Don't Believe the Truth," Oasis has avoided the drama of previous album releases. For the most part, Noel thinks too much was made of his and Liam's volatile relationship.

"Yeah, part of me would say 'Yes,' and the other part would say 'I really can't remember.' At the end of the day, though, it's all about the music. In the newspapers, it's newsworthy for that day. But all anybody will talk about for the next 20 years is the music, and the music is great."

As for his relationship with his brother, they're getting along better these days, he said.

"Liam's grown up considerably over the last few years, but he's still a bit of a lunatic," Noel said. "He's got a tiny bit more responsible, which in itself is not much, but it's a start."

Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.