I posted on Gaz's facebook yesterday asking for some more info on this album/project and he wrote an AWESOME piece about it today and posted it up...
"Since this is coming up on my feed again ( celebrating its 2 year anniversary 🍸🍹🍾cheers ! And since people are asking about it again it's stirring up some personal stuff and since I only ever mentioned it in passing to one journalist at the end of an interview talking about FSOL 's ' Papua New Guinea
' our demographic readership ain't interested in him ( Noel ) !' being his exact words , little did I know he would pretend this 1 minute conversation was the whole story and sell it to a major newspaper !
Lesson learnt - I then tried to put it right by agreeing to talk to the NME ( as seen below 2 years ago ) who then proceeded to cut out all irksome detail and turn it into ( presumably ) a faux copy of a GALLAGHERzzzzzzx infighting episode which I suppose is proven to be beneficial all round ( careers and magazine sales ) but did little good for the truth or my sanity ....
I tried one more time to tell the story but yet again , it got reduced to ' he was too feared to be weird ' which was a good one liner but honestly , really yet again missed the point ...
So ... since I've given up on these rags ever being a suitable avenue for telling this story calmly and without misinterpretation or editing it and using it simply as clickbait ......
I'll attempt some final
dis( closure ) on this .... Now ..... directly ...
The 18 months we spent working on the album with Noel Gallagher was generally a very enjoyable one . Noel loved what we were doing and so did we ! We're very different cats in the studio , him ' unless I say it's shit then I love it !'
Me all effusive hand waving and ' play that like its molten heat 😀 or ' pretend you're an actor for a moment '
Him ' don't ever ask me to be a foookin actor again !'
Despite intentionally finding his borders and boundaries which is part of my job as a producer ( push and inspire but also find edge of comfort and how he wants to present himself - after all it's his album and he will front it for years
) extreme openness and tolerance of everything is order of the day on our side .... We wanted the best possible version of him that he could be . He loved great music , loved our Monstrous Psych Bubble series and had done some great collaborations so we wanted ( and thought ) we could inspire and achieve all of this ...
...
Let's start at the end ....
Last I saw Noel was dj'ing his roundhouse aftershow party as the HIgh Flying Birds first album came out . He hugged me , said ' I fookin love you '& then rightly apologized for the deceit of not telling us there was another album he'd created in parallel to ours when for 18 months we'd been expressly told we were working on his main album . To apologize was decent but it could never compensate for the enormity of what a fuck up this deceit was . I don't have the time to elucidate how many ways in which this compromised the work we'd done but suffice to say it pretty much consigned it to the rubbish bin in one stupid stroke y'see we weren't working on way out remixes ( as later everyone envisaged ) no , we were working on the main versions of these songs , a responsibility we took incredibly seriously.
It had to be his songs but very imaginatively sonically coloured , this was the centre of it all .
He'd also miraculously pretty much adopted the same track list that we'd been working to for the last 18 months on this ' other ' album ( which he obviously knew very well ) and now when you consider we had 70% the same tracks , yes very differently produced but same structure pretty much cos why would we gratuitously restructure his songs if it was his main album ? Would be suicide for everyone so we were loving , this was the job of an alchemist , to be far out but perfectly far in , contained , streamlined , coherent but very imaginative , to accept the language of the greatest sonic pop , to add character but the voice and song had to be centre !
I say 70% the same tracks but luckily we'd dragged him kicking and screaming to write new tracks spontaneously in the studio with us by bringing several original backing tracks to the table that we'd composed .
The problem with both these tracks ( later became ' the Right Stuff & the Mexican) is they were brilliant demos but needed refining and we were left to finish them without the vocalist !!!! ie an impossible task but we persevered and used the old technique of GIMME SHELTER / the stones not to mention primals / Monday's / and even rap 😀where the female ' diva ' provides the chorus ... Worked a treat but obviously Noel would have to refine his songs .
When the bombshell hit that ours wasn't the main album, that the track order of ours had been copied but reassured by the mighty mouth saying how ' far out ' ours was at the infamous cinema 'not one but two album announcement ' press conference that we watched aghast online at the time, we were left with no choice than to hastily rearrange our album into a different order at the last minute elevating the new ( remember -unfinished )material to pole position to try and present it as the radical alternatives / remixes it was now suddenly being presented ( and shortly marketed ) as .
It was an unholy deception , oversight , whatever you want to call it on their account not to tell us & it was practically immediately fucked , we knew it , these weren't remixes ( only Shoot a Hole was a remix and we did that specifically to get something really more out there on the album because despite all our sonic coloring it was hard to transform that first bunch of songs from the mid paced insular strum a thon that they were ( with due respect .)
The agreement ( especially now we'd written new tracks for / with him ) was always that he was gonna oversee final mix and be able to refine the new songs and as we stood in the bar at the aftershow with the apology fresh from his lips he continued
' you've done great work , all the arrangements , sounds , everything is good and the new tracks are the best things on there . This albums gonna be great but the next one will be in the top 5 albums of all time cos we'll do the whole thing like those new tracks !'
( **NB / take good note of this because this becomes particularly relevant regarding his new album )
He continued ' but I'm gonna mix it in between my tour dates , we've got a plan , trust me '
I left excited , faith partially renewed .i excitedly recounted the conversation to Brian on the phone from the hotel the next morning .
As Noel's tour rolled out , the initial lukewarm reception for his HFB album ( no doubt partly inspired by the anticipation for ours , even he was mildly apologetic about it ' the first one is what you'd expect but the second one , well , that's the furthest out I've EVER been , I can tell you , space jazz , vaudeville rock and cosmic pop ... and that's only on the first track !!) ) gradually transformed into sofa chat shows and gigs and album units began to tot up and gradually ( through the media only never to us directly ) the tone of the ' furthest out I've ever been ' changed into ' can't be arsed ' ' the mixes ain't right , I'm all about the mixes ' until finally when our noise appeared in the media ' it was shit ' and he'd broken the only cd ( gotta laugh )
It was certainly a gargantuan task to complete the final stage and maybe he simply never anticipated how big ( plus I expect his lackies ( sore from their own systemic abuse over the years ( who also wanted to produce his record I might add )made sure he would be well shafted in helping him complete ( probably over exaggerating its complexity and the $$$$ bills required no doubt ) ? Who knows ? )
Anyway , the point being the work never got completed .Maybe the initial fear he had about his solo album needing to be different to satisfy critics and fans had abated somewhat , maybe he just didn't need to extend himself anymore now the other album was gaining acceptance ? Who knows but within the next six months our album died by media ie we were told nothing directly but saw a mounting shitstorm of negativity created in order to finally sack it off .
I don't think there are any words to describe how this feels when you've put 18 months of your love and heart into a project . I'd been advised to not cessate AA activity in this time but that's exactly what I did at a time we were going strong , Monstrous Psych Bubble was picking up awards and our own album was in progress & very exciting plus we were picking up lots of remix / production work and gigs too .
We'd been paid a reasonable advance for all this work sure , but beyond paying for our mortgages for the 18 months there was no gain , the gain would be in a great album selling worldwide . Producers know the game ....
So yes , words can't describe how we felt and yet this was simply the beginning ....
Once I'd alchemized my anger at some of the short sighted fuck ups of this and tried to divorce from what we personally ( and career ) stood to lose by the album never appearing I sent Noel ' the Cartel ' our imaginary film soundtrack psychsploitation album which had sampled a few bits from our album with him - I didn't need to ask really ( he would never have recognized the bits anyway ) but yeh why not ? I like the chaos and honesty of sampling and I always like to tell and credit the musicians , it benefits all , hopefully the music is cool plus From my perspective the story of the people and and he was no different so I fully disclosed . He loved it and seemed delighted to be credited for his parts / loops / samples the sessions I sample makes the music what it is !
' not surprisingly it's fuckin brilliant ' came the text reply.
We then started talking via text and I mentioned the new tracks that we'd initially provided which had inspired two new songs in two days from our 'aborted ' album project and he said ' funny enough I've just been working on them and yes they're fuckin ace '
I was delighted artistically but also assumed he'd rightly credit us for our writing and that somehow something positive would come out of it all . I'd also sent him an unholy rant telling him all the ways in which his deceit / oversight ( call it what you will ) / not fulfilling his part of the deal to finish the work had cost us personally and artistically and how how utterly disrespectful it was to anything approaching the artistic process . He took it all in his stride, knowing there was justice in my anger and we pretty much reached a new balance within several emails / texts .
Several days later I received a new text saying ' maybe you'd like to do some remixes this time of some of the tracks on the new album, & do what we should have done last time and let's start out knowing this are alternative versions , remixes , do an alternative ep kinda thing '
Knowing our joint ( co written ) tracks are on the album this seemed a great idea and I enthused and the album duly arrived for our inspection . ' Chasing Yesterday ' was good , the sound had character and honesty and he'd finally employed StrangeBoy on lead guitar which we'd also done ( despite them going back years this had never happened before ). To our ears he was one of the greatest guitarists we'd recorded and we've worked with some greats , so over 2/3 days we used him on everything under the sun . This had helped free up the wall of guitar strum very effectively and altogether created more feeling and honesty .
We loved ' chasing yesterday ' or more accurately ( I am a producer after all ) I dropped the 'Noel by numbers' cliche tracks reordered those remaining and listened & imagined our version of the album and absolutely loved it !!!! This was gonna put right all the unresolved shit from the first album . I was happy . I just wanted people to hear how good some of this material was and here was a chance to salvage at least the two tracks we'd co written
At this stage , the plan for an ep changed to an alternative version of the whole album since there were at least 7 tracks we wanted to remix . These included both of the tracks I've mentioned that we initially wrote and instigated . They were now called ' the Right Stuff ' and ' the Mexican '.
He'd finally refined , resolved his initial writing on these and on 'the Right Stuff' in particular had done a great job . 'The Mexican' we were less enamored with since it had stripped all the GIMME SHELTER groovy hipness and towering diva hipness out and most of our sampling & reduced it to a ( clean sounding ) but rather plodding rocker !
Still , all was good since we obviously chose both in our 7 tracks and we'd bring all that stuff back in ! Sweet sweet Jane , this was gonna be good !
His management suggested ' the current market rate for remixing was £500/ track ' so we should receive 4K for this work in total and we looked at the 2 months work ( we'd been given that as a deadline so we were gonna bust ass ) and it was quite obviously taking the piss so I just went straight to Noel and said as much . It was raised to 8 k and then we politely enquired what writing splits we'd be given for both ' the Mexican ' and
' the Right Stuff ' to which we were told we'd just co produced so no publishing as a writer but solely a point royalty for co production which would be cross collateralized against our advance ( meaning unless it sold 4 million ( I kid you not !!) we would receive nothing !
I tried discussing writing versus production differences of interpretation with Noel - he didn't even know the months of writing and plotting on both those tracks that we'd spent let alone countless hundreds of hours working and collaging and conducting sessions with musicians to put them together in preparation for him but he still dismissed it as ' just production '.
I will say this , I find it incredibly arrogant that strumming chords and singing some lyrics be considered by anyone as 100 % the song . It's very much the outlook of a guitar man and conveniently misses out the last 30 years of songwriting evolution . Where would Donna Summer be without Georgio's backing or Morrissey without MARR ( but then that's guitars innit so maybe in his world only guitar backing counts ?? Kinda figures but it ain't right )
I must point out that we work similarly with countless other musicians including Mr Paul Weller and not one of them upholds this view and in every instance we are credited and included as writers ( i.e. Receive publishing splits which means we share the revenue when the song is used or played anywhere - this is our very bread and butter when figures like 4K /8k are being bandied about for two solid months work in our fourties both with children ??!!!! ) so this was particularly hurtful especially in light of how ( initially ) reluctant he was to try this approach or in fact , to work on them or to see how important these two tracks were to provide him with something a little bit different to pepper his album . This was solely our initiative to do this and went well outside of our commitments as producer ( we could have just worked on his material and volunteered nothing
? )
I gently persisted in asserting our rights and the fairness to receive publishing in an email over the weekend and on the Monday without warning the remix album was axed and all plans dropped and we were left with the challenge to take him to court which I don't think I would ever do ( time and money plus emotionally what a drain of resource right there ! )
I haven't spoken to him since .
I've heard him mention that the main innovation on his next album is that it's all spontaneously written in the studio ? Sound familiar ?
NB / I probably won't respond to further questions unless I think it's useful to do so since ' I have nothing further to add at this point ' 🙏🏼❤️❤️🤕
gaz x
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