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El País (Spain) - 27/05/2005 (translated by a fan; edited by us for readability)

Big Mouths of the world, come together!

Three years without putting out an album. We missed Oasis. Their insolent attitude. Their classic sounds. And, specially, the interviews with Noel Gallagher. Professional guitarist, vocational dictator and always a big mouth, hitting out against everyone and everything. Don't Believe The Truth is the ironic new title of the most rude Manchester band.

At this point, the world doesn't boil every time there is news about the Gallaghers. Things have changed a lot. At the Sony headquarters in London we hear the album, which is better than the last two. Its virtue: don't pretend to be what it is not. It's simply a new Oasis record. "In which mood is Noel today?" we ask to the Sony guy in Oxford Street. He answers that he is feeling quite happy today. Good mood. We open the doors at the Big Brother Recordings office, the Gallaghers' company after the collapse of Creation Records, and there he is: jean jacket, huge sideburns and a scary angry face. He points a finger at us: "I hope you have intelligent questions to ask. I'm not in the fucking mood for bullshit today!" Then he points to the poor people sitting at their tables: "And you, fucking hell, I told you no more interviews with German female-oriented magazines!" And he laughs. The Gallaghers are back in town. Maybe they have not the hymns but they wear the show in the veins.

Interviewer: After more than 10 years in the business, you can't be surprised about anything. Noel Gallagher: Yeah, but the thing is that the older you get, the more intolerant you are. You run out of patience. I can't work too much.

Interviewer: What's in your opinion a stupid question? I don't want to screw it up, you know… Noel: Stupid questions only come from US journalists. Bullshit. They wanna know your opinion about the Prince Charles wedding. 'Is it correct what Prince Charles did getting married with Camila?' Why the fuck are you asking me, mate?!

Interviewer: Is going back to work this traumatic? Noel: No, it isn't. It's great to be back in business. If it's with a good album, this job is great. But, you know, I'm the only one doing interviews. Here they might think I'm the fucking Superman. People who listen to the new album say they like it. Everybody likes it. Something that was not happened since Definitely Maybe. It's a special moment.

Interviewer: This will save you two years in a defensive attitude. Noel: But I must say things as I feel them. I'm not gonna tell you that everything we've done in the past is wonderful because I'd be lying. When they release their latest new album, many bands always say it's their best. I'm not like them. If you listen to Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants and you compare it with Definitely Maybe, and you have the balls to say that SOTSOG is better…. you are a fucking idiot. Of course it's not the best one!!! But it's the best we could do at that moment. You are sincere and people get an image about you. A guy who is very self-critical with his work. Always in a defensive attitude. But I can be critical about my work 'cos it's mine. This new album is the best since (What's The Story) Morning Glory? and that's it. It's the best in 10 years. No one can argue with that. I think there are good songs in all the albums we have recorded after WTSMG. About Be here Now… better if I forget about that period of my life, really.

Interviewer: Do you regret many things? Noel: I only regret of one thing in my life. After playing Knebworth, we went back to the States and it didn't work out. We wanted to continue and we should have stopped, come up for air and come back with fresh new ideas.

Interviewer: It seems you were two years near collapse. Noel: We have been always near the edge. Since Definitely Maybe, there's always been a lot of tension between Liam and me. Specially in those years when all was taken to extremes. You are on the top of the mountain and then you have only one road to follow: walking down the mountain. Since Knebworth, it's been a soft going down. We almost reached the fucking bottom in the SOTSOG era… when the press murdered us. And we still sold out Wembley. But they killed us, and I don't think it was for the music. They wanted to destroy the Oasis concept. They repudiate us. With Andy and Gem, things have changed.

Interviewer: Which band do you think can get Oasis' torch? Noel: None. The torch is mine, and they will have to amputate it from me. One of these bands have to record a brilliant album. Not a good one, one that is pure genius. Kasabian, Razorlight, The Libertines… all of them have lost the opportunity 'cos their debut albums are good ones, but not brilliant. If your debut album is huge, you can inspire the world. If your debut album is just ok… you'll just be ok. DM has had twelve years and people still speak about it. In twenty years, people will still comment on this album, unless someone writes a better one. The problem is that a better one can only be written by me and I'm too old for that.

The Gallaghers and their Love / Hate for the press.

Noel answers like this when we ask him about the press.

The questions: "I love doing interviews. The problem is that there are far too many. Yesterday I did nine, we played for two hours, then I came back here 'cos there was a lot of work to do and I got home at 22.00h. I was so tired. One interview in the morning and one in the evening. I'll love that."

Interviews sorting: "The first one uses to be a good one. You are a lucky guy 'cos you are the first today. The second is not bad, but the fifth...."

The answers: He knows them all: "it's like an exam about yourself that you have already passed."

Private life: "Liam has more problems with that. If I find a guy digging in my garbage, I ask him to stop for a second while I leave my bag. If I read bullshit about me, I don't really care... It's not true so why should I care about something that's a lie? But Liam gets really mad. Lots of people call their lawyers. Why spend money to get an apology on page 56? If they say things that are true that I don't want to be known... that's when I get mad."

Liam's fame: "He doesn't know how to live with that. He is far too stressed. He always wants to start a war with the journalists punching them in the middle of the street 'cos, for him, they are the first line of the enemy army."

Noel's fame: "For me, journalists are just guys with a camera that try to earn some money doing their job."

Interviewer: How long it will take you till you are tired of all of this? Noel: The question is how d'you feel with time passing by. When you are young, you think that whoever is in a rock band older than 35 is a cockney cunt. Now I think that if I feel ok with what I'm doing, and if we still are good looking, we go ahead. But… if someone in the band starts going bald, the band is no more. Bald heads on a stage are nasty. I must say, anyway, that during SOTSOG there was a moment where I start to doubt we could go ahead. In order to save the band, two members should leave and two new ones should enter. When the present world tour is over, we will see if someone has written some really good tunes, and then we will decide. I've got the feeling that my body will give up sooner than my talent.

Interviewer: And how's your talent these days? Noel: Listen to the album. It's all there.

Interviewer: Why is it easier to write songs at 22 years than 35? Noel: Look. When I was 22, my only possessions were a guitar , a couple of jeans, a leather jacket and a toothbrush without the fuckin' toothpaste. I had no responsibilities except myself. I was writing songs all day. Now I'm 37, I've got an ex-wife, I have all this… there's no time. But listen, I must say I love the songs I've written for this album.

Interviewer: Yeah… but it's 6 songs in 3 years. It's not a great average, let's admit it. Noel: Fuck, man. Of course. It's a lot of time but I'd really love to have three years for the next record because with time you can compose a better album. I'd have loved to spend three years between WTSMG and Be He Now.

Interviewer: Why do you hate so much Be He Now? Noel: I don't hate it. I just think I didn't work on it enough. I didn't make any effort. I sat on a table when I was on holidays in the Caribbean and I wrote the first thing it came to my mind. I'm really pissed with myself for taking a lot of things for granted. But the thing is that I came back to the UK, I performed those songs to people, and everybody was like: "It's incredible! Unbelievable!" And I was like: "D'you really think so? D'you really mean it?" Fuck, man. I was starting to think I was a fucking genius. This took me five minutes to compose and people think it's brilliant. I blame myself, McGee, the manager, the producer, the band and every fucking person in the world for not telling me what they really were thinking.

Interviewer: But at that point you were untouchable. Noel: We were gods, man. All of us had too much ego. The thing is that those kind of songs are the ones that a radio never airs 'cos they are far too long. It's a madness that only generates more madness. Oasis, fucking fools, go and write All Around The World, which lasts for 11 minutes, a fucking crazyness, and it's a fucking single!! And radio stations played it whole.

Interviewer: In the political cultural mayhem two years ago we didn't see you around. You don't believe in that? Noel: Getting involved in politics as a band? Never. I don't think I know enough about that to be involved. And some of that people should realize that they don't know either. But Thom Yorke or Damon Albarn feel a lot of passion for manifestations. It's not for me. I've got a million better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than hanging around in circles in Hyde Park. You never change anything. You can write a song saying "fuck off Bush" but it's useless. I prefer to entertain my people. My rights are expressing my opinion every five years and that's what I do. I go and I vote Labour. Fuck! If Tories would win I'd pay less taxes. Better for me. But I think morally you are almost forced to vote for the progressives (left). They defend the workers. I'll never vote to a conservative party (right). Fucking fascists.

Interviewer: D'you have friends in this business? Noel: I make friends easily. Don't laugh, man. (laughs) I mean it. I like a lot of bands and lots of people that play in bands, not like in the 90s, when I hated everyone around. Damon Albarn, that girl from Elastica, I couldn't stand them. It's curious but I always get on really well with Jarvis Cocker. But I used to hate all the rest with all my soul. They kept saying all those lies about us.

Interviewer: It was like you were not accepted in their club. Noel: They never accepted us because we were from the north. We had no journalist friends. And those guys went to pubs to drink with journalists. We ended up alone. But people accepted us. We were like exiled kings.

Interviewer: Is your relationship with the press better now? Noel: I hate tabloids. Look, one of these newspapers ended with a copy of our album and they did a track by track review and the review was hilarious. I have no problems with the music press. It's supposed that they know of what are they talking about. But the tabloids… uuff… I can't stand them 'cos they write like idiots. They stink. And people… why do they read them? They are terribly written, fuck! They listen to Mucky Fingers and…. ok, tell me… what does it remind you? Interviewer: Dylan in Subterranean Homesick Blues? The Velvet Underground in I'm Waiting For The Man? Noel: Correct. Interviewer: Can I ask for a salary raise? Noel: When you get to Spain. Those cunts wrote: "Noel does all that he can to sound like Bruce Springsteen". Bruce Springsteen!! When the fuck have I sounded like Bruce Springsteen? This pisses me off. I'm so fucked it's so badly written that my 5-year-old daughter can understand it… Interviewer: In two years your daughter sees the mistakes. Noel: For sure. Now I'm remembering another song review. It was like: "This song has a very simple lyrics." That's the entire review. That's it. Fuck! I've read your shitty newspaper. It has very simple texts.

Interviewer: How do you think the charts are going to be affected with the internet downloads? Noel: It will be a lot of corruption. If you belong to EMI and you need to sell 10,000 more albums to be number one, someone can download these files. No one controls that. It's easier to download 10,000 albums than going to a shop and buying them.

Interviewer: What do you hate the most in the world… now that Elastica doesn't exist? Noel: Manchester United. I can't stand it. I think most of my hates are related with football. What about Liverpool? A bunch of bastards. Everton? I can't stand them. And the Tottenham? Oh, man, how I hate them. Middlesbrough? Buuff… I hate them so much. Newscastle? The worst…

Interviewer: What do you do in these days when you have no obligations? Noel: I get up at nine, have breakfast, watch TV and play guitar. I love doing nothing. I can sit here and look through that window for hours. And my girlfriend says: "What are you doing?" and I answer: "I'm working." "What do you mean?" she asks, poor girl. "Well, look, I'm thinking and when I'm thinking, I'm working." "Okay, but what are you thinking, Noel?" and that's when I start to feel a little bit nervous. "I just think! I'm thinking things, fucking hell!!" But she still doesn't understand me, and the girl keeps insisting. "Look, when I think, I write it down and what I write down maybe will end up as a song, so I'm working, so, if you don't mind, shut the fuck up!!"

Interviewer: Do you have any middle age hobby? Collecting stamps? Noel: No way. Look, I have a 5 years old daughter and a 35 years old little brother. That's more than enough to keeping me busy. They absorb all my time. I really like doing the album covers and so… Interviewer: Apart from music, for what do you think you have a special talent? Noel: Well, the album sleeve design it's not that bad… i'm good at having ideas. It's 6 o'clock in the fucking morning and I'm looking through the window and I think "Fuck! What an amazing idea I've just had for a videoclip!"

Interviewer: Albums are just a bunch of good songs or they need something else? Noel: Death In Vegas seemed to be worried only for the vibe. "Oh, guys, what a cool vibe this song has." And I kept telling them: "This song is shit, so the vibe can never be good." And they were always answering that the song wasn't working but it would be much better when they were finished with it, giving it… that… the vibe. No, guys. We don't work that way.

Don't Believe The Truth is released the 30th of May.

You will love it if you like The Beatles, Brit Pop, BBC comedies, Springsteen and the MTV. Another date: 1st of June in Madrid. Also in Benicàssim. A cursed record: Be Here Now is the fastest selling album of all the time in the UK. 600,000 copies in 3 days. Family Rules: Noel couldn't decide the first single release and has doubts about the chosen, Lyla. He would have chosen Mucky Fingers. Democracy in Oasis? "Someone has to be the chief. If not, this would be a fucking mess. I think Radiohead are a democracy and their albums are terribly chaotic. Maybe that works for them but not for us. Furthermore, we are not as nice people as them. Thom Yorke was right when he said Oasis was like the UN. I'd say that, in this UN, I am the US.

#don't believe the truth #noel gallagher #oasis #2005 #when I was 22 my only possessions were a guitar and a leather jacket #yeah cause poor Louise paid the rent

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