Former Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher launched his solo career on Wednesday with the announcement he has penned two albums – and an admission he regretted the British band’s explosive split.
Two years after walking away from Oasis after constant feuding with his brother Liam, the band’s lead singer, he announced that an eponymous debut album by his band Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds would be released on October 17.
The 10-track album was recorded in London and Los Angeles over the past 18 months. The band will go on tour shortly after its release, with the first gig in Dublin, Mr Gallagher told a London press conference.
“It’s not very guitar hero,” he said, suggesting it would be a departure from his previous work with Oasis, who were hugely popular as part of the Britpop music movement in the mid-1990s and sold 50 million records worldwide.
But the 44-year-old reassured fans that some of the songs would have hints of Oasis’ guitar-driven, Beatles-inspired pop, saying: “People who are fans of what I do will hear echoes of what Oasis do in there.”
The second album, an as yet untitled collaboration with psychedelic outfit Amorphous Androgynou, would be a far less mainstream record, Mr Gallagher said.
“It’s the furthest out I’ve ever been, let’s put it that way,” he said, to laughter from reporters. It is due for release in 2012.
Liam, 38, has continued his career with the band Beady Eye, made up of former Oasis musicians. The band released an album earlier this year called Different Gear, Still Speeding.
Having stayed quiet until now on the final moments of Oasis in August 2009, Mr Gallagher broke his silence on Wednesday to describe the last row between the brothers at the heart of one of Britain’s most successful bands.
The argument erupted before the band was due to take the stage at a festival near Paris after Liam said he wanted to advertise his clothing label in the band’s programme without paying, which Mr Gallagher said angered him.
Liam stormed into the band’s dressing room wielding a guitar like an axe, said his brother. “He nearly took my face off with it,” said the guitarist.
When a stage manager announced there were five minutes until the band was to play, Noel walked out, forcing the cancellation of the gig and bringing the curtain down on Oasis for good.
“I regret it really, because we only had two gigs left,” he said.
“If I had my time again, I would have gone back and done the gigs.”
The band could have had some time apart to cool down and then discussed their problems, he said, adding: “We may never have split up.”
Formed in 1991 in Manchester, a hotbed of music in northwest England, Oasis released their debut album Definitely Maybe in 1994. Their best-known hits include Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back in Anger.