Noel Gallagher is “embarrassed” when told his career accolades, as he thinks he’s “just a chancer from a council estate who dropped out of school”. The Oasis legend has eight No1 singles, has sold more than 70million records worldwide and is widely credited as being one of the most successful British songwriters of all time.
But during an appearance on Radio 2’s First And Last via The Sun.
, which is out today via the BBC Sounds app, Noel told Cerys Matthews: “I am a chancer from a council estate . . . I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. It is all by feel and ear and that’s it. I have never had a single music lesson in my life. It’s not that I don’t believe in them but I think if someone teaches you then you are putting their teachings into practice. But if you teach yourself, it is coming from a place that is unifiable. I don’t know where they come from and I don’t want to know. I’m not interested, it is all magic to me.”
Noel would be a huge part of Britpop with Oasis, but what makes him so special is that he still has a grip on the scene all himself.
He said: “I often thought when I was younger that my future lay in music somewhere and honestly, when I met Inspiral Carpet and became their roadie, I thought, ‘I knew it. This is it. This is my thing’. I was on tour with them and I called home and said, ‘How is the other fella (Liam)?’ and Mum said he was in a band. They were called Oasis and they were all right. Initially they asked me to be their manager, then they asked me to join.”
From then on, Noel was catapulted into music history, but he found himself trying to re-do what Oasis had already done.
He said: “Back in those days I never used to second-guess myself. I was always like, ‘Get down and get on with it’. It’s only when you sell 40 million records you think, ‘Oh, I should behave like a songwriter who has sold 40 million albums’. But then you over- think things. It took ages to get out of that rut and to where I am now. Now I don’t care if they don’t make sense. They make sense to me. I have two albums’ worth of music just waiting for those final lyrics to tie it all together.”
