Noel Gallagher claims to have “albums’ and albums’ worth” of unreleased music, some of which dates back more than two decades. As the singer prepares to put out his second solo LP with High Flying Birds, he could yet release a “stockpile” of tunes from the Oasis days.
“I’ve just recorded an album, but I’ve still got another 30 songs,” Gallagher told BBC Radio 4, in an interview via NME. “I’ve never been in the studio with less than 30 songs … [and] I’ve had a stockpile of songs since 1993.”
1993 was the year Oasis recorded their blockbuster debut, Definitely Maybe, and even then Gallagher was writing more music that was getting used. In each Oasis album cycle, he claimed, “we were using five [of my songs], but I was still writing 15, 20 songs, so there’s loads of stuff left over from those days”.
This is probably only true beginning with 2002’s Heathen Chemistry: before then, almost every track that Oasis released was credited to Gallagher; an average of about 10 tracks per full-length. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t Morning Glory-era extras. “Because you move so fast as a writer, and you can only really do 10 songs on an album at a time,” Gallagher said, “lots get left behind.” If Oasis had stayed together, the material that appeared on Gallagher’s 2011 solo debut would only have been “dotted around [bigger] albums … they would have never been [released as] a collection of songs”.
Chasing Yesterday, Gallagher’s new record, is due out on 2 March. Fans have already bootlegged live or soundchecked songs that didn’t make the final cut. “They’ll probably never see the light of day because I’ll always have new stuff.” In fact, this new record already feels to Gallagher like yesterday’s news. “I finished [it] last July … I’m already bored with it,” he said.
Gallagher is also regretting the title. “We needed a title right ‘now’ – this was two months ago,” he recalled. After choosing Chasing Yesterday, “the next day I thought, ‘That’s an awful title.’ It was already on iTunes, can’t change it now.”
