Noel Gallagher talks Abbey Road Studios and his dreams of collaborating with Neil Young

Noel Gallagher stopped by the world famous Abbey Road Studios – well, he only lives around the corner – at the start of this month to rehearse for his upcoming US tour and check out the new Gatehouse studios, which is reserved for emerging artists, and has previously seen visits from Novelist and Mura Masa. Here’s what he had to say for himself…

What are you listening to now?

Noel Gallagher: “One song that has blown me away is Cola by CamelPhat. I wish I’d wrote it. I keep going to back to the first album by Jungle too which they’re about to follow up. I’m not impressed by much new music, I must say. I was watching a 1984 Top of The Pops the other night and The Smiths were on doing ‘How Soon Is Now?’ And my ten year old is watching it with me and said ‘this is weird, I love it’. Then he said ‘all songs from the eighties were about proper stuff weren’t they? Now, when I listen to the radio, all the songs sound the same, they are about relationships’. And I thought, well, you’ve got a lot to look forward to because your dad has an an excellent record collection. I can’t wait until he hears the ‘Headmaster Ritual’.”

If you could work with anybody, who would it be?

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“I have to say, it would be Neil Young and Crazy Horse. If I could write a song and record it with them, it would be fucking unbelievable. I’d like to work with Morrissey as well because he’s a big part of my
teenage years. I’d like to write a song with Shaun Ryder as well, that would be great.”

Are you writing at the moment?

“I don’t have a guitar in my house for the first time since I was 13, so I’ve been writing songs on the bass. It’s unbelievable. It takes all the emotion out of it and you get more of a groove but I’m loving it so that’s what I’m doing at the moment. So everything I’m writing at the minute sounds like The Police, The Cure or if The Police and The Cure were in a band together.”

Noel Gallagher at Abbey Road 2-2-18 by Jill Furmanovsky

You just turned fifty. What would the 25 year old Noel say to 50 year old Noel?

“I didn’t have a record deal when I was 25 so I’d sneak up on myself and say ‘everything is gonna be fine. You’ll make mistakes along the way but in the long run, everything is going to be unbelievable.”

What’s your view on one of the smaller, new studios on site at Abbey Road Studios, The Gatehouse, designed for emerging artists?

“I’m a bit disappointed you’ve not called one the Gallagher studio. Or the NG studio at least. I think it’s a good thing. I always see the big studios in here which can be a bit out of reach for some so it’s good that emerging artists can use Abbey Road and the catering of course without shelling out £400,000 a week for Studio 1. I must point out that it is not £400,000 per week by the way.”

If an emerging artist asked why you needed a studio, what would you say?

“It depends what kind of music you make. If you’re a techno person in a baseball cap, you need a tiny room and a computer but if you’re a band and planning on getting out on the road then it’s advisable that you
record in a studio because then you’ll get a feel for what it is you’re trying to do. People from my generation, I don’t understand the guy in the baseball cap, I like the music but I don’t like the process – it takes too long. There’s nothing like being in a room and jamming it out and seeing what happens. All the records that I love, all the great records that have ever been made have been made by trial and error in rooms like The Gatehouse studio here.”

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Pics: Jill Furmanovsky at rockarchive.com

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