Tales From the Mighty I

On September 25 2011, Noel did live radio sessions, as well as a batch of interviews, for a few radio shows ahead of the High Flying Birds tour.

The tour kicked off the first leg of what would become a two legged tour through-out North and South America as well as the Asia leg in 2012 and the Oceania and so on.

This debut album tour would last until November 13 2012.

Here's the full day's live radio show broadcasts that happened on September 25, 2011:

RTL 102.5 FM:

01. If I Had a Gun 02. AKA... What a Life! 03. Supersonic

Watch here

Virgin Radio Italy:

01. If I Had a Gun

Watch here

RMC1:

01. The Death of You and Me

Watch here

This came out of nowhere. I had no idea that the two brothers were already planning this out at all. I had a few hints given to me prior to the announcement. Some old sources were stepping out of the wood-works and passing the info along as to what exactly the reunion was about or what it could entail.

But to actually have a reunion become REALITY just made no sense to me. I mean, I was properly SHOCKED when the announcement happened!

There's truly no shame in sending it home and packing when you're dealing with a certain percentage of the community. Months ago now, I had stepped back from the Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds community and the Oasis community. I had my reasons; reasons I won't discuss here for the time being. Just that, a lot of the things I had in mind had fallen through the cracks and really left me vulnerable. A lot of the community members who knew me all started creeping in and getting too close, and that's as far as I'll go in detailing what exactly happened and why I stepped back.

But back to the reunion --

I really, REALLY, truly... DID NOT see this happening whatsoever. The Masterplan 25th Reissue happened. That came and went, that's literally the last thing I remember in the PR circuit. Then there were dripfeeds of the Definitely Maybe 30th peeking around the corner, but absolutely NOTHING about a reunion behind the news of the 30th anniversary came about from it. I know what you're thinking, 'But there wasn't though, was there...?' You're right, there wasn't.

How this all started was-- I don't know how it started. All I can say is that, planning had started over a year ago now. Well over a year ago. 'Going Nowhere' at the Abbey Road Studios from HFB should've been a big hint as to what was going on. But I suppose the giant hint should've been that there wasn't anything happening at Noel's new studio. This was something I completely overlooked and didn't even know was a thing.

Apparently Noel had shut down the studio for quite some time. A few visits happened. A "couple" were scheduled for a visit at some point. To this day, nobody knows if that was actually Debbie and Liam. It's never been confirmed if it was actually Debbie and Liam. But nothing confirmed. Nothing gained.

And you know?

Fucking right on, i'm very glad nothing was spoiled after that. Truly!

Really all I can say is, I was shocked. I'm glad the reunion is finally a reality.

And it will NOT be televised.

(Maybe some gigs will be livestreamed. but we'll see, won't we?)

Cheers

~Cam x

With the new Black Keys LP on the way, it’s only right that a consolidated write-up piece that collects every bit of information important to the lead up and collaboration between The Black Keys and Noel, be delivered in such a way that, hopefully gives you the full scope of their collaboration.

Patrick, Dan and Noel will tell it all. 

Though mostly Patrick talks through everything about the record all the way back from 2023 to most recently with Joe Rogan, so we’ll start there. And fair warning, there will be a few repeated lines as per the promotional jargon they’ve managed to whittle down before every time the duo speaks about the new LP.

It will jump back and forth, so there’s that to look out for as well.

Let’s start.

Patrick Carney to Rogan: “We made our new record collaborating with people, and one of the guys we wanted to work with was Noel Gallagher from Oasis. So we kept reaching out to him, seeing if he would be up for it, and we kept hearing back that he doesn’t really do that (co-writing songs). And I remembered that my neighbor, who I golf with, used to be Oasis’ agent. So I asked him if he could reach out and through that, we heard back that Noel would be up for recording with us, if we went to London. So we flew all the way to London and rented this small, little studio (Toe Rag Studios). And we barely knew Noel, we met him briefly. But we went in there with no song and sat down with him, and within a couple hours we had a song written and recorded.”

Pat (cont.): “And we did it three days in a row. And we had four days booked. After the first day, we got what we needed. It’d be cool if we got more…–”

Dan Auerbach (interjected): “The rest will be gravy, but we got what we needed. We came for the trip!”

Pat: “Yep, and the second day we got ‘On The Game’, and the third day we got a song called ‘Only Love Matters’ but the fourth day we showed up and were like, ‘We are NOT fucking pressing it!’. We went three-for-three. But let’s not fuck this up. So we spent the whole (fourth) day just bullshitting with him.”

Dan: “It was such an amazing feeling being in the room with him (Noel). We cut it in a studio called Toe Rag and the live room is this size, like this room (points out to the room). Pat’s drum kit is here (points again), little keyboard here, I’m right there and Noel’s right there. We were just in a circle and, you know, what you hear on the record is (one of the live takes) we did. It was like, the second or third time we got through the song without fucking it up. [..] It is the best feeling. It’s the most addictive thing ever, being able to get in the studio and make something out of nothing like that.”

Rogan speaks up briefly to praise ‘On The Game’ from Noel and the band, and expresses that he’s grateful to have been able to listen to Ohio Players early. When asking about the origins of the band and the meaning of the track, Pat lets on about a day at the Chiltern Firehouse where Noel would frequent.

Pat: “The cool thing about ‘On The Game’, we got everything but the lyrics. But the melody was there. We kind of made a point (in) making this album that for the first time we were going to, I guess, kind of do it the way that maybe bands used to do it in the 70s. We were going to stay at the nicest hotels, the funnest– the MOST fun hotels. We were going to have fun. So when we’re out in London, we were staying at the Chiltern Firehouse, just kind of partying every single night, and then dragging ourselves to the studio. One night, Noel was hanging out with us and he was like, pointing to some girl at the bar, he’s like, ‘Oh, she’s for sure on the game!’. And we’ve been to England fifty times but we never heard that expression. We’re like, ‘what’s that?’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, she’s a working girl, she’s probably… you know, she’s probably a prostitute.’ Which checks out, I think! And then Dan was like, ‘Yeah, everybody here is on the game.’ But making this record was so much fun.”

You can watch that podcast here for the rest of the episode.

Earlier in the year, the band also sat down with Uncut Magazine and gave the album a preview for their January 2024 Album Preview issue.

Pat starts, “Dan makes a lot of records for Easy Eye, and when he does those, he’s always writing and collaborating with the artists. But the only other person we’d written with was Danger Mouse. So this time we decided to go a little deeper into our rolodex and call some people we’d been talking about working with for a long time,” says Carney.

“We just hit the ground running and we’re making songs as soon as we can.” Auerbach interjects.

Carney continued, “It came out so easy that we were trying to think of other people that we could throw in the mix, and the person at the top of the list was Noel Gallagher. Everyone was like, ‘Noel doesn’t really write with other people.’ But he agreed to meet us in London. We booked some time at Toe Rag and recorded two songs with Noel in three days.”

In London back in 2023, Pat also briefly spoke to NME about that. “When you’re coming up, it can often feel like competition and you’re constantly stressed. Now, we’re at the point where we can just enjoy everything,” signaling a new start and reference to a newer sound of their, yet-to-be-finished (at the time), 12th studio album.

“The key to our sound is embracing the human element. None of us are virtuosic musicians, there’s just a lot of raw rock ‘n’ roll.”

That same interview was in anticipation of kicking off their UK leg of shows in June 2023 at The O2, Hydro and so forth. 

The band would, at the time, also host DJ nights and continues to do so to this day. 

“It’s just us, partying. We don’t want to go to some crummy bar after the show and listen to shitty music. We’d stay backstage and play music but there’s no one else there, which is kind of boring. This is a way for us to control the jukebox and hangout together. We’ve done a lot of growing up in the last 10 years. Dan and I have always been close but we’ve got a very deep friendship right now. We enjoy hanging out. Getting to go on tour with your friend, it makes the whole thing feel more exciting.”

Carney continues, “When we got back in the studio in 2021, to record what would become Dropout Boogie, something had changed. Obviously the whole world had changed but a year of isolation was enough to change the dynamic between Dan and I. We were really, really, really excited to see each other every day.”

In 2021, that work translated into 9 straight weeks of back-and-forth recording in between touring. Never forgetting to mention that even then, the results would ring in the best sounds possible for the duo and would later, actually, keep going.

“But we just kept working. By the end of the year, we had 17 new ideas down and we just kept going, [..] that was the beginning of what we’re finishing now, an epic album that’s our best record for sure. It won’t be out until next year, though. It’s a weird, full circle thing.”

At the time of the interview, Carney didn’t want to 'give too much away' about 'the new evolution of The Black Keys.' It’s important to note that at the time, in 2021, those sessions would spawn more than 40 newer recordings from the duo, minus collaborations from then.

He does go on about smaller details to end on and also mentions Gallagher for the first time, in this NME interview. 

“We’re working with a lot of people and the vibe of the record is fun. It’s very reflective of our DJ nights in a way, it’s a big Saturday night party record. We just had people come through the studio and throw a little bit of special sauce at each song. There are just so many different collaborations but there’s a thread through it with Dan and I filtering everything. It just feels really fucking amazing.”

In steps Noel.

“He’s hilarious and super talented! We were referring to him as ‘the Chord Lord’ because he’s just a perfectionist with it. Dan and I are big fans of him and Liam. Actually, the Liam song ‘Everything’s Electric’ is why we decided to work with Kurstin.”

In speaking to the vibe of the album in the NME interview, Carney would also go on to say that, “Danger Mouse showed us the trick to collaborating and that’s someone we need to work with again soon. We used to be pretty insular. We were two friends from Akron who didn’t really take part in any music scene, and we weren’t able to hang out backstage early on in our career, because we had to drive to the next show. Now, we’re thriving because we’re including our friends and being more inclusive. That’s what the vibe is with this record.”

The same sentiment is shared between Auerbach, most definitely, when he also spoke with Rolling Stone at the beginning of this year.

“No matter who we work with, it never feels like we’re sacrificing who we are. It only feels like it adds some special flavor. We just expanded that palette with people we wanted to work with. We were there to support them and their ideas, to do whatever we could to see that moment flourish. But when it came time to finish the album, it was just Pat and me.”

And back to the Uncut interview. 

Carney says, “(With other artists), most of the time we’d have the music there (already), so we were just looking for words and melody. But with Noel, we started the songs from scratch. Noel is hilarious and we hit it off instantly. It couldn’t have gone smoother. He was very meticulous about finding the right transitional chords for each section, it was amazing!”

“At Toe Rag, we were all in the room: Pat with the drums,” Auerbach continues, “I was playing the bass, Noel had his 335, and our friend Leon was on keyboards. We were just in a circle in this tiny room, recording live, working up songs in real time, literally figuring out chord changes and melodies. Every song that we got with Noel is a live-take, it just felt really good.”

Another key element I wanted to add here, in finding similar pieces on their collaboration there are details that get left out over time, or other details that get added in. All of the same answers are all similar enough that you can hopefully get a sense of the story through-out. It is literal repeated answers from these interviews from The Black Keys, that it hopefully drives home the spirit and ritualistic practice of recording and songwriting, so I am very aware they’re all similar. 

But that is the point here.

Similarly, Noel spoke about the duo on Matt Morgan’s podcast back in August of 2023, “Recently, I was writing with The Black Keys, and I’d never really met them before– that really did work!”

The sound? 

“If you can imagine my good self and them, that’s what it is. It’s not swampy blues, and it’s not my kind of guitar-pop or whatever you want to call it. It’s somewhere in between… it’s really fucking good!”

Gallagher continued, “There’s a song called It’s Only Love That Matters, and it’s really fucking good!” 

“I’d met Patrick maybe once, but I don’t know them, and they called up my office and asked if I’d be interested in writing with them and we all went at it and did like three tunes in five days.”

Once again, more details get added into the story. In keeping with all answers about recording new music, Noel somehow remembers that it was five days instead of four days, like Pat says, but let’s forget that for a second.

Noel continues, “Patrick and Dan would sit opposite each other, and somebody would play a drum beat. Dan would come up with a chord, and then I’d be like, ‘What if it went there?’. The tunes we’ve done together are pretty cool I think.”

“There was five of them (in the sessions) and one of me, I really enjoyed it!”

And so we’ve made it to the end!

The two recordings co-written and produced from this three day session in London back in 2023 would later turn out to be, ‘Everybody’s On the Game’ and ‘It’s Only Love that Matters’. 

These are of course their full titles that did indeed make the cut out of the 16-track collection for Ohio Players and were later shortened down to ‘On the Game’ and ‘Only Love Matters’, which was then also shortly revealed by Nonesuch Records on both their store and website in late January of this year.

The year prior, after said collaboration, Noel would also be hard at work on putting the finishing touches to what would eventually be the fourth LP released under the High Flying Birds pseudonym, Council Skies. 

Council Skies hit store shelves on June 2, 2023. The album contained 10 tracks and 1 bonus track on the Deluxe edition of the album. The Black Keys did not offer anything back in songwriting or recording duties for the fourth High Flying Birds LP.

The band were recently playing in Austin, Texas (March 14) and debuted the new track from their upcoming album. Ohio Players is set to release on April 5, 2024 with a considerable list of collaborators for the 16-track studio album.

Start your pre-order here at Nonesuch Records' online store now.

The band have so far released two single's for the album: 'Beautiful People (Stay High)' (January 12) and 'I Forgot to be Your Lover' (February 9).

A radio single had also been released to promote the album, 'This is Nowhere' (March 8).

Noel Gallagher co-write the aforementioned track, 'On the Game' and will be included on the upcoming 12th studio album which is the follow-up to 2022's Dropout Boogie from the duo.

When speaking to Uncut Magazine, Dan Auerbach said: "The title was just something Noel said; it feels like such a big song."

Back in July, Noel and the group were due for a few tasks at the famous Fab Four studio, Abbey Road. While there, they filmed the music video for the single, "Open the Door, See What You Find".

Two and possibly more performances were also recorded, which are below:

Going Nowhere

The Masterplan

Noel was also interviewed for his time there at the studio. Which you can also check out here.

The performance and interview are inadvertently in recognition for the release of repackaged, remastered and re-released B-sides compilation, THE MASTERPLAN which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.

The things I got from it are: Noel’s first album was full of songs that he knew would please the Oasis fans. Everything afterwards was a step in the direction where we are now, i.e. the music Noel always wanted to make. Pretty Boy sonically fits in the same mould as WBTM and the EPs.

What can we really expect from the new album? I thought, Noel hinted that it would be mid-tempo songs with string arrangements, etc. So more like his trademark sound up until 2017. But it seems like he wants to carry on with his more disco-y 80ies sound of late (?) We’ll see.

Indeed, we'll have to wait and see. A lot of fans end up getting carried away with the whole "It's Noel, he can't go too far off, can he?" bit. And the other thing that tends to get me to walk away from the community for a while is the fact that, nobody wants to let Oasis go. Noel has. Liam has, and continues to try. I think everyone else should do the same. I'm not saying there shouldn't be hope either for Oasis, but a lot of what has been done, is done. We're fortunate enough to be in an era where a lot of the demo rarities and goodies that were lost to time, or lost inside of a storage bin, are getting recovered and shared thanks to Noel. If Noel hadn't gone solo whatsoever, I promise you, "The Dying of the Light", "God Help Us All" and "Don't Stop..." wouldn't've existed at all today. Truthfully, "God Help Us All" probably would've been the only known, existing demo we would only be aware of if Noel wasn't solo. He would've shared them eventually, but there's definitely no telling or certainty that it would've actually happened if he wasn't solo. A lot of what exists now, exists for the simple fact that had he not gone solo 11 years ago, and thinking back on it, we're insanely lucky. We are so very lucky to have what we have now. And unfortunately, a lot of the Oasis community does not see past that whatsoever. Again, not a criticism against the Oasis community. But there's time for nostalgia. But then there's so much more than the past, there's now and what's after.

As for the new single, it's an exciting time for sure! It's a step a lot of us hope he stays in. Because it suits him. Unlike his star-sign...

Upon living with the track for the days it has been out, it occurred to me that the direction Noel is heading towards might not be as drastic as anyone is making it out to be. On the contrary, close listeners might examine the track for any inklings or traces of the ‘Who Built the Moon?’ or the Extended Play releases. And you’d be completely justified for deeming that the track is nothing but an extension of the theme at play here. Of course, you’d also be selling your theory short of just being half wrong and half-cocked, and be accused of too much bias. Nonetheless, we’re all wrong.

And here’s why.

To mutter, the self-titled debut and, playing all your cards all at once taught us that not everything that you think will work, will in fact work. Out of the two projects that came out of the debut album back in 2010, one of them made it to punchline in July of 2011. Hot off the presses, Noel Gallagher was officially in it for the long haul as a solo artist – FINALLY!

What the debut also taught us was that meeting your heroes has its consequences. Much less, coming to grips that your tenure as the father of Anena rock isn’t all its shaped up to be. Matter of fact, Gallagher didn’t just stop here. 

When the debut hit shelves, and he went out on tour and began with the press, he displayed a fierce valliance that no other solo artist presented at the time. Brooding, and self-reliant on nothing but experience as the other brother to a double barrel shotgun of a force, Oasis. Noel’s point of the debut was so that we would have what we wanted. And we got it. Unfortunately, the first few legs of tours for the debut album also showed us that none of it was enough. Some concert goer’s will admit, he hasn’t exactly been “everywhere” yet. Something bigger was coming.

And that leads us into 2014, when rumblings were a’churpin’, abound with months and months of silence. When finally, the holiday of 2014 saw a year-end single reveal. It is now the wet-nose, windy beginning of 2015. And the ballad of a “Mighty I” was thrust upon the cold and ever growing fan-base. 'Chasing Yesterday' proved that even taking the reigns of, well– everything... isn’t exactly what we all wanted. And I’m not really speaking for everyone. It was clear that the eponymous offering wasn’t enough either.

2017. Gallagher unleashes a slew of mini-previews in the form of a music trailer for 'Who Built the Moon?'. Signaling a big “fuck you” to whoever was listening at this point. At the charge of this drastic change came a new line-up, and more promises to rehearse everything. Marr lent a solid in this third offering! A big welcome for us more die-hard listeners. Now, this is where I’d ideally stop. Like I said in the mini-review of “Pretty Boy”, this is just the beginning.

To say that anything is the beginning is, also the end of an era. To signal the end of an era would warrant celebration, or the cause of it. That “beginning” began a long time ago. And if you’ve been really paying any attention, you would have noticed that it started the minute Noel let bygones be bygones, buried the hatchet with Albarn, and really started leading the charge with a more positive output. “She Taught Me How to Fly” was one of the tracks in '...Moon?' that definitely merits a fresh start. “Be Careful What You Wish For” is also a nice call-back to Noel’s heroes (John Lennon). 

In truth, that beginning that I’ve been speaking of has been here for a long while. Now, I don’t care what anyone thinks. Quite frankly, whether you’re just catching up now on his last few releases, and are just crawling through his discography, whatever it might be that got you here, welcome! If you’re also here as an old Oasis fan and also don’t give a damn about what everyone else is saying, hiya! Be good to each other. Peace, love and bananas. Whatchu-might–call it, we’re here so that we can be the first ones to say that Noel’s genius is what kept us drudging along with him in the first place. He’s close. And Noel is getting close to showing us the bigger picture. It’s hopeful. And it’s never too late to be what you might’ve been. Or at least, that’s what he tried telling us back in 2011, in the debut. I think that title was always self-explanatory.

I think it’s more than worth it to sit back and enjoy whatever the Chief is putting out now rather than waiting for something “good”, whatever that “good” might be.

The point is, what this might mean for the fourth album might actually be pretty good. A lot of what everyone is claiming is “piss” or “woke” are just being negative about his output so far. Not many solo artists can put out a ‘Best-Of’ in their first decade as an ensemble. Not many bands can actually do that yet. Much less, a solo artist. And I think that’s amazing. It’s not arrogant. It’s not self-righteous or pompous. It’s literally what being in the music business can get you. Or award you. Either way, we’re incredibly lucky to be in the throes of a solo artist such as Noel, or Liam for that matter.

They’re getting somewhere.

Same as the Arctic Monkeys. They’re all maturing in their own way, and I think it’s selfish of anybody to strive for more and to want more. And that’s not a criticism against anybody. I’m just articulating that you can’t always get what you want. Any band, solo artist or group currently venturing out in the depths of the music industry currently, are the last of the greats.

But back to the main topic; what does this all mean for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds fourth album?

That’s up for you to decide.

And whatever it may be, might not be for you. Or it could actually be right up your alley. More so, it’s music for a generation yearning for more Oasis lyrics, in a storm of a urine-contained gestation where everyone keeps asking, ‘When are they getting back together?!’ They’re not. And he’s been trying to tell you that for the past 11 years. Look forward. And keep looking forward.

Noel Gallagher by Matt Crockett