Former Oasis guitarist/songwriter Noel Gallagher talks to GuitarWorld.com about his upcoming solo album, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.

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So this time around has been more relaxed?

Relaxed, yes. It also meant that I could dictate all the way through and set the pace. Because I could have that six months off at no one’s expense but mine. And how I worked is I would book a studio for two weeks. When I work in the studio I work fast and I don’t fuck about and I work long hours, and I eat while I work. And then after those two weeks I sit and take six weeks off. So it was kind of quick bursts and then listen to it, quick bursts and then listen. At the same time, I was doing the other album as well. So I was kind going from one project to another. So I was quite busy but I was never on the same project for more than two weeks at a time. Which has made it even though I did a lot of work and I was fucking tired and spent over a year in the studio I never really got jaded with either projects.

When are working on the other album? How are you not crossing them?

Well, it’s a companion piece. There are three tracks on this album that are going to be on that album. They’re different versions, they’re vastly different recordings. They’re more psycedelicized. The other album’s a trip like Dark side Of The Moon. It's kind of like there is no end, start, or finish. I don’t really know how they didn’t cross.

Was it intentional or were there songs you just didn’t fit together?

Well, I’ve got to say; this High Flying Birds album was born out of the other album. I started making the other album first. So for instance one of the first songs I recorded was “If I Had A Gun.” So I did the back track then I left it and came back and they completely demolished it. And it was like, “Where’d the fucking chorus go?” And they [The Amorphous Androgynous] said, “Oh, the chorus, we didn’t like that, so we just put another few chords in there.”

I was like, “No, no, no.” Then I kind of went with it, but then I thought I can’t have that song ruined. Not ruined, but that song needs to be the way you hear it today. So I thought, right, so I’m going to do two albums. Because they’re going to do this thing where they deconstruct everything and make it fucking sound not like nothing else. So I wrote some more songs and gave them to them and then I took these other straighter-sounding songs and said I’ll make two albums. Which starting off on the journey of that was quite dawning, but I pulled it off in the end. I was tired at the end of it. I was sick at the end of it. You know, I spent a year solid in the studio and then I was doing B-sides at the end. They would say, “We need a solo in this section here,” and I would start playing guitar solos and he’d go, “Yeah it's good but what it is actually is the solo from “Supersonic.” And I would be like, “Is it?” I had completely run out of ideas. I was suddenly thinking I can’t pull another thing, I don’t know, I want to go home.

Are you still constantly writing stuff?

Yeah, I write all the time. Always chipping away at ideas.

Does the ability ever just go away or disappear for a while?

Well, the purple patches go away. I mean, I was in a period -- I still kind of am -- where I like everything I write. Six months from now I might be somewhere that I don’t like anything I write. But you've still got to keep going, got to get through the shit stuff to get to the good stuff.

Yeah, I mean, that’s the big difference. You have bands that can figure out how to do it once. It’s the continuing to do it that’s the amazing thing.

Twice is good. As a songwriter, you just got to keep going, write shit songs. I write shit songs all the time. You’ll never hear them. But you've got to get through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff. For every great song I’ve written, there’s been three you’ll never hear.

Is there hope that there will be a 20-year anniversary reunion of Oasis?

Liam is on record saying the idea of it makes him want to vomit, so I’ve got nothing to add to it.

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