The latest Noel Gallagher news is not the usual disapproving vent about his brother Liam.
This time Noel’s preoccupation with his brother’s antics has dissolved into a more practical and creative arena.
According to Spin, when Noel appeared in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1, the legendary Oasis man and current frontman of the High Flying Birds revealed that he would love to have the opportunity to play guitar in a band.
Just to play instead of having to be bandleader, songwriter amongst other things and have to carry the burdens that go with that. “I would love to be in a band and just be a guitarist for a while,” Noel told Lowe.
He was specific though and remarked “not that band,” he was referring to Oasis and his blood feud with his brother/ex-bandmate.
He would be interested in joining The Smiths, but only if it was with the original line-up and that would have to include the estranged songwriting duo, Johnny Marr and Morrissey.
“I would love, and it’s never gonna happen. It’s a thing in a parallel universe if The Smiths got back together.” Guitarist Craig Gannon joined The Smiths in 1986 and played with the band until October of that same year. The Smiths split up in 1987.
Last May, in an interview with Radio X, Gallagher announced that The Smiths would be the ultimate fantasy reunion show, one he would love to see.
Although Gallagher told interviewer Johnny Vaughan, “I’m not into reunions and all that, but if there was one … if I was God for a day … if you could make it happen and they’d all be happy about it happening, I would love to see The Smiths again.”
This dream gig of Noel’s is unlikely after a previous effort when “Classically Smiths,” an effort for a reunion collapsed almost immediately after its announcement in January 2018.
The event was advertised as an evening with original Smiths rhythm section, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce—along with Gannon—playing Smiths songs while backed by an orchestra, however, Marr and Morrissey, the two guys who wrote the songs were not billed.
According to an interview that Johnny Marr gave back in 2018, “I heard about it when everybody else heard about it, which tells you all you need to know, really.”
He added, “It was particularly disrespectful that I wasn’t consulted, and I kind of feel it was a farce in the way it went down, really. I thought about it how I imagine everybody else thought about it, that it was really kind of sketchy.
That is disappointing to me, that the band gets chained to that kind of sketchiness. It’s a good thing those guys weren’t organizing the gigs when we were together, otherwise we would’ve never gone on the stage.” Sounds like it may be some time before the Smiths come back together again.
