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| Noel Gallagher, main vocalist of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, points at the camera at his concert held in Seoul Olympic Stadium, May 19. / Courtesy of Live Nation Korea |
By Jung Hae-myoung
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, a band formed by the ex-lead guitarist of Oasis, landed in Korea for the frontman's sixth visit to the country. Gallagher himself wrapped in an upside-down Korean flag. The display has excited many Korean fans, including those who have followed Gallagher since he was in Oasis.
"Someone in Japan gave it to me at the airport before I left for Korea," Gallagher said.
Gallagher's band played at Seoul Olympic Stadium on Sunday. The show proved so popular that the second tickets went on sale online, it sold out, which led the band to add another night.
On Monday, Gallagher met with several journalists for a roundtable interview, through which he learned about K-pop and BTS for the first time.
He may have thought K-pop sounded like the name of a cereal and BTS some form of telecommunications company, but he will be interested to see a "load of English people singing to a boy band singing in Korean at Wembley Stadium," and referenced his affection for his Korean fans who can chant entire songs in English.
"To us you are like the Irish to Europe. What I mean by that is the Irish of Europe have a great spirit and they like to sing. They have great emotional depth, and they are crazy," Gallagher said.
Gallagher was amazed to watch young Korean people crying over songs by Oasis, a band that was formed a long time many of them were born. As for the topic of his audiences getting younger, Gallagher said he tends "not to think about it too much."
"I mean I do gigs and seeing young people singing to songs released when they weren't even born, I must have done something completely unique and timeless," he said. "It's amazing to think you would write a song for 20-year-olds in Manchester, and 32 years later, there'd be 18-year-old girls crying while you are singing ― it's crazy."
He said he wrote the songs that still appeal to young people today when he was around their age. "Don't ask me what it was," he said. "If I knew what it was I would still be writing those kind of things now."
He also talked about his new single, "Black Star Dancing," which shows lots of influence of past rock legends, including Queen, U2, INXS and especially hints of David Bowie's final album.
Gallagher said making "Black Star Dancing" is one of the favorite things he has done. Indeed, reviews of the song have been praising its unique mix of disco and synth pop. In one interview he said "it is a mish-mash of everything that was on Top of The Tops."
"I was working on some songs, and they didn't sound very good. On my previous record I worked with David Holmes, and he taught me that if anything is not working, just scrap it and write something in the studio. So the same thing happened with Supersonic back in 1993. I just got up one morning, listening to David Bowie and there is a two-note bassline."
For a moment he started humming the bass sound. "Then something else took over," and the rest is what we hear.
"It sounds modern, still sounds like me, and still got guitars somewhere. I love it," he said, saying there is yet more to come, and this is just the beginning.
Contrary to what one might expect, Gallagher writes lyrics after the melody is finished. "So the song will exist way before the words came," he said.
"I would sit and listen to the instrumental version and then you are searching for the first line. Everything follows on from that. It just depends. I don't really sit and think about words. I don't think about what they mean. When it's finished I will work out what the song means," he added.
"If I try to do anything in my words, it is to focus on the universal truths that we all experience no matter what and where we are."
Gallagher has not turned his back on the music scene where rock is on the way down. He objectively understood what kind of time and place he is playing the music.
"I think there is so much technology in the teenagers now that to play the guitar is a life-long commitment," he said.
"For instance, when I was growing up we had only four channels, three channels in fact, on the television. We had the radio, football and listened to music. That was it ― six things and that was it," he continued. "Now my teenage daughter has endless things to fly her whole imagination, and music just isn't that important to people anymore."
"Record labels used to have an artistic blueprint they would follow; now they are all about money. If K-pop makes money, then K-pop is it. When Oasis was making money, Oasis was what it was. Everybody wanted to be like them, sound like them and the world moved to a more advanced digital age. Now all music in the charts sounds the same," he said.
After Noel Gallagher split with his younger brother Liam Gallagher in 2009, he formed a new band, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, which presented yet another band to go down in the history of British rock.
To whether Oasis will "ever" play a gig in Korea as a band, Noel made a clear "no." However, he said: "Oasis would have come earlier when it was the heyday of Oasis, that's for sure."
As much as fans implored, the rocker had to go through tough times after the end of the Oasis era. Gallagher said he could not get through these times without the help of his wife and family.
"I don't think you can get through life totally on your own. And you got some kind of inner strength or self-belief. I've never been afraid when the time came for Oasis. I was literally throwing my entire career up in the air. I didn't have a band, record label or anything. But I knew if I left Oasis that would be the way. I was prepared, you know, to make it work," he said.
"Even with Black Star Dancing, you have to believe in what you do in order to put out songs like that because at least 75 percent of people who like music will go like whoah, until they get it.
"I'm not super-human. I have good days and bad days ― obviously more good days but, I would consider myself to be fairly strong."
If only one song could remain in this world, Gallagher said he would chose "Black Star Dancing" as someone who focuses on what's new, but as an artist and an Oasis fan, he would say "Don't Look Back In Anger." Indeed, he chose "love" instead of "anger" throughout this 40-minute interview ― love of his music, fans, his family and his time.
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