Noel Gallagher teases Council Skies album will be "eclectic" and "reflective"

10 May 2023, 21:01

Noel Gallagher press — Noel Gallagher has talked about his upcoming album Council Skies. Picture: Matt Crockett/Press

By Radio X

The former Oasis guitarist has revealed what to expect from his fourth solo effort, which is released on 2nd June.

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Noel Gallagher has teased that "not one song" is "stylistically" the same on his upcoming album.

The former Oasis guitarist is preparing to release his fourth solo album, Council Skies, on 2nd June and he revealed that it's his first High Flying Birds record that features his "actual" live band.

In a cover interview with the Mancunion, he said: “This is the first album which my actual band all played on, because usually I would do it all myself.

“When you eventually get to hear it, it’s very eclectic. It’s not as far out as [2017's] 'Who Built The Moon?', but there’s a run of the first 6 or 7 songs, not one song that follows the other is the same stylistically.”

When it comes to the album's lyrical content and themes, the 55-year-old rocker revealed that much of it was reflective and driven by a state of not knowing what was coming next during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If you can put yourself back into that period, we didn’t really know what the future was going to be because none of us had lived through a pandemic before," he recalled. "We were kind of stood, looking at the skies going ‘What the f***? What is the next few years gonna be like?’ […]

"I was just reflecting on how I’d got to where I’d got to and I had a lot of time to sit and think about it. It’s a reflective album, more than anything.”

The Manchester rocker has previously talked about the inspiration behind the title of his new album and its title track, revealing it came from Sheffield artist Pete Mckee.

Speaking on the Radio X Evening Show with Dan O'Connell, Noel explained: |The title comes from a book by the artist Pete McKee. I was writing the song which was to become Council Skies, but it wasn't called Council Skies. There's a bit in the song when I was writing it, where a phrase was missing - I didn't know what that phrase was gonna be."

He went on: "Pete's book happened to be on my coffee table at home. So I called him up and said, Can I use this title? And he said yeah. And I rewrote the song and then subsequently a lot of other things started to fall into place."

Noel Gallagher on his new album Council Skies and more

“It’s going back to the beginning," he also said of the title, which took him back to his days living on a council estate in Burnage. "Daydreaming, looking up at the sky and wondering about what life could be... that’s as true to me now as it was in the early ‘90s. When I was growing up in poverty and unemployment, music took me out of that.”

He added: “Top Of The Pops on TV transformed your Thursday night into this fantasy world, and that’s what I think music should be. I want my music to be elevating and transforming in some way.”