Noel Gallagher: "There’s only room for one rockstar in this family"

18 January 2023, 09:05 | Updated: 18 January 2023, 09:07

Noel Gallagher on his new album Council Skies and more

By Jenny Mensah

The former Oasis rocker gushed that his youngest son is better at the guitar than he was at 12, but doesn't think he'd push him into a music career one way or another.

Loading audio...

Noel Gallagher is proud of his 12-year-old son's guitar skills, but isn't ready to step down as the rockstar of the family just yet.

The Oasis songsmith talked to Radio X's Dan O'Connell about Sonny's musical talent. but revealed that he wouldn't "push him" into pursuing it either way.

"Sonny learnt to play the guitar," he said. "He’s better at playing the guitar at 12 than I was, that’s for sure!

"I mean whether he’ll take it into later life, I don’t know. I wouldn’t push him one way or the other. There’s only room for one rockstar in this family."

Noel Gallagher has talked about his son's guitar talent. Picture: Matt Crocket/Press

The comments came when the Ballad of the Mighty I singer was asked his thoughts about the nepotism debate in response to comments his daughter Anaïs made to the Daily Mail in which she admitted it would be “tone deaf and irresponsible” if she didn’t admit the “leg up” in life her upbringing had given her.

Asked his thoughts on the subject, the Manchester rocker said: "Well, I’ve never pushed her in any particular direction. She got into photography and went into uni and all that kind of thing and did great, and when I was making this record, you know I said, 'Why don’t you get a video camera come and film me making the record?' Only because she’s good at what she does, her photographs are really really good and if she was terrible, I wouldn’t be doing it for the sake of it."

The Pretty Boy singer added: "I think if you’re knowingly just giving your kids something to do and they aren’t really good at it, I don’t think that’s very healthy, but she wants to be a really good photographer, although she never stops talking."

He went on: "The amount of times that we were in the studio and I was like, 'Just give us a minute mate, will you just pipe down in the back?' But the whole nepotism thing, it’s human nature to help your children out, innit? You know what I mean, but like I said they’ve got to be, they’ve got to be good at it.

"My two lads for example, if I could get them to work for me, where they would just walk around and scratch their b******s all day then they’ve got a long meaningful career ahead of them".

This week saw Noel Gallagher reveal the details of his fourth solo album, Council Skies, which is set for release on 2nd June 2023 via Sour Mash records.

It follows Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' eponymous debut in 2011, 2015's Chasing Yesterday and 2017's Who Built The Moon? 2021 also saw Noel mark ten years of being a solo artist with the compilation Back the Way We Came: Vol. 1 (2011–2021).

Speaking about the new release, he said: "It’s going back to the beginning. 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.”

From it comes his brand new psychedelic-infused single, Easy Now.

Watch the official video for the single below: