Noel Gallagher hated it when his brother Liam would ask for his vocals to be turned up in Oasis because he doesn’t think it sounds right “stylistically“ The Chief didn’t like his brother Liam Gallagher dominating Oasis’ sound with his “f***ing loud” vocals.
The ‘Fort Knox’ hitmaker says it was a “constant battle” in the Britpop group – which came to an end following a backstage bust-up before a festival appearance in Paris in 2009 – when Liam wanted his lead vocals to be the loudest instrument heard, as the 50-year-old guitarist prefers the lyrics to be a mystery to fans.
Noel fumed to Billboard magazine: “Yeah, well that’s a stylistic thing. All the records that I like – like The Stones, for instance, you can’t hear what [Sir] Mick Jagger’s f***ing saying. So you really have to f***ing listen and you’re engaged immediately.
“It was always the fight in Oasis.
“Liam was always, ‘Turn the vocals up! … You can’t hear the lyrics.’
‘I [was like], ‘I don’t want them to hear the f***ing lyrics. I want them to listen to the whole thing.’
“It’s usually a constant battle between the singer and the songwriter.”
The ‘Holy Mountain’ singer admits he has “driven” his label mad over the years because he always delivers his albums with a “low-vocal mix”.
He added: “I find a lot of music, the vocals are too f***ing loud. Just too loud.
“Maybe it’s because I’m a guitarist, but I drive the people at my record label to destruction when they’ll say, ‘Is there a vocal-up mix?’ I’m like, ‘This is it.’ And they’re like, ‘F***, it’s a bit quiet.’
“And even when I go back to the studio and have to turn the vocals up, it doesn’t sound right.
“The balance is not right. To me, that’s just a stylistic thing.”
Meanwhile, Noel recently admitted his eccentric French scissor player was partly to wind up his 45-year-old sibling.
The ‘Some Might Say’ songwriter recruited Le Volume Courbe singer Charlotte Marionneau to play gardening shears during his performance of ‘She Taught Me How To Fly’ with High Flying Birds – from his new album ‘Who Built The Moon?’ – on weekly UK music show ‘Later… With Jools Holland’.
And he also revealed that they were special “herb” cutting tools which have a “particular sound”.
Speaking to radio station XS Manchester, he confessed: “They aren’t just any scissors, they’re herb scissors with four blades so they have this particular sound.
“When she pulled them out in rehearsals I said to my bass player: ‘If that isn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever seen I don’t know what is.’
“He said: ‘Your kid’s going to glass himself’, and I thought you know what? Even for that it’s going to be worth it.”
Source: Female First