Noel Gallagher said Oasis fans were robbed of the chance to hear a collection of unreleased recordings after a disagreement forced the project to be abandoned.
Last year, Gallagher revealed an unfinished track titled “Don’t Stop,” which led to another round of negative social media posts from his estranged brother Liam.
In a recent interview with Record Collector, Noel explained that “Don’t Stop” was actually one of a number of rarities he had rounded up to be packaged with a compilation of previously released material. “We had planned to do an Oasis best-of-the-2000s [album], because it’s a period of Oasis that the masses are not interested in, but for the actual fans, there’s some great tunes,” he said. “The bonus disc was gonna be all these unreleased songs.”
He noted that he decided to release “Don’t Stop” because he felt fans were “floundering” in the early days of coronavirus lockdown, and the track would have heralded the launch of more music. “But, ha, unfortunately we couldn’t agree on something, and it got dropped by the wayside,” he said.
Among the unheard recordings were covers of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” and “It’s All Too Much,” the latter featuring Smiths guitarist Jonny Marr. Gallagher said he discovered the tracks when he found a box of unlabeled CDs in his home. “I went, ‘Right, today I’m going to fucking take that.’ I’m putting on these CDs, and I found a load of old Oasis stuff, like songs I’d never recorded but demoed. I’m going, ‘No fucking way!’”
He added that “Eleanor Rigby” was given a punk makeover and that “It’s All Too Much” was tracked on the day of George Harrison‘s death in 2001. “I’d forgotten all about it,” he said. “It was just the backing track. Liam hadn’t gotten round to doing the vocals.”
When the unidentified disagreement sidelined the Oasis collection, Gallagher said he decided to assemble a collection of his High Flying Birds material instead: “I was like, ‘Well, hang on a minute, it’s 10 years since I went solo … why don’t we just do a best of?’” That album, Back the Way We Came: Vol 1, arrives on June 11.