Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher said his own son called him out for his inability to shred. His response to the slight explains how guitar playing has changed in the decades since Oasis first came storming onto the Brit-rock scene.
Speaking to Gibson TV, Gallagher said young players today have more tools and information available to them than when he first wrestled with an electric guitar.
“I've seen young kids playing instruments, and they're great,” he says. “There's a lot more information out there now when you're starting, for equipment, what it does and what you should be doing. Tips for this, videos for that. They'd have a sleepless night thinking about what we used to be. I don't know how we got by.”
But their advanced prowess on the instrument doesn't necessarily translate into a career.
“My lad will say ‘You can’t play guitar like that,’ and I’m like ‘Thank the fucking Lord!’ because if I could play guitar like that, you know what I’d be doing right now? Playing guitar like that!
“I wouldn’t be going, 'Maybe...' [sings the first word of "Live Forever"]. You can go anywhere with that.”
As Gallagher tells Gibson TV, Oasis were five years into their career when they played an immense sold-out show at Knebworth House, in the U.K. Yet he was still a novice when it came to understanding the intricacies of his rig.
""Ever seen the shot from the stage at Knebworth?" he asks. "I've got a pedalboard that's on a piece of plywood. It's got a delay pedal on it and a tuner.
"125 000 people. And I didn't even have a proper pedalboard!
“Somebody said to me, ‘Why is the bass, middle and treble all on 10?’ ‘Because it all goes to 10?’ And he’s like, ‘Try turning the bass down.’ I was like, ‘Don't fucking touch it! It sounds great.’
“I was 20 years into it before I went, ‘Middle… Oh, so the louder you turn it up….’ Why didn’t somebody tell me that 20 years ago?”
That iconic Knebworth performance helped Oasis ascend to rock's highest peaks. But following 1997's Be Here Now, Gallagher set about overhauling his rig, plywood pedalboard included.
Speaking to Guitar Player in 2000 to promote the release of the group's 2000 album, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, he explained how his go-to Marshall amps weren't doing it for him anymore.
“No disrespect to Marshalls, but they have one sound, and that's just about it. They're either really loud, or really quiet. But I found that each Fender amp has its own character.”
Gallagher's trusty Epiphone Casino wasn't out of the firing line either. The guitarist was toting "a really cool, wine-red '80s Les Paul Deluxe, a Fender Strat, and a '60s Telecaster that Johnny Depp bought me for my 30th birthday."
Shredding, though, was left to other bands. Oasis's appeal has always been rooted in simplicity, chord progressions that anyone can get behind, and a rock and roll swagger for the masses.
But there is perhaps a semblance of jealousy aimed at the current crop of all-knowing guitarists. In a recent post to X, he revealed “I’ve got no control over the music I make. I’m not adept enough as a musician. All I can do is sit with a guitar and wait in hope for something to happen.
“I call it going fishing… I sit by the river, with the guitar and if I get a catch, great! And that’s what I do, it comes from within.”
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