Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds are an English rock band formed in 2011 as the solo moniker of former Oasis lead guitarist/songwriter Noel Gallagher. The band originates from Manchester and includes former Oasis session pianist Mike Rowe, drummer Jeremy Stacey of The Lemon Trees, The Zutons bassist Russell Pritchard and guitarist Tim Smith. The band also varies guests on their debut album such as the Crouch End Festival Chorus and The Wired Strings. Since his split from Oasis in August 2009 many speculated that Gallagher might record a solo album. In July 2011, he held a press conference to confirm that this was the case, after denying rumours from his brother Liam Gallagher that he had already heard the tracks featured on it. He also explained that he would be collaborating with Amorphous Androgynous for a second album that is due for release in 2012. The singles for Gallagher's debut album are "The Death of You and Me", "If I Had a Gun...", "AKA... What a Life!", ""Dream On"" and "Everybody's on the Run". AKA... What a Life! made its debut on a Vauxhall television advertisement. Gallagher announced that he will begin touring a week after the album is released. He stated, "We're going to go out on tour a week after the album is out. We're going to start off slow in small theatres. If it's good enough to get bigger than that then it'll get bigger than that. I don't think there'll be a huge great big tour this year. I think this year it'll be a quick whizz around the world and try and do the major cities and then it will probably be a bigger tour next year." Gallagher explained in an interview with Jonathan Ross on The Jonathan Ross Show that the inspiration for the band's name was from two sources. The idea to prefix the name with "Noel Gallagher's" was formed whilst washing up dishes listening to the album Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, while the latter part of the name is taken from the song "High Flying Bird" by Jefferson Airplane.