Liam Gallagher & John Squire Liam Gallagher & John Squire

• 1Raise Your Hands04:20
• 2Mars To Liverpool03:40
• 3One Day At A Time03:43
• 4I'm A Wheel03:46
• 5Just Another Rainbow05:36
• 6Love You Forever03:35
• 7Make It Up As You Go Along02:11
• 8You're Not The Only One03:56
• 9I'm So Bored04:46
• 10Mother Nature's Song04:07
• Total Runtime39:40

Info for Liam Gallagher & John Squire

English singer-songwriter and famed Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and Stone Roses guitarist John Squire release their debut self-titled album. Long-term friends with a mutual admiration for each other’s work, the idea of a collaboration started when John joined Liam on-stage at his biblical Knebworth shows. Song ideas were soon flowing and the album took shape with an intuitive intensity in Los Angeles with the revered producer Greg Kurstin. Kurstin plays bass throughout the record, while drums are performed by Joey Waronker (Beck, R.E.M., Atoms For Peace).

“I can’t wait for people to hear the album,” said Gallagher in a statement. “I think the people that are into the Stone Roses and Oasis and that kinda thing, I think they’ll fucking love it. It’s spiritual, it’s crucial.”

The album was preceded by the singles "Just Another Rainbow" and "Mars to Liverpool" and marks Squire's first album of studio material under his own name since 2004's Marshall's House. As noted by the Guardian, the records' "songwriting is melodically [strong} and the performances vibrant, with a pronounced sense that both parties are sparking off each others’ company."

Recalled Gallagher: John had played with us with Oasis and then when we’ve met we’ve gone on tour with the Seahorses and stuff, and I wouldn’t say we were mates, you know what I mean? We sort of just knew each other. We were pleasant with each other and we’d seen each other and it was all, we had a bit of a shoe fetish going down. We always talk about shoes and where’d you get them from, blah, blah. And then going back to making these songs.

I remember John just going, “Look, I’m back to writing songs and that again,” which made me happy regardless of me singing on him or anything. He’s doing songs again and playing the guitar and obviously plays everything, but so these songs come my way and I was double pleased to sing them. I love them. And I think John’s a (censored) songwriter just equally as good as he is playing a guitar. And I’m sure people know that anyway, but it’s nice if more (censored) people get to know it.

Liam Gallagher, vocals, guitars
John Squire, vocals, bass, guitars
Joey Waronker, drums

Liam Gallagher
Good things come to those who wait: and so, this summer, Liam Gallagher returns with a new single, a documentary film, a Glastonbury performance, and, most importantly, a second solo album called Why Me? Why Not looming on the Autumn horizon. It looks like the rest of 2019 will be a bonanza for fans of the one-time Oasis singer. One man is very happy about that. “I’m buzzing,” says Liam. “Buzzing to be alive, buzzing to be making tunes, raring to go. It’s nice to be back with some new music because it means I can get out there, play some gigs and give some people some stick because that is what I do. Let’s face it, it’s boring without me.”

The first notification of his return is the mammoth single Shockwave, out on June 7th. A beast of a riff announces it, channeling The Who and T Rex, before Liam bursts in on the incessant hook with typical venom and punch. ‘You sold me right down the river, you had to hold me back,’ he sings, ‘you could’ve looked for the sunshine, but you had to paint the whole thing black…’. You’ll be the singing the chorus for the rest of the year: “It’s coming round like a shockwave!” Like all of Why Me? Why Not, Shockwave was written by Liam with producers Greg Kurstin and Andrew Wyatt, and recorded in Los Angeles and at RAK Studios in London. Kurstin and Wyatt also contributed writing and production to Liam’s 2017 hugely-successful first solo album in 2017, As You Were, and Liam was keen to get even deeper with them this time.

“I wrote some songs on my own for the last album, but this time it’s all co-writes,” he explains. “Reason being is I want it to be even better than As You Were. I know my strengths and I know my limitations. I’m an ok songwriter, but I’m a great singer and frontman. I want the second album to be a stepup because the hardest thing to do is to make something the same, only better. So that’s what we’ve done. It’s a better record than As You Were. Which is saying something, as that was epic, wasn’t it?”

It was. Not just a critical hit, As You Were was a breath-taking commercial smash too, debuting at number one in the UK album charts, out-selling the other nine albums in the top ten combined and hitting gold in its first week. It has since comfortably been certified platinum. “It did ok,” says Liam, modestly, “but I can’t rest on my laurels. I need to be smashing it. I want to get bigger. I want even more people to be getting into it. I want to sell out huge fields, that’s what I want. I don’t want to be playing pubs. I always want to look forward. That’s my whole thing.”

So Why Me? Why Not is subsequently a clear upgrade on As You Were, but not a radical departure, which will come as a relief to Liam’s loyal fans. “The most radical thing I can do – as if I’d ever say radical normally! – but the most radical thing I can do is do it better every time. Some other bands and singers want to try it! It’s harder than doing a new South

American opera disco song, that’s for sure.” Highlights include the soulful One Of Us, which includes Liam’s son Gene Gallagher’s debut on bongos (“he nailed it!”), the aching balladry of Once (“got a bit of Pink Floyd’s The Wall about it”), the raw guitar bounce of Be Still, and the title track, Why Me? Why not, which Liam describes as “having a Beatles on Come Together vibe.” Perhaps the most immediate song on the album is Now That I Found You, a slice of insistent, upbeat paisley-guitar pop that also features Liam’s voice in supreme, yearning form. He’s rarely sounded better.

“It’s probably all that Guinness I’ve been walloping down in the boozer,” he reveals. “No, I feel good. To be honest, I always sing well if the songs are good. If the songs are good, then I am – and these songs are great.” Before all that, though, there’s the intimate film As It Was, shot exclusively around Liam’s return to action and the successful aftermath of his solo debut. “I keep telling people it’s not Star Wars,” he jokes. “But it’s got some good bits and hopefully people will enjoy it. I want it out now, I want people to get into it and then we can move on to the new gear. Because that’s what I’m thinking about. That’s *all* I’m thinking about.”

Liam Gallagher: both eyes firmly fixed on the horizon, as ever. Because he knows, the best is still come.

This album contains no booklet.