London: The ‘Ballad of the Mighty I’ singer established his Sour Mash Records label after leaving Oasis in 2009 and admits the costs were so high, he refused to tell wife Sara MacDonald the truth about his financial position for some time.
He admitted: “Everything I’ve done since I left Oasis has come from my own pocket.
“You’ve got to pay for the tour, got to pay for the wages and you don’t really break even for about nine months.
“I don’t mean I lost money. I mean I lost a f*ing st load of money. It was a few million, like.
“I had to lie to Sara at first, and when I eventually did tell her, she freaked out — I mean freaked out.
“So I come out with, ‘You know, a year ago, this happened… and she was like, ‘What the f***ing hell did you do that for?’
“I said, ‘I did it because I felt like I could and I didn’t want to be signed to a record label, I wanted to do it myself’.”
Despite putting himself in a precarious financial position for a while, Noel’s gamble for artistic freedom paid off.
He added: “Luckily enough, it’s worked out.”
Noel insists he doesn’t care about his chart positions or record sales because he knows music doesn’t sell as much now as back in the hey day of Oasis.
He told Loaded magazine: “I don’t worry about the music getting to number one or anything. I never have done really. Well, maybe I did between 1994 and ’97, back when I wanted to rule the world.
“If it has got to the point where you’re listening to it, it’s got to the point where I’m happy with it.
“People aren’t buying as many records as they were four years ago so sales are likely to decline, but it won’t make it any less a record.”