http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003187711The greatest hits set "Stop the Clocks," coming Nov. 21 via Epic, will have to satisfy the appetites of Oasis fans for awhile, according to guitarist and chief songwriter Noel Gallagher. The band is also without a label, having fulfilled its worldwide deal with Sony Music.
"There's no plans to do anything," Gallagher says of future Oasis recording. "Saying that, there's no plans not to do anything, either. We're not like other bands in that respect. We're masters of our own destiny and take these things one album at a time. The last time we sat down and planned an album, it turned into 'Don't Believe the Truth,' and that took three years to record."
Those sessions, however, yielded plenty of songs; Gallagher notes that of 11 leftover tracks, "there's seven that are good and four that are really great, so we could put an album out tomorrow if we wanted."
But don't count on it. Instead, Oasis plan to focus on "Stop the Clocks" -- named after an unreleased Gallagher song -- which features 18 hits and favorites from Oasis' 12 years of recording, including the B-sides "Acquiesce" and "Half the World Away." Gallagher says he was approached about including some new songs on the album as well, but that he opted not to "because it takes the focus away from what you're actually trying to say with a retrospective."
Gallagher promises that a boxed set and other unreleased and archival material will one day come out of the Oasis vaults. He also says Oasis won't be resigning with Sony, and the band is currently weighing its options for the future.
"I'd like to do something on our own, but it's a bit of a big step," he says. "It depends on what works best for all of us, really. [Oasis vocalist] Liam (Gallagher) will want the big advance of $900 million and be drinking champagne for the rest of his life. I, on the other hand, would rather put the records out and keep all the money. So I don't know which way we'll go."
