You mean tuneful nostalgia-fest singalong One of Us? It’s quite moving. There’s a line where Liam sings, ​“you said we’d live forever”.

Oh, really? Ha ha! Well, I’m sure the other four people were moved. I wondered if they had pictures of me in the studio when they were writing that shit… But isn’t there an Oasis line in all of his songs? I remember once in the Oasis days, he’d been up the studio on his own and every line in the song was the title of an Oasis song. It was some incidental blues nonsense. It went: ​“You said we were gonna live forever, and now that things are getting better…” And I asked him what it was called. And you know what it was called? Untitled, ha ha!

Are you picking up yet on any tunes that your sons are into?

No, they’re way too urban for me. They’re into anything urban, grime and all that kind of thing.

What do they think of dad’s music?

They like the gigs, but they’re not massive fans. They’ve shown more interest in the latest stuff, ​’cause it’s a bit more electronic. But they never mention Oasis. They’re all on Spotify and [in charge of] the speaker system round the house, so every time I walk in, Stormzy’s playing and one of them is dancing past me like a madman, doing the Vossi Bop.

How’s your Vossi Bop?

Funnily enough, when I was watching Stormzy at Glastonbury on the telly and I heard that tune, I thought: ​“Ah, that’s what the fuck he’s been going on about for the previous six months, dancing round the kitchen singing this song.” I’d been thinking: what’s a fucking Vossi Bop? Has he made this shit up? And if he has made it up, I’m ripping it off. The next thing I know, there’s 100,000 people going berserk to it in a field.

You say David Holmes ​“changed my musical life”. In what ways?

Two main things. First, writing in the studio: ​“Don’t come into the studio with any ideas. If you have any, keep ​’em at home.” I was like: ​“Fucking hell, alright, bossy boots!” And the next thing was: we decided we were gonna do a track like Can or someone, with a drum machine, and I picked up the guitar. And he said: ​“Answer me this: why do you always pick up the guitar first?” “‘Cause I’m a fucking guitarist.” ​“Well, let’s leave that. Can you play the keyboards?” ​“Not really”. ​“Great, let’s start with that.”

Who or what else has been inspiring you?

I’ve been taking a lot from David Bowie, how he would approach music. His thing was: try anything. Just throw as much shit at the wall as you can.

Is that a risky undertaking for you, with your fanbase of (largely) old Oasis fans?

Well, I had to not have the fear of knowing that a healthy portion of my fanbase is going to listen to Black Star Dancing for under 30 seconds and go: ​“Well, he can fuck off.”

And that doesn’t bother you?

OK: when [first Who Built the Moon? single] Holy Mountain came out – which, to me, is like an Oasis single – with some of the reactions, I was so shocked that it was funny. I was like: ​“Wow, that’s mental. ​’Cause if you don’t like this, then fucking hell, we’re gonna have fun over the next couple of years.” ​’Cause I knew what I was going to try and do. You just have to have faith. If a thousand people a day listen to your new track, and 900 of them bin it after 30 seconds, that’s fine. You have to focus on the 100 people who’ll see it to the end.

Going by Spotify streams, your most popular tracks are Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Champagne Supernova, Live Forever… and Stand By Me.

Is it really? Wow. Going by audience reaction, I’d have said The Masterplan. See, my biggest solo song on Spotify is In The Heat of the Moment. Fucking what? It’s not been synced somewhere; couldn’t tell you why that is. Funnily enough, I’ve just done a tour in America with Smashing Pumpkins, and the sight of two goths, one in a Rancid t‑shirt, one in a Kiss t‑shirt, with their arms around each other, singing Wonderwall in Arkansas, is not something you see every day! And with no reaction to any other single song that we did! What is it about that song? It’s crazy.

Likewise, Definitely Maybe won’t go away – Oasis’s debut album, released all the way back in 1994, was just in the Top 10 again.

I know! The taxi driver who brought me to the train station today said his 14-year-old son is a huge fan of that album. And he said: ​“Does it piss you off that people still listen to it?” ​“Fucking no, mate! It pays the bills!”

How do you feel about the celebrating – and re-celebrating– of the album, given that it was a 25th anniversary campaign that was responsible for it being in the Top 10?

Well, the poor girl in my office that looks after that stuff, I’ve driven her mad. When we did the 10-year anniversary, I was a bit like, ​“really?” OK, we did a DVD as well. Then the 20th anniversary we did another DVD and we remastered it again. And this time I said to her: ​“What the fucking hell do you want me to say this time?”’ But I guess it’s about redefining it for a new generation. But this is the fourth time it’s been out. Thank God the music speaks for itself.

In what way exactly?

I guess it’s a lesson in the power of songwriting about universal truths, that are not tied to any particular time. It was written by a young guy – I was 24 – about being a young guy, in the inner cities, who had nothing, and nothing to do. It was all about projecting your future on to some escapist dream that you had in the park, when you were pissed and stoned. That’s gonna pass down through the ages to everybody, really.

But as soon as you start writing with an eye to posterity, you’ve had it.

Right. This is why I moved on to doing what I’m doing now. Now I’m in a place where I’m thinking: why the fuck was I trying to rewrite (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? for the best part of 15 years? But the fact is, it was a huge big fucking cash cow, and I wish I’d have had the foresight to throw it all up in the air. But I have no doubt in my mind that if Oasis were still together today, we’d still be doing that.

Really? ​“Right. Stop. We’re going this way now” – surely you’d have had the authority to say that?

[Sighs] No, because it was a strange dynamic in the band. Everybody wrote songs. I don’t think I’d even have got [fairly trad] The Death of You and Me past ​“The Committee”, far less [relatively rad] Black Star Dancing. Now, I don’t understand people from the Nineties that are just trying to just carry on the thing they did then.