Liam Gallagher and John Squire announce Just Another Rainbow single and confirm joint album
21 December 2023, 10:01 | Updated: 5 January 2024, 00:33
The former Oasis frontman and legendary Stone Roses guitarist have shared the details of their collaboration.
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Liam Gallagher and John Squire have confirmed the first details of their collaboration and teased a full album and more.
The Oasis icon and legendary guitarist and songwriter, best known for his time with The Stone Roses, have announced their Just Another Rainbow single, which is set release for 5th January 2024.
The psychedelia-infused track, which sees Squire's guitar and songwriting genius mixed with a classic Liam Gallagher vocal, is available to pre-order on 7” vinyl and pre-save here.
John Squire says of the single: “To me the most obvious take on Just Another Rainbow is that it's about disappointment, and the sentiment is that you never get what you really want. But I don't like to explain songs, I think that's the privilege of the listener, it's whatever you want it to be. To me, it's also one of the most uplifting tracks we’ve made together, which is weird.”
Liam Gallagher adds: “I think John's a top songwriter. Everyone always bangs on about him as a guitarist, but he’s a top songwriter too, man, no two ways about it as far as I'm concerned. There's not enough of his music out there, whether it's with the Roses or himself. It's good to see him back writing songs and f***ing good ones. The melodies are mega and then the guitars are a given. But I think even when you take all the f***ing guitars off, you can play the songs all on acoustic and they’ll all still blow your mind.”
Liam Gallagher has been letting fans know that something was in the works for quite some time, telling his followers back in September 2022 that a supergroup was "incoming".
Then the Some Might Say singer confirmed in an interview that they would be working together "at some point".
By October this year, Gallagher had made his fans aware that they'd recorded an album and it was "the best record since [TheBeatles] Revolver".
It’s the best record since revolver
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) October 23, 2023
The duo also teased the collaboration earlier this week, with a clip on Instragram which features throwback footage of Liam Liam and the Seahorses and Stone Roses guitarist, plus the moment where Liam introduced him at Knebworth in 1996.
On the video a young Gallagher can be heard saying: "John Squire without a doubt the best guitarist of his generation and in the world in my opinion".
The Manchester legends also created a website page entitled gallaghersquire.com, which invited fans to sign up to a mailing list "to find out more".
And by the looks of it, there will be plenty more to find out as the duo tease much more new music to come - as well as the possibility of live shows.
Though this is the first collaboration to come from the duo, the first time they were in a room together was way back in 1989 when a then 16-year-old Liam attended a Stone Roses gig at the International 2 in Manchester- a show he describes as "life-changing".
It was another four years before they met when both bands were recording in Monmouth, Wales. Oasis had just started work on what would become their debut album Definitely Maybe while The Stone Roses were deep into sessions for The Second Coming. And when John first heard the Oasis record, he knew it was something special within the opening few bars of ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’.
Their friendship continued over the years, with the pair writing Love Me and Leave Me for John’s post-Stone Roses band, The Seahorses, who also toured with Oasis as support guests.
However, it wasn't until John Squire jumped on stage at Liam’s gargantuan Knebworth Park show for climactic performances of Champagne Supernova (in a call back to his appearance at the original Oasis shows) that the prospect of working together became more of a reality.
The project then became concrete as the duo got together in the studio. A press release explains: " Liam arrived at John’s studio in Macclesfield and vowed to complete vocals for two demo recordings each day, a promise that he stuck to, and soon enough they had a catalogue of killer songs to choose from. From there it was off to Los Angeles for three weeks of sessions with revered producer Greg Kurstin who plays bass on the record, with drums courtesy of Joey Waronker (Beck, R.E.M., Atoms for Peace). They unlocked a shared musical intuition that felt so natural it was almost as if they had always been a band."
