Noel Gallagher: "Oasis wouldn’t be f***ing anything if they hadn’t asked me to join"

18 May 2023, 13:40

The former Oasis guitarist and chief songwriter has talked about the stress if not knowing what mood his brother Liam would be in during his time in the band.

Noel Gallagher being asked to join Oasis was the key to the band's success.

The former guitarist and chief songwriter of the Manchester band is responsible for penning their most famous songs and the Pretty Boy singer believes that could have led to "insecurity and fear" from his younger brother Liam.

"You never knew what mood Liam was going to turn up in and I found the whole thing really fucking stressful,” he told The Big Issue in their Letter To My Younger Self feature. “My overriding feeling was this is just so fucking unnecessary. This is the dream that we’ve all lived for, and you’re still moaning about some shit that went on 18 hours ago. It’s just nonsense.”

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However, Noel said he could see why his younger brother and former bandmate may have felt he had "no control".

"Singers are the kings of blaming shit on everybody else,” he continued. “I was writing the songs, so I was directing it. I knew what I was doing.

He added: "I often wondered what it would feel like if I was in a band and I had no control over the direction of it because the guy who wrote all the songs was so fucking good. There would be no point in getting involved. So no wonder he went off the rails. But you can balance that by saying, well, Oasis wouldn’t be fucking anything if they hadn’t asked me to join them."

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READ MORE: Noel Gallagher calls Brexit a “f***ing absolute unmitigated disaster"

The interview also saw the Manchester rocker also lament about the effects of Brexit, calling it an "unmitigated disaster".

"In the outskirts of Manchester, where I was born, everything is boarded up,” he explained. "I feel sorry for young people growing up in this country now, Brexit has been a fucking absolute unmitigated disaster.

"And it will be a living nightmare until some politician has the balls to put a referendum in a manifesto and run on it and go back into the EU. Nothing works in this country anymore. Politics doesn’t work. Social Services doesn’t work."

"Politics has come to a f***ing dead end," added the Council Skies singer. I don’t understand what any of them stand for any more. The Tories are going to run this country into the ground and then pass it over to Labour and say fucking good luck with that."

Noel also spoke about the continued popularity of Oasis amongst teenagers, which he attributed to the lack of any working class musicians who speak for them.

“No one’s come along to speak for them about their lives and their culture and where they’re going next,” he lamented.

Noel Gallagher on his new album Council Skies and more

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Next year marks 30 years since the release of debut Oasis album Definitely Maybe, and despite Liam Gallagher's plans to play the album in full, Noel has said there are no reunion dates in store.

Speaking to Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, he revealed: “In the Sony archives we’ve found tapes dating to those sessions.

“We thought they were lost, but they were mislabelled. They are wonderful versions of those songs, some acoustic versions.

“There won’t be a tour – we won’t come back to play them together.”

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ new album Council Skies is released on June 2 via Sour Mash Records.

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