British pop rock band Oasis is reuniting, 15 years after splitting up. But how did battling brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher agree on anything, much less a tour? Here's what we know so far, plus a little backstory.
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00:00British pop-rock band Oasis is reuniting, 15 years after splitting up.
00:05But how did battling brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher agree on anything, much less a tour?
00:10Here's what we know so far, plus a little backstory.
00:13At this point, Noel and Liam Gallagher have done more fighting over the years than making
00:17music.
00:18One could easily make the case that the Gallagher brotherly rage not only boosted Oasis' popularity,
00:23but has also helped keep them relevant.
00:25As Vogue recently wrote, the Gallaghers embodied the art of the public feud, and it benefited
00:30them both.
00:31But back in the 70s and 80s, Liam and Noel were just two rough-and-tumble working-class
00:35Manchester kids.
00:36Noel was the middle brother, and they had a third, eldest brother named Paul.
00:40By all accounts, the brothers had it tough.
00:42Liam said,
00:43"'Our father was out all the time.
00:45Fighting.
00:46Beating my mom up.
00:47Beating Noel and Paul up.'
00:48One night while their father was out, their mom packed up all their stuff and left with
00:51Noel and Liam."
00:52It's against this childhood backdrop that the two younger Gallagher brothers formed
00:56Oasis in 1991.
00:57"'You're being hyped as the best band around at the moment.
01:01Is all hype true?'
01:02"'Yeah.'
01:03"'It is.'
01:04"'Yeah.
01:05The best band.'"
01:06But despite the tranquility of the band's name, conflict quickly followed.
01:11When Oasis blew up in the mid-90s, the Gallagher brothers brought all their dirty laundry with
01:15them.
01:16Liam and Noel were in the news as much for their hooliganism as their music.
01:19"'I ain't a hooligan.
01:21I'm not a hooligan.'"
01:23Even as Oasis' first three albums sold nearly 32 million copies, the brothers engaged in
01:28crazy confrontations.
01:29One 1995 incident saw the pair smash up their recording studio in a fight that involved
01:34Noel taking a cricket bat to Liam's head.
01:36On BBC Sounds' The Rise and Fall of Oasis podcast, music producer Owen Morris said,
01:41"'They were killing each other.
01:43Literally, wanting to kill each other.'"
01:45Things came to a head in 2009 while the brothers were preparing for Paris' Rock En Seine festival.
01:50Before the tour, the two got into another fistfight and started traveling to shows separately.
01:55Before the gig, Liam reportedly started swinging around a guitar, like an axe.
01:59Noel told Far Out magazine,
02:01"'I'm not f----- kidding.
02:02He nearly took my face off with it.'"
02:04"'I do like winding people up.'"
02:06In a 2009 statement, Noel called the Paris incident the proverbial straw that broke the
02:11camel's back, saying,
02:12"'The level of verbal and violent intimidation towards me, my family, friends and comrades
02:17has become intolerable.'"
02:19Liam admits to having a problem with alcohol, but he also criticized Noel for wanting to
02:23leave for a while because he wasn't getting enough attention.
02:26When Oasis broke up in 2009, the Gallagher brothers went their separate ways.
02:31Other band members lost their jobs, too, like guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell,
02:35along with 40 or 50 other employees of Oasis.
02:38In 2024, when The Guardian asked about his relationship with Noel, Liam responded,
02:42"'No.
02:43There's been no chat.
02:44I haven't seen him, and we won't see each other.'"
02:46"'And what sort of things do you know about?'
02:48"'Everything.
02:49Everything.'"
02:50Noel, for his part, formed his own band in 2010, called Noel Gallagher's High Flying
02:55Birds.
02:56Eventually, Archer, Bell, and Oasis drummer Chris Sherrick joined the project as well.
03:00While the band hasn't been as wildly popular as Oasis, it's marched along steadily and
03:05continued to produce new music and put on shows with very little in the way of hubbub
03:09or controversy.
03:10The group's four full-length albums have sold about 1.5 million copies to date.
03:15While Noel Gallagher went one way after Oasis split up in 2009, Liam Gallagher went another.
03:21Speaking with The Guardian about his life since the end of Oasis, Liam described it
03:25as
03:26"'An absolute nightmare.
03:27I was sitting at home with no management, no office, and no one to really speak to while
03:31Noel was still walking into his big management office having everyone running around after
03:35him, getting smart and dissing people."
03:37"'Don't like each other much.'"
03:39Initially, Liam formed his own band, BDI.
03:42As he explained to The Guardian,
03:43"'We were just trying to keep sane.'
03:45The "'we' included former Oasis band members Gem Archer, Andy Bell, and Chris Sherrick."
03:50They initially followed Liam to BDI for a short-lived four-year, two-album tenure from
03:552010 to 2014.
03:57Then in 2014, Liam took to X, then Twitter, and simply wrote,
04:01"'BDI are no longer.
04:02Thanks for all your support.'"
04:04Three years later, he told The Guardian that the group had had trouble, quote, "'connecting.'"
04:08It was post-BDI that Archer and Sherrick packed up and joined Noel Gallagher's High Flying
04:13Birds.
04:14So even after Oasis died, the band existed in intermingled fragments, much like Noel
04:18and Liam's lives.
04:20In a 2024 interview with Guitar World, Archer praised Noel's songwriting abilities.
04:25He also spoke about the brothers' fractured relationship, sharing,
04:27"'None of us will ever know the depth of where some of those emotions come from.
04:31It's better left between the two.'"
04:33"...Noel has a lot of buttons.
04:35Liam has a lot of fingers.
04:36It's that simple, really."
04:38As for Liam, he's produced four solo albums, three live albums, and recently teamed up
04:43with former Stone Roses guitarist John Squire.
04:45His 2024 tour, named after the Oasis album Definitely Maybe, completely sold out.
04:52It took until 2024 for the Gallagher brothers to announce that their Will They, Won't They
04:56Oasis reunion is actually happening.
04:58The possibility has been brewing for years, hinted at by both brothers between taking
05:02potshots at each other in various public forums.
05:05In 2023, Noel told Talk Sport that he doubted Liam was serious about a reunion, saying,
05:10"'He's forever going on about it.
05:12You'd have thought he'd have a plan.
05:13He doesn't have to speak to me.
05:15I know he won't speak to me.
05:16He's a coward.'"
05:17"'Noel's like a dog, and I'm like a cat.
05:20Cats are very independent creatures.
05:22Dogs, it's just, play with me, play with me, please.'"
05:25Liam, meanwhile, had already publicly taunted Noel by saying,
05:28"'We'd have to get someone to do Noel's parts, which wouldn't be hard.'"
05:31Over a year later, in early August 2024, Noel told the crowd at a high-flying bird show,
05:37saying that he was not only tired of hearing about Liam, but might not tour again with
05:40his current group, either.
05:42And yet, less than one month later, we got our official Oasis reunion tour announcement.
05:47Noel Gallagher's Solo X account dropped its high-flying birds moniker, and Oasis' X account
05:52now features a black-and-white shot of Noel and Liam standing side-by-side and not fighting
05:57each other.
05:58As for how the brothers agreed to the reunion, we've got no clue.
06:01But in addition to reprised renditions of Wonderwall, fans next year might be on the
06:05lookout for a black eye or two.