The love-hate Gallaghers gems from the Hot Press archives

Since Oasis’ inception in Manchester 1991, Hot Press has partied on many a lively occasion with Liam and Noel Gallagher. One of the topics, which regularly came up was the sibling rivalry that seemed to be permanently simmering, except on such occasions when it actually boiled over into public expressions of frustration, denunciation and downright hostility. Their innate honesty meant there was a no-holds barred aspect to what Noel and Liam had to say about each other, as this selection from our archives demonstrates…

NOEL ON LIAM

As far back as 1994 we asked Noel about rumours of conflict with Liam.
“We argue,” he confirmed. “Not all the time, and not always in front of the press. Although we don’t bother when the press are there these days, because it’s become a bit of a joke. But we fight, yeah. Hourly. In fact, I haven’t seen him today, so I might phone him up and pick an argument with him. Plus, it isn’t really in-band rivalry, because he doesn’t do anything except sing. I write the songs. It’s strange, though, I don’t get excited about much. I can take all this in my stride, but I get excited about fighting with our kid sometimes.”

In 2002 we enquired of Noel whether, underneath all the bravado, Liam is really a shy person who craves acceptance.
He told us: Well, anyone that wears sunglasses 24-hours a day has got something fucking wrong. When he heard his song coming back through the speakers, I turned down the volume and said, “Isn’t that the best feeling you’ve ever had in your life? That’s better than drugs or fucking booze. That’s what you should concentrate all your efforts on – not getting thrown out of hotels and smashing airplanes up. Every time you go into a pub, the place empties. I’ve seen it happen. You’ve got no mates because people think you’re a fucking nutcase.’”

In 2006 we asked Noel outright, is Liam a moron? And he replied with an emphatic “Yes!”.

In 2007, we wondered if Noel might have had a good giggle when those Mafia blokes twatted is brother. His reply was equally direct: “At the beginning when he was arrested and carted off to hospital in pain, no. But now, I think it’s stunningly fucking hilarious. In the unlikely event that they’re reading this, I’d like to say to the Italian Mafia people, ‘Thanks for saving us the job!’ There was a large queue forming in England for the pleasure of kicking that cunt’s face in, and I happened to be at the front of it!”
We also alluded to the possibility of new songs at their next Dublin gig, to which Noel responded: “We can’t even get Liam to rehearse fucking old songs, let alone new ones. He’s just a lazy fucker. He doesn’t soundcheck, he doesn’t rehearse… I’ll ask him next time I see him what he actually fucking does!”

Prior to their Christmas gig at The Point in Dublin in 1997 we met up with a less than happy Noel at the Berkeley Court Hotel.
"Did you hear about our kid?" he fumed. "He's not even turning up tonight. He's got a sore throat, so the spawny cunt's going to be sat watching the telly while us fucking four idiots have to go out there and get bottled off, most probably. I got informed at about three o'clock. Somebody said, 'Liam's not coming so you'll have to do it.' 'Er, excuse me. I don't know if you've noticed but I'm not the singer'. ‘No, no, no, you've gotta do the gig or there'll be a riot'. I'll probably get away with it tonight but I'm not as good a singer as he is. I'd much rather be stood in front of me amplifier doing the odd backing-vocal. The cunt! I tell you what I'm tempted to do – go on stage and tell the crowd his room number so they can go round the hotel and get their money back off him.”

LIAM ON NOEL

In 2000, after a spat that saw Noel temporarily quit the band, we asked Liam if he missed him.
He said: "I do miss him, yeah. But he's gotta sort out what's going on in the band, you know what I mean? It's not HIS band. It's A band and that's it. And he has to sort out whether he wants to be in the band or not. Or he wants to be in the band sometimes. I want to be in the band all the time. And the rest of the people in the band want to be in the band also. You can't want to be in the band just for the weekends. You have to fucking commit to it. Or you don't. But yeah, I do miss him. It's not difficult for me! It's difficult for him! I'd rather be me than him at the moment, you know, what I mean? Sitting in his house in Spain very nice, you know what I mean? I'd rather be working!”

In 2005, on being probed about the difficulties surrounding the recording of Don’t Believe The Truth, Liam confided: “We went into this studio, which was shit the first time and shit the second time. Why did we go back? One word…Noel! He knew after the first few days that it was shit too, but wouldn’t admit it ‘cause in Noel-land he’s never wrong.”

In 2008 we quizzed Liam for his view on Noel’s claim that Jay-Z had no business being on the Glastonbury main stage.
He replied: “I couldn’t give a fuck about Jay-Z. I’m not into rap, that’s my personal thing on it. I don’t care a fuck about Noel Gallagher either to be honest. Both a fucking pair of dicks!”