Oasis at War: Liam and Noel Gallagher’s 10 Biggest Fights (2024)

After weeks of gradually escalating rumors, it seems the long-awaited Oasis reunion finally was announced on Tuesday morning. Liam and Noel Gallagher, the two estranged, famously feuding brothers without whom Oasis cannot exist, officially announced the group’s first concerts in 15 years with great fanfare at 8 a.m. U.K. time.

While it ultimately grew bitter, the brothers’ arguments were often as entertaining as the band’s music —one classic early dust-up during an interview was even released as a bootleg single — and there’s no question that the friction between the two was part of the band’s magic. With smash albums like the band’s debut “Definitely Maybe” — which, not coincidentally, sees the 30 th anniversary of its release on Thursday — “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory” and hits like “Live Forever,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Champagne Supernova” — there’s no question the brothers’ work together has a certain something that their solid solo releases just don’t.

Oasis split up 15 years ago, after Noel left the group he’d founded, and for which he wrote most of the songs. Even if the reunion actually happens, it doesn’t mean brotherly love: If, unlike most sensible people, you believe the U.K.’s Daily Mail, the brothers still “have not buried the hatchet,” according to an unnamed source, but the reported $530 million payday speaks louder than any sibling grudge.

And if the news is true, there are more battles to come. But in the meantime, here’s our take on the top 10 Gallagher brothers battles.

Oasis had barely released their first single before the brothers’ battling nearly overtook their music in popularity. The pair’s screaming battle during an early 1994 NME interview became so legendary that it was released as a 14-minute-long single (“Wibbling Rivalry” released under the name “Oas*s”) the following year.

The cause of the argument? Which brother is more rock and roll. The discussion quickly devolves Liam calling Noel a “dickhe*d” and a “f*cking priest” and receiving “schlepper” and “dick.” Along with multiple “f*ck offs,” things get even more colorful when Liam tells Noel to “Stick your thousand pounds right up your f*ckin’ arse ’till it comes out your f*ckin’ big toe” and snarling, “You think it’s rock and roll to get thrown off a ferry. And it’s not… If you’re proud of getting thrown off of ferries… why don’t you get the f*ck out of my band and go and become a football hooligan, right?”

Tambourine tussle, Los Angeles, 1994
After the August release of “Definitely Maybe,” the band played Los Angeles’ legendary Whisky a Go-Go on their first full U.S. tour the following month. There, Liam sniped at Noel in song — changing the lyrics of “Live Forever” to “Maybe, I don’t really want to know, why you pick your nose”) before hitting his brother over the head with a tambourine, making fun of the audience, and walking offstage before the set’s end. Noel quit the band the next day, only to rejoin soon after.

Cricket-bat bust-up, Wales, 1995
During a 1995 session for the band’s classic sophom*ore album “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?,” the brothers went at it after Liam brought a group of strangers that he’d just met at a local pub to watch Noel trying to record. After the inevitable argument ensued, Noel smashed Liam over the head with a cricket bat just happened to be sitting in the studio. “The whole studio got smashed to pieces, everything just got blitzed to bits,” Liam recalled. “It was probably me not giving a f*ck and him trying to write f*cking ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ and me going, ‘Bollocks, let’s have it.’” The end result of this battle royale? They sold the bat with a certificate of authenticity.

Brother Unplugged
Shortly after Oasis played the biggest shows of their career —to 250,000 fans at England’s Knebworth Park in August of 1996 —the band was set to record an episode of “MTV Unplugged” at London’s Royal Festival Hall. However, Liam backed out due to a purported case of laryngitis, leaving Noel to carry on with the vocal duties. However, Liam did show up in the balcony of the Royal Festival Hall, smoking, drinking and heartily heckling his brother with little evidence of a sore throat. And when Liam did try to jump onstage for a re-recording of several songs, Noel told him to “piss off.”

Fork in the Road
Apparently saving the best for last, the year before the band’s seemingly final schism in 2009 included some of the funniest comments. Responding to a previously published interview, Noel told the U.K.’s Herald Sun,“I don’t know who the guy is who’s in these interviews — he seems really cool, because the guy I’ve been in a band with for the last 18 years is a f*cking knobhea*d.” Soon afterward, Noel one-upped himself in Q magazine, calling Liam “the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
Ten years later, because a grudge is only a grudge if you can keep it forever, Liam responded to Neil on Twitter with a video of him eating soup with a fork.

Then in 2020, on the occasion of Noel releasing a demo of Oasis’ “Don’t Stop…” without Liam’s vocals or guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthur’s work, Liam let Noel have it with, “Oi tofu boy if your gonna release old demos make sure im singing on it and boneheads playing guitar on it if not it’s not worth a wank,” with the trademark sign off, “as you were LG x.”