Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing history of new music early and ad-free on Amazon music, included with Prime. After years and years of rumor and speculation, we now have an Oasis reunion. The Brothers Gallagher have agreed to reunite, and possibly buried the hatchet. This is for a series of shows next summer in the UK, Ireland, and beyond. A lot of this coincides nicely with the anniversaries of their first two albums, 1994 is definitely maybe, and What's the Story Morning Glory from 1995. We don't know really how this reunion came together. I mean, this is Noel and Liam after all. But anyway, it's here, it's happening. So we thought, "Why not go back into the podcast vault and re-release a two-part series we call Oasis at War." It's a look at one of the most intense sibling rivalries in music, and boy, there's a lot to go through. Okay, let's face it, siblings can be a pain in the butt. Just because you're related to someone doesn't mean you're going to get along, doesn't mean you're going to like each other. Not everybody can be Venus and Serena Williams. Here, let me give you some examples. And Landers and dear Abby were actually real people, and they were sisters, Epi and Pauline later her. Despite having newspaper columns that were famous for dishing out all sorts of relationship advice to readers, they didn't really apply that wisdom to themselves, so they spent their lives antagonizing each other. Adolph and Rudolf Dassler were good young Nazis who owned a shoe company, but Rudolf was a little more international socialism than Adolf, and after World War II, their company split in two. They became Adidas and Puma. Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine had a legendarily ugly relationship, Erick and Julia Roberts. And there have been all kinds of intense sibling rivalries in music, Ray and Dave Davies of the kinks. That one's been going on forever. The weirdness that is the Jackson family, and it hasn't always been chocolate and unicorns for the follow wells and kings of Leon. But the champion brawlers have to be Liam and Noel Gallagher. Sure, these guys have always fought with each other. We all know that. But are you aware of the depth and the scope of this war? When it comes to dysfunctional, brotherly relationships, it really doesn't get much more intense than this. This is the Ongoing History of New Music, the podcast edition with Alan Cross. Nice sentiment, but that song really doesn't hold true in the real world if we're talking about Liam and Noel Gallagher. Hello again, I'm Alan Cross and this episode is called Oasis at War, or more specifically the war between Liam and Noel. This has to be the most intense sibling rivalry in the history of rock, even crazier than what we've seen with Ray and Dave Davies of the kinks, the previous reigning champions. See until the brother's Gallagher came along, no one could imagine brothers getting along less well than what we've seen with Ray and Dave. While their battles have been entertaining from the outside, there are some very extreme feelings at the center of everything. So this is an examination of the relationship between Noel and Liam such that it is. Noel is the middle child. He was born in 1967, two years after older brother Paul and about five years before Liam came along. Paul was eventually given his own room while Noel and Liam had to share a bedroom. They had a bad relationship with their father, Tommy. He was an alcoholic. He beat his kids. Paul and Noel were so freaked out by this that they developed stuttering problems when they were young. Both Noel and Liam were bad kids, petty thefts, skipping school, minor results, fights, sniffing glue. Both were kicked out of school at age 15 and of the two, Liam was probably the more antagonistic. He was this cocky, super extrovert and when he was still in school, some of the kids thought he was, well, he was kind of psycho. And all through childhood and into his teen years, one of his favorite targets was Noel. Those close to him say that this is the result of emotional scars left by his father, all kinds of hatred and rage. And as long as anybody could remember, he'd had a pissed off look on his face. As he got bigger, he got worse. Meanwhile, Noel became more quiet, likeable, sometimes moody, but mostly quiet. You never knew what Noel was thinking, but something was going on in there. But what became apparent was a love-hate thing with his younger brother. One of the things Noel liked to do was to freak out Liam by moving furniture around the house as he slept and then he would tell Liam that ghosts were doing it. He kept this up for years and to hear Noel tell it, he kept his younger brother terrified during that entire time. By 1988, Noel was living on his own while Liam stayed home with Mom. Both were into music. Noel eventually got a job as a roadie with the Inspiral Carpets and Liam started a band called Rain. After a rain gig in 1991, Liam and his mates asked Noel to be their manager. He turned them down, but he did offer to join up as their lead guitarist. Besides, he had been writing songs for years and everything he'd written was far better than Rain's rubbish. The band accepted, and that's when Rain started the Metamorphosis Into Oasis. Obviously, Noel's coup d'etat ended up being a good thing because, well, I mean, look what happened. But his dictatorial nature did not sit well with Liam or other members of the band. For example, there was a time when he took record company of Money in advance and bought himself new guitars when the group needed all kinds of other gear. But still, things progressed and rather quickly too. Here's the first thing Oasis released with Noel in charge. It's a 1993 promo single called Columbia. Oasis and Columbia, that was their first ever release, and it would end up on the debut album definitely maybe. The first documented evidence of a public war between Noel and Liam was at a show at a club called Joyner's Arms in Southampton on March 29, 1994. For some reason, Noel punched Liam in the face and then chased him off stage. About a month later, the two of them were interviewed by the NME. This was their first major feature in the British music media. The interview took place at a hotel in Glasgow. The writer, a guy with the name of John Harris, recorded it, and it went something like this. The thing about getting thrown off Fetties is that I'm not proud about, because I am now. If you're proud about getting thrown off Fetties, then why don't you go and support Westam? Get the **** out of my band and go to your football olegon, right? Because we're musicians, right? No, listen, he says, right, here's a quote for you, from my manager, Marcus Russell, right? He's a ******* of a ******* shot off you did, right? He gets off the ferry after getting ******* deployed. I'm left to Amsterdam when you ******* out, by *******ing spare ******* in my room. Shut up, shut up, right? He gets off the ferry, Marcus says, "What are you ******* doing? You're not ******* going to go." He says, right, yeah, he's like, "I think it's rock n' roll against the ferry." No, don't. He gets shut up. He's like, "I think it's rock n' roll." Let's get thrown off the ferry. Shut the ******* up, man. And that's just in the first three minutes. Let us continue. We're all snot white lines, every day. Exactly. And we're all getting the trouble now on the game. No, don't. We're all getting the trouble. I did. Right. It's not about you though. We're all going back to that. It's the music. It's the music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. Let's not talk about being an abma. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. Let's talk about music. You're getting on good for a moment. You're getting on good for a moment. You're getting on good for a situation that I cared on about. I know subtitles would be nice, but I think you get the point. That interview was later released as a single, and it reached number 52 on the British charts, which just goes to show you how much the UK was fascinated by this relationship this early in the band's career. Now, up until now, we've been dealing with minor skirmishes. Now the first major battle, or actually battles. In the fall of 1994, Oasis headed out on their first North American tour. Liam started by changing the words of some of the songs into something rather offensive. It's greatly annoyed Noel, because of course they were his songs. It happened again when Liam sang this during "Live Forever." Maybe I don't really want to know why you pick your nose. So yeah, poetry. On September 29, 1994, they played the whiskey a go-go on the sunset strip. Noel insisted on singing harmonies to lead lead vocals, which really annoyed Liam. They squared off on stage a bunch of times. At the end of the sets, Liam whacked Noel in the back of the head with a tambourine. He then skulks off, refusing to come back on for the encore. There was a fight backstage, somebody threw a chair. Liam was seen skulking down Sunset Boulevard. And Noel, while he headed to the airport with $8,000 of the band's money. He flew to Vegas and then to San Francisco to hang out with some friends to cool off. More than a half a dozen shows had to be canceled before Noel agreed to rejoin the band in Austin, Texas. Playing this close to breaking up then. What wasn't mentioned at the time was how the whole band, including Liam and Noel, were off their nut on Crystal Meth. Here's what Liam told me. I don't remember much about it. I remember just doing the gig and I remember, like, that one of our oldies, it was like, "I've got some of this stuff here, you want to go out yet, go on and give it a go." And we were doing it, we thought it was cocaine or whatever, and we didn't think any consumers about it. And then, that was it. We filmed a s***y gig. So f***ing what? We done s***y gigs. Smoking weed. We done s***y gigs before. I don't know what the big fuss was about, but obviously it caused seeing Noel left and then went back, Noel had enough of the month somewhere else, but, you know, I think he talked about it with Crystal Meth with him, as well as the money. After that first North American tour, there were more fights, but nothing terribly serious in the grand scheme of things anyway. It wasn't until Oasis started recording their second album that things went nuclear again, and there was plenty of grievous bodily harm. You'll see what I mean in a second. Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator, facing a roaring crowd and potential of death in the Colosseum, find out on the Ancient's podcast from HistoryHit, twice a week leading experts and academics delve into our distant past and discover secrets thought lost to the sands of time. Join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians, to the Celts, to the Romans, and visit the Ancient Sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from HistoryHit. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Back in the late 90s, I was a co-founder of Beetleology Magazine. We interviewed people who knew the Beatles, and celebrities who collected the Beatles. We're releasing those recordings for the first time, and you'll hear Mark Hamill tell a classic story about meeting George Harrison on a plane. You'll hear Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg talk about what happened backstage the night John Lennon was assassinated, and why Bill Maher admired Lennon's political incorrectness. It's a fascinating collection of interviews. Catch our special Beatles series on the Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly podcast feed. Welcome back to Oasis at War, a timeline of the fights between Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis. May, 1995, Oasis moved into Rockfield Studios and Wales. One night during the sessions, Liam went down to the pub. Well, Noel and producer Owen Morris stayed behind to work in the studio. Sometime that night, Liam rolled up with half of self-whales behind him, and they were all very, very drunk. The crowd invaded the studio, and there was some damage. Noel locked the studio door so no one could get in, which really embarrassed Liam. He hated this. He hated that he'd been told off by his older brother in front of all his new friends. So when everybody finally left, Liam began battering Noel's bedroom door, breaking his foot in the process. Noel then grabbed a cricket bat, opened the door, and started whacking Liam with it. Some accounts say that Noel broke Liam's arm with that cricket bat, and what we do know is that Noel left the studio for a full week just so he could calm down. By the way, that cricket bat that Noel allegedly walked Liam with ended up in the possession of a music writer named Paolo Hewitt. He later auctioned it off, complete with a certificate of authenticity, and I think it's over about a thousand US dollars. Epic battle number three between Noel and Liam involved in Oasis obligation to perform at an MTV unplugged set at the Royal Festival Hall on August 23, 1996. At the very last second though, Liam says no, can't do it, got a sore throat. Well, it was too late to cancel by this time, and besides, Noel was having none of Liam's complaining. Right then, bollocks do your throat, you're just hung over and you're being a prat. If you won't sing my songs, I will sing them. Noel had already made an acoustic set part of the band show, so stepping up to sing the full set list wasn't that big of a deal for him, and he got pretty good reviews too. Meanwhile, Liam watched the show from Up in the balcony, drinking beer, and heckling the band loudly. Not bad for a guy with a sore throat, right? Good evening. Um, Liam ain't going to win this tonight because he's got sore throat, so he's stuck with the ugly four, as you say. Oasis without Liam performing their MTV set at Royal Festival Hall in London on August 23, 1996. Remember that Liam was up in the balcony making trouble and spitting beer towards the stage. But this was just part one of this particular battle. Part two happened at Heathrow Airport a few days later. On August 25, 1996, Oasis was on their way to another North American tour. Everybody made it to the airport, including Liam. Everybody made it to the departure lounge, including Liam. And everybody made it to the plane, including Liam, except that he's on the phone to his wife the entire time who was the actress, Patsy Kensett. Suddenly he says, can't go, got to go buy a house. He left the plane. And that was it. The first Oasis gig was scheduled for the 16,000 seat Rosemont Horizon in Chicago. This was their first super major headline in gig in North America. And the singer didn't show. Liam was with the band for the next gig in Detroit on August the 30th and for the rest of that tour. But Noel claims that this diva move went a long way to killing Oasis stone dead in America. And that wasn't the end of it. On September the 4th, 1996, the group performed at the MTV Music Video Awards in New York. Liam deliberately sang off-key. As Noel played, Liam gestured towards him in some kind of annoyed way. And then he spat beer all over the stage and stormed off. This, of course, did not improve Oasis's prospects in the United States. The tour continued for a little while longer, but then there was another fight in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Noel ended up flying home alone. He needed another few weeks to go off. Oasis, and some might say, which brings us to the end of 1996. Which means we still have a long way to go. Hang tight. The next round of fighting between Noel and Liam came during the sessions for the third album Be Here Now. This was not a good time for anybody, not only were they burned out, but there was so much cocaine going around at the time that everybody was completely off their heads. This played into the final sound of the record. Cocaine messes with your hearing and your audio perception. Noel kept wanting to make the record sound bigger and louder, so he insisted on layer after layer after layer of guitars. And he wanted the high end turned up because he didn't think there was enough. Again, that's the cocaine talking. And later, when Noel took a sober look at what they'd done, he realized that they made a very, very long record. It was way too long, a single album that stretched for 71 minutes. Meanwhile, Noel and Liam were constantly fighting throughout the whole thing. There were no giant blowups, but those who were there say it was like one of those long, low-level seizures that just did not let up. ♪ All my people right here, right there ♪ ♪ You know what I mean, yeah ♪ Oasis, and do you know what I mean from the Be Here Now album in 1997? So far, we've recounted a lot of brawling, and we've only made it through the first three Oasis albums. We're nowhere near the breakup and the battles and insults that have followed. So it looks like we're going to need a part two to this story. On part two of Oasis at War, we'll look at all the events that led to the breakup of the band and the complete estrangement of the Brothers Gallagher. Find more info on a daily basis at my website, ajournalofmusicalthings.com. It also comes with the Daily News Letter, which is a handy way to keep up to date on everything that's going on. All email for this program can go to alan@alancross.ca. The Tactical Production is by Rob Johnston. I'm Alan Cross. Every season of Survivor starts the same way, build the challenges, and we hide the advantages, and then we turn it over to the players. I am ready to forge my own path. And no matter how many times we do it, I'm still surprised. Survivor has evolved all these advantages, all these twists, it has to be victory or glory is death. That's why we watch, because every season of Survivor is a new adventure. Survivor, new season Wednesdays on Global, stream on Stack TV.
