Why Noel And Liam Gallagher From Oasis Just Couldn't Get Along
The reputation and nature of the relationship between Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis is easy to describe: In a word, it's lousy. Lousy to such legendary proportions that Rolling Stone could produce an entire article charting the various rifts between the two. Scenes they covered begin with a drunk Liam, the younger brother by five years, emptying his bladder on Noel's speaker in the 1970s, and stretch to Liam hitting Noel with a tambourine and walking off stage in mid-show, to Liam claiming to suffer from laryngitis but spending the rest of the night heckling Noel while smoking and drinking, to Liam questioning the legitimacy of Noel's daughter, to Liam captioning a picture of Noel with "POTATO" on Twitter in 2016.
The sheer ridiculousness of the two former bandmates' feud prompted English talk show host Graham Norton to ask Liam whether this was for real or staged, to which Liam responds that no, they genuinely dislike each other. The formula of these incidents follows a distinct pattern: one of them — Liam — seems to always instigate these problems.
Examining the dynamic
The image of Oasis as Noel constantly being put upon by Liam is an easy one to conjure up. That might be more due to Liam Galagher simply having a louder personality, coupled with his belief that rock and roll is about the attitude. For one thing, Noel has had his bursts, famously wishing (as Celebretainment reported) that Damon Albarn would catch AIDs and die and stating in an interview that he knew "[ how to] read him and ... play him like a slightly disused arcade game ... I can make him make decisions that he thinks are his but really they're mine. Without fighting. It's an art I've learned." It's safe to assume Noel can be just as toxic, but in ways subtler than Liam.
The most telling moment for the two however is a 1994 interview posted on YouTube titled "Wibbling Rivalry" (warning: most assuredly NSFW) that covered their reactions to Liam's deportation from the Netherlands for inciting a drunken fight. Noel complains that Liam thinks it's rock-and-roll to get thrown off a ferry instead of playing the music, and Liam complains about how rock-and-roll is about being yourself, like the Sex Pistols, whom Liam loves as the best band ever, and Noel disparages for only having made one album. Perhaps the real feud centers on conflicting visions, but, as Noel admitted to Sky TV in 2019, neither Gallagher brother would have gotten anywhere without the other.