The Gallagher brothers are never too far from the media, but over the past few months they have both been as present as ever. With Liam’s debut album ‘As You Were’ already in the charts, and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds third album ‘Who Built the Moon?’ on the horizon, we find the pair in the public eye at the same time once again.
Across the past few decades we’ve all seen their publicised family spats across the headlines of magazines, on the TV, and more recently on Twitter. It’s one of, if not the most, entertaining family quarrel in music history.
Whilst their childish hatred towards each other may have lead to the break of Oasis back in 2009, the decades of physical and verbal abuse between the two has given us all much to laugh at. As the years have gone on we would have expected the feud to have died down, but it’s now even reached the stage where their kids are getting involved.
Today we thought we would look back on some of their fights and insults, and make a collection of our favourites.
Pissing on the Stereo
In the 2016 documentary Supersonic, Liam admits that he thinks the battle between the pair began when he came home drunk for the first time at the age of 15. He got out of bed to go to the toilet and instead took a piss all over Noel’s new stereo. Liam has recently appeared on Graham Norton Show, where he explains it’s better on his stereo than “in his [Noel's] mouth” – decent justification.
Oasis’s Whisky a Go Go show in LA
During Oasis’s turbulent performance in September 1994, Liam changed the words of Live Forever (much to the annoyance of Noel, obviously) to “maybe I don’t really wanna know, why you pick your nose”. He then smacked his brother round the head with his tambourine and continued to insult their American audience. His actions have never been explained, but it’s a performance which sums up Liam’s behaviour in the band from the outset.
1994 NME interview with John Harris: The “Wibbling Rivalry”
Around 15 minutes of insult flinging and arguing about the meaning of rock ‘n’ roll – standard Oasis entertainment. We’ve added our favourite line from the argument below, along with the full interview for your pleasure.
Noel: "If you're proud about getting thrown off ferries, then why don't you go and support West Ham and get the fuck out of my band and go and be a football hooligan, right? ‘Cause we're musicians, right? We're not football hooligans."
Liam: "You're only gutted ‘cause you was in bed fuckin' reading your fuckin' books."
The Cricket Bat
As seen in the film Supersonic, during the recording of What’s The Story, Morning Glory, Liam brought back a shedload of strangers after ‘nipping out’ for a pint at the pub. Noel tells them to leave, which obviously results in Liam launching guitars about the studio. We were glad to see that Noel cracked him over the head with a cricket bat in the end.
Liam's Fear of Ghosts
Up to now it probably seems like Noel always gets the brunt of the abuse, but next on our list is one of our personal favourites. Noel revealed that during the days of Oasis’s tours, he would move furniture and objects around Liam’s hotel rooms to torment him over his fear of ghosts. He told The Mirror:
“It’s highly amusing and if we were ever anywhere remotely spooky, we’d tell Liam that the house was haunted, particularly his bedroom”.
“We convinced him his bedroom was haunted, so when he’d get up in the morning and go and have his breakfast, someone would go in and turn the pictures back to front, or f***ing move a lamp beside his bed across the other side of the room.
"He’d arrive pale: ‘Have you been in my f***ing room?’ ‘No, why?’ ‘You’ve been in my room, because now the f***ing lamp is in the toilet.’ ‘No way, f***ing hell. Wow.’
"Yeah, that was amusing. That was worth it.”
The Rise of the Potato
As we’ve progressed into the world of social media, the conflict between the brothers has (much to our delight) blown up on Twitter. Last year we saw Liam take to the platform to call his brother up on looking like a root vegetable - childish, and as ever, oh so Liam. He just can't help himself as it seems, as he says: "Every time I see a couple of pictures of him, I just see a potato – maybe it's the way my brain is wired."
Pouting Potato LG x pic.twitter.com/K8y3AOFeYQ
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) June 29, 2016
POTATO pic.twitter.com/C13BbKFyCH
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) July 9, 2016
POTATO pic.twitter.com/yPPwh3BwNx
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) July 9, 2016
THE POTATO STRIKES BACK LG x pic.twitter.com/F8V8Wwnwka
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) September 29, 2016
You Can't Fault Liam's Consistency
Although the social media abuse has carried on into 2017, we're unsure where the recent standoff has come from. Some fans assume it's due to Noel's recent collaborations with musicians such as Damon Albarn and U2's Bono though, as after all, Liam did call him a 'stalker potato' for being associated with the U2 singer.
Although Liam admits some of his tweets can be out of order, he enjoys winding people up, and claims that his messages towards Noel are the 'real deal'. Noel's response on the other hand, is that it's just his brother 'trying to stay relevant'.
NUFF SAID LG x pic.twitter.com/63lzP4yy45
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) February 24, 2017
Re potatoes 50th he's not invited none of his family not even his own mother says a lot about the man and his part planner pair of wankers
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) May 18, 2017
Oh and if anybody's seen rkid tell him he can come out now as you were LG x
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) June 5, 2017
If his album flops he'll go into the night and under a subway and you'll never hear from this chap again you fucking murders
— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) August 15, 2017
We've come to the conclusion that whatever the reason behind their longstanding beef, we're enjoying it, and at the moment, it seems like this feud will Live Forever.
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