The singer Noel Gallagher hailed as “one of the greatest British people of all time”
It’s hard to understand what exactly qualifies a good person in Noel Gallagher‘s book.
His opinion changes as quickly as the Manchester weather, with contradictions aplenty riddled through his endless history of insults that are fearlessly aimed at artists from all musical eras. At times, it only feels like The Beatles, The Smiths and The Stone Roses are immune from his fury, with everyone else subject to the famous Gallagher stare before they can ever dream of sparking a smile.
But those both savvy enough and desperate enough to gain Gallagher’s trust could do so through one relatively simple avenue. Of all the musicians he has publicly made his enemy, nobody is more obvious than his own brother, Liam. Whether the band are active or in what they ensure was a permanent state of hiatus, Noel loves seeing his brother being ridiculed more than anyone in the world.
But it comes with stipulations. If an emerging artist came out slandering Liam, Noel would be quick to step in and spark fire into generational music debates, for he is always looking for an excuse to piss on the contemporary music scene. But should the mockery come from a legacy artist, well then, Noel is all in – especially one who his brother has been accused of copying.
“We end up in this hotel with [John Lydon] and Rambo,” Noel begins, in typical fashion for the sort of rock and roll anecdote that follows. “And for some reason, [Lydon] didn’t take a shine to Liam. Liam was sat beside him, and I was sat beside Liam, and he kept leaning over to ask me questions about Liam but wouldn’t ask Liam. He’s gonna say to me, ‘Ask your singer if he likes wearing makeup.”
Now, Noel isn’t a man who simply adores every artist who came before him. No, he is more than willing to undercut the legacy of a so-called great, whether it’s calling Phil Collins the antichrist or The Beach Boys overrated. But in the case of Lydon, he fronts a band who Noel had consistently claimed were integral to the influence of Oasis, and so when its fearless leader mocked his scrappy younger brother, Noel was pretty much in heaven.
“As you can imagine, [Liam didn’t take it] very well,” he continued. “And he was being so sarcastic towards him and has remained sarcastic towards him to this very day. But he’s great, John. One of my absolute heroes. A lovely, lovely man, much misunderstood, of course. Sweetheart and a genius and one of the great British people of all time.”
It’s one of the few times Noel is willing to honour the lineage of music history. He knows full well that without Sex Pistols, there would be no Oasis and more crucially, without John Lydon, there would be no Liam Gallagher.
So, within that pecking order, Noel is willing to remove all of the furious animosity and bravado that he usually approaches these interactions with, and then, it just so happens that his brother being knocked down a peg or two serves as a bonus.
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