1991-2009Liam GallagherVocals
Noel GallagherGuitar
Paul ArthursGuitar1991-1999
Paul McGuiganBass1991-1999
Tony McCarrollDrums1991-1995
Alan WhiteDrums1995-2003
Gem ArcherGuitar2000-
Andy BellBass2000-2004
Zac StarkeyDrums2004-
They are often compared to The Beatles. Liam Gallagher has a son named Lennon with his ex-wife, actress Patsy Kensit.
Noel is five years older than Liam, but Liam formed the band. Noel joined after a year as a roadie for The Inspiral Carpets. He had been writing songs, which became the hits for Oasis, including "Live Forever."
The Gallagher brothers are notoriously surly toward their fans. "I don't have to be nice to people because they dig my music," Noel told Rolling Stone. "I don't live my life to have my picture taken by fans. I'm not asking them to buy records. They buy them because they like them."
They are wildly popular in England, with eight #1 hits, but have never had much success in the US. Noel claims this is because Americans have "very bad taste" in music, and cites The Backstreet Boys as an example.
Noel left their 2000 European tour after he and Liam got in a fist-fight in Barcelona. They finished the tour without him.
Noel and Liam are from Manchester and have the thick accents associated with the city. MTV once poked fun at their inscrutable speech by subtitling them.
Paul Arthurs and Paul McGuigan left the band during the recording of the
Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants album, and their parts were recorded again by the actual guitarist and bassist, Gem Archer and Andy Bell.
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Suggestion credit:
Carlos Arredondo - Monterrey, Mexico
Their album Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants is named after an inscription on the British 2 Pound coin. The coin says: "Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants and is a tribute to Isaac Newton. The album title was supposed to say "shoulders," but by the time they noticed the mistake, it was too late.
In 1996 the group smashed the record for most weeks on the UK singles chart in one year with 134 weeks. The previous best was Adam And The Ants back in 1981, who amassed 91 weeks in that year.
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Suggestion credit:
Chris - Stoke-on-trent, England
Drummer Zac Starkey joined Oasis for a tour in 2005. He is the son of Beatles drummer Ringo Star, and was working with The Who. His decision to join Oasis threw off plans for a tour and album from The Who.
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Suggestion credit:
Calum - Lossiemouth, Scotland
Noel Gallagher has a daughter called Anais with his ex-wife Meg Matthews and Liam has two sons: Lennon, whose mother is Patsy Kensit, and Gene, whose mother is Liam's wife Nicole Appleton who used to be in All Saints.
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Suggestion credit:
Claire - Manchester, England
Definitely Maybe was voted best album of all time by
NME and partners.
(What's The Story) Morning Glory? ranked fifth in this chart.
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Suggestion credit:
Daniel - London, England
Together with Blur and Pulp, Oasis are closely identified with the Britpop movement. Britpop is an abbreviation of British Popular music, referring to the mid-1990s sound epitomized by guitar based tunes.
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Suggestion credit:
Bertrand - Paris, France
Liam Gallagher married Nicole Appleton of All Saints in 2008. Like Liam, Nicole also has a singing sibling: her sister Natalie is also in All Saints, and married Liam Howlett of The Prodigy in 2002.
The band's name was taken from Swindon Oasis Leisure Centre in south west England, a clothes shop in the Manchester Arndale Market called Oasis, and a taxi rank round the corner from where they lived. Liam Gallagher told NME in 2013: "It meant that we were out there, because we were different. It was a s--t name."
Noel Gallagher on songwriting: "With every song that I write, I compare it to the Beatles. The thing is, they only got there before me. If I'd been born at the same time as John Lennon, I'd have been up there."
Although he is naturally left-handed, Noel Gallagher plays the guitar right-handed. He claims it is the only thing he does with his non-dominant hand.
Liam Gallagher revealed while taking part in a celebrity version of the UK Channel 4 show, Gogglebox, that neither he, Noel or elder brother Paul can swim. "Good for you swimmers, I'm jealous, I wish I could swim," he said. "I struggle when it goes deep and that. I start flapping around like some mad crazy salmon."
Noel Gallagher's rebellious streak was revealed early in his life when he was expelled from school aged 15 for throwing a bag of flour down some stairs and over a teacher.
The Gallaghers' father used to DJ in the Irish social clubs, so he had a big vinyl collection of country-and-western and Irish traditional music. One day their dad disappeared for a couple of days, and when he came back he had a guitar: a blonde Gibson hummingbird, which Noel Gallagher assumed he won playing cards. "I picked it up one day," the Oasis musician recalled to
Mojo magazine, "and started playing Joy Division (hums "
Love Will Tear Us Apart") and it just went from there."
Growing up, Liam Gallagher was into football, not music. He even thought his brother Noel odd for playing the guitar. Then one day when he was 14 or 15, a hooded yob from another school whacked him on the head with a mallet. "I ended up in hospital and, after that, I just started hearing music differently," he told
The Guardian. "My girlfriend at the time was really into Madonna. She'd play '
Like A Virgin' and I'd say: 'I'm not having this s--t.' Then I got hit on the head with a hammer and thought: 'This is actually a tune.' So whoever hit me, I'd like to meet and thank, else I'd still be on the dole."
