“Imagine if we had done something left-field or really weird? We'd have got stoned to death": Liam Gallagher defends his album with John Squire for sounding like an album Liam Gallagher and John Squire would make

Liam Gallagher and John Squire looking moody
(Image credit: Tom Oxley)

"If we'd be putting out something that sounds like fucking Bjork, we'd have got fucking lynched."

Liam Gallagher is utterly unrepentant about the fact that his collaborative album with John Squire sounds pretty much like you'd expect an album made by Liam Gallagher and John Squire to sound. 

Currently sitting at number one on the UK album charts, the simply-titled Liam Gallagher John Squire album received generally positive reviews, with most commentators noting that the songwriting adheres closely to formulas that have served the pair's former bands, Oasis and The Stone Roses, well in the past. In a new interview with Q online, Gallagher says that this was the plan all along.

“We had to keep it in the same kind of ballpark,” he says. “Imagine if we had done something left-field or really weird? We'd have got fucking stoned to death. If we'd be putting out something that sounds like fucking Bjork or something, we'd have got fucking lynched, you know what I mean?

“We were never going to do a dub reggae fucking record. This here is what we do. John's playing out of his skin and I’m singing great, and it is what it is. I'm sure people have different visions of what we should be doing and all that, but that's their problem. We're always going to make a guitar rock and roll record.”

Adding a less-than-subtle dig at his older brother Noel - standard practice as seasoned Gallagher brothers watchers will be aware - Liam continues, “We were never gonna get fucking scissor players in and a fucking trombonist. There was none of that nonsense going on. It was never gonna be funky, it was never gonna be weird shit.” 

Gallagher goes on to say that he believes that the “classic” album makes “all these new kids” - details unspecified - sound like “wimps”.

“It was always gonna be just the classic kind of thing,” he argues. “And yeah, whatever, it’s all been done before and people will say they’ve have heard it before. Well they’re gonna fucking hear it again, right?”

“There’s a lot of people out there that still like this music, it’s just there’s not a lot of it being made at the moment. But you know what? I heard [Mars to Liverpool] on the radio the other day, and it sounded fucking beefier and fatter than all these new kids. It fucking made them all sound like wimps.”

Gallagher and Squire are currently on tour together in the UK. 

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.