Noel Gallagher dismisses The 1975's Matty Healy as a "slack-jawed f***wit” for calling for an Oasis reunion, advises him to split up his own "sh*t" band instead

Noel Gallagher and Matty Healy
(Image credit: Noel Gallagher - Alex Livesey - Danehouse/Getty Images / Matty Healy - Jo Hale/Redferns)

Noel Gallagher has labelled The 1975's Matty Healy a "slack-jawed fuckwit" for calling for an Oasis reunion, and suggested that Healy should break up his own "shit" band.

Healy weighed in on the seemingly never-ending 'will they/won't they' debate during a December TV interview on Canadian broadcasters CBC's Q with Tim Power show, suggesting that warring siblings Noel and Liam Gallagher should "grow up", bury the hatchet, and get their world-conquering BritPop band back together. In a recent interview with Spin, Gallagher Snr. was made aware of Healy's unsolicited advice, seemingly for the first time, and it's fair to say he didn't respond terribly positively.

When Spin journalist Daniel Kohn enquired as to whether Gallagher had heard about Healy's comments, the Mancunian musician replied, "Oh, that fucking slack-jawed fuckwit. What did he say?"

Informed that one comment was “Can you imagine being in potentially – right now, still – the coolest band in the world, and not doing it because you’re in a mard with your brother?”, Gallagher responded, "He would never be able to imagine it. He needs to go over how shit his band is and split up."

"Definitely Maybe is great and Oasis were great," Gallagher states later in the interview. "It was an amazing moment in everybody’s lives, but you’ve got one life. I don’t intend to fucking live it in the past. If Liam wants to do the show, great. He’s got to make a living and all of that. Keep the fucking flame alive. It’s not something I particularly would be able to put my heart and soul into.

"If Oasis hadn’t fulfilled its potential, I might have a different attitude towards it. But as Oasis did everything it set out to do and more. I don’t see the point. It was a moment in time and if you missed it, tough shit. I missed the Sex Pistols and I’ve managed to get over that. So, people should get over it."

This point is, perhaps, marginally undermined by the fact that when the Sex Pistols reformed for their Filthy Lucre shows in 1996, Gallagher went to see them in London with Creation Records boss Alan McGee. So enthused was McGee by the punk band's  July 17 performance  at the Shepherds Bush Empire that he paid for a full advertising page in NME so that he could get his review of the show published, and in said review McGee wrote, "I stood with Noel as he sang every song."

It's also worth mentioning here that just a few days ago, Gallagher challenged his younger brother to call him if he has a concrete proposal for a reunion.

"If he's got a plan he should he get should get someone to call..." Gallagher said during a TalkSport radio interview. "He doesn't have to speak to me, I know he won't speak to me, he's a coward. So he should get some of his people, his agent, to call my people and say, 'Look, this is what we're thinking.' And then we'll have a conversation about it. Until then, he's being a little bit disingenuous..."

Ever-gracious, Liam Gallagher responded on Twitter, labelling Noel " a bell end". 

Basically, don't hold your breath, Oasis fans.

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.