Ride’s Andy Bell has weighed in his thoughts on the possibility of an Oasis reunion, and said that he thinks Noel and Liam Gallagher “probably will” get back together.
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The comments arose in a new interview that the musician took part in with Virgin Radio, where he spoke about his upcoming tour with the recently reunited band, Ride.
While emerging into the spotlight with bands Ride and Hurricane, Bell went on to join the Britpop icons after both previous projects split – taking on the role of bassist, despite being a guitarist originally. He joined the line-up in 1999 and remained in the group until the band split in 2009.
“I got into [Oasis] very early on, and I saw some really early gigs of theirs… I saw them upwards of ten times all around the country, so yeah, I’m a huge fan,” he told the outlet, going on to recall how he eventually joined the band.
“It was a couple of years after Ride split, and I was in a new band called Hurricane. We had broken up, and there had been a story in the papers saying that my band had broken up, and I guess [Oasis] realised I was knocking around.”
Later in the interview, Bell was asked for his thoughts on the speculation that Oasis may reform for their upcoming 30th anniversary. While he couldn’t share anything concrete regarding any plans, he did seem to have an optimistic outlook about the idea becoming reality.
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“Yeah, they probably will. I think yeah, they probably will do it. I don’t think it looks likely right now, but life is long, isn’t it?” he explained, later comparing the prospect to that of another Britpop band.
“As a Stone Roses fan, that reunion happened completely against the way things were looking,” he said. “They were not getting on at all, and there was a lot of bad blood in the press and stuff with the Roses, and then suddenly you were hearing about gigs… I think we could see something like that for Oasis”.
Check out the full interview above.
Talk around a possible reunion comes in light of the band celebrating the 30th anniversary of their breakthrough debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’, and frontman Liam Gallagher hitting the road later this summer for a run of shows where he will play the LP in full.
For the most part, the brothers have had a largely on-again-off-again approach to the idea of reforming. In a cover interview with NME, Liam claimed that an Oasis reunion was “gonna happen very soon”, and fuel was added to the fire later when Noel claimed that he would “never say never” to the idea.
Former guitarist Bonehead also weighed in on the debate, and said that he would like the reunion to go ahead because of what it would mean to the “younger fans”.
However, a dampener was then added to the debate when Liam accused his brother and former bandmate of doing “a lot of damage to Oasis as a band”. Noel also shut down speculation by claiming that his brother was too much of a “coward” to follow through with the idea, and accusing Liam of trying to “rewrite history” of Oasis‘ “dreadful” final year.
Ahead of the shows, Liam also claimed that he asked Noel to reunite for the upcoming run of live dates, but he “turned it down”. More recently, the frontman also claimed during an interview that he can see Noel “not looking back in anger” over the argument that led to the split, and has offered to “send him a box of chocolates” to reunite.
Alongside the upcoming ‘Definitely Maybe’ shows – which include a headline slot at Reading & Leeds – Liam also released his long-awaited collaborative album with John Squire.
As for Noel, the singer, songwriter and guitarist has been on the road with High Flying Birds and has many more shows lined up for the summer – tickets are available here. Last week, he announced that he had scrapped his work for an acoustic album, and was instead turning his sights to making a “defiant rock record”.
He also spoke to NME in 2023, and said at the time that an Oasis reunion may “inevitably” happen, but hadn’t yet as there had “never really been a serious offer about ‘The Big O’ getting back together”.
As for Ride, at the start of the year the Oxford Shoegazers spoke to NME about their defiant new album ‘Interplay’ and dropped the new single ‘Peace Sign’.
“There’s been times during the making of this record where we’ve fallen victim to some of the stresses that have been caused by outside influences but really both the negative things that have played into it, they’ve both been good at really reminding us at what we’re protecting, what we’re valuing,” he said at the time.
“The core of it is the interplay between us and what we have together as a band. Why are we doing any of this? It’s because we want to keep this thing going, that we are all so invested in.”