Hangovers, guitar attacks and flying plums: the real reasons Oasis split

(PA)

Oasis finally split after a row about Liam Gallagher's fashion business led to a violent dressing room clash in Paris, Noel Gallagher has revealed.

The songwriter, announcing his return with a solo album, said he walked out of the band after his brother wielded a guitar "like an axe". Discussing the infamous 2009 split for the first time, Gallagher said he had vetoed Liam's wish to plug his Pretty Green clothing range in Oasis tour programmes.

"I didn't think it was right for him to be flogging his gear to our fans," said Gallagher, who suggested Liam pay full rate for the adverts. "He couldn't get his head around that. He hit the roof. Things really went downhill from there"

After Liam pulled out of a V Festival headline appearance with a "hangover", described publicly as "laryngitis", the row came to a head before a Paris gig.

Liam threw a plum at his brother, which splattered against the dressing room wall, shortly before they were due on stage. "Part of me wishes it did end like that - 'plum throws plum'," said Noel.

But then Liam left the room only to return wielding a guitar. "He nearly took my face off with it," said Noel. "It was a really unnecessary, violent act."

With the guitar now lying on the floor, Noel decided to complete the ritual trashing: "I put it out of its misery." While the rest of Oasis "looked the other way" during the debacle, Noel quit on the spot. The brothers haven't spoken since.

"He's probably better of without me because he's in charge now," said Gallagher of Liam's new Beady Eye band. "But it remains to be seen whether I'm better without him. I've never really seen myself as a frontman."

Noel launches his post-Oasis career with a new album, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, on October 17, the first of two albums which have been completed. The instrumentation includes wine glasses, washboard and electric kettle but the songs will still have "echoes of Oasis" The second, a more experimental "space rock" record, will follow next year. Unlike Liam's band, Noel will play Oasis hits when he tours in the autumn. "I'll never do a gig without playing them, they're like drugs to me," said Gallagher. "I was the the main songwriter and I wrote every Oasis song that ever mattered."

Gallagher gave hope to those still willing an Oasis reunion, saying: "I hadn't had enough of Oasis, I had had enough of Liam." His brother swept up the remains of the trashed guitar and plans to sell it one day as an item of "rock n'roll history".