Oasis may finally dry up out of sheer sense of boredom

Many have predicted the end for Oasis will come in a fatal blaze of wild behaviour. But, explains Paul McCann, it now looks like the band might just die of boredom.

Despite the money, adulation and drugs, Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher has declared he is bored with rock 'n' roll, bored with Oasis and has hinted the band might split up. He told a Californian radio station that their last album, Be Here Now, "dropped like a bad smell" and that when Oasis finish their current US tour there are no plans for them to play together again.

The interview caused consternation at the band's management and a spokesman issued a statement: "I want to say categorically that they are not going to split. They just want some time out." In the interview, in a British pub in Santa Monica where Noel played a set on his own, he admitted all was not well with the group's state of mind. He admitted his brother Liam has "24-hour turbulence in his head" and that "I'm worried about my creativity being stifled. I have to keep stimulated to keep the brain going. I have to find another way to approach music.

"Breaking up after the tour sounds probably right. I'm as bored with being a rock star at this moment as the people on the other side of the fence are bored with it. It's a job. That's a sad thing to say. I never thought it would come to this."

Rather than go on touring and writing albums, Noel is looking for new kinds of stimulation: "I need to explore some jungles in South America and decide what to do. Hopefully, the decision will involve music. I have enough bucks in the bank." Also hoping his decision will involve music was the band's record company, Creation Records. It offered a different version of the state of the band from spokesman Johnny Hopkins, who said the US tour was going well, with sell-out concerts in front of audiences as big as 13,000. "The band are having a really good time for a change., But once the tour is over, they plan to take a break."

In a documentary aired before the release of Be Here Now, Oasis admitted that unless they had started recording together in a farmhouse in late 1996, the band would have come to an end.