Quotes

Actually, me and Our Kid [aka Liam Gallagher] are just using this band as a stepping stone for our double act on the Late Show with David Letterman (1993) as comedians, cheers!

Just because you sell lots of records it doesn't mean to say you're any good. Look at Phil Collins.

I wasn't put on this earth to amass money or personal wealth. I was put on this earth to play guitar and write songs.

I'm proud of my Irish background. That's where I get my sense of humour from.

There was a big hole in my life after The Jam split up and then came The Smiths. They were just so different from anything else. And they had great songs!

Politics is like football for me. Labour is my team and even if you don't like a striker you don't give up supporting the whole team.

You pick up your guitar, you rip a few people's tunes off, you swap them around a bit, get your brother in the band, punch his head in every now and then, and it sells.

We dragged English guitar music out of the gutter.

Once I got sort of quite good then it was "sit down, take a deep breath and attempt to copy The Beatles", which is very difficult, although I have to say I've mastered it to a tee.

Phil Collins sold five times as many records as I did. Does that make him nearly as influential as I am? Nope.

Cat Deeley bands, that's what The Flaming Lips and The Darkness are. But nothing against Cat Deeley, I'm sure she's a very nice girl.

[remarking about the old kids TV show You and Me (1974)] Liam knows a version of that, It's called Me and Me.

I envy drummers. It must be the ultimate to sing and play drums at the same time. Phil Collins, no wonder he's so fucking happy.

I'm a great songwriter, but I'm not the most talented musician.

I was playing guitar before I heard The Beatles, but as I got older and listened to their tunes I realised they were amazing. They inspire me more now than they did when I was a kid and are still the greatest.

[on recording a solo album] I'll do one eventually as life's too short and none of us is getting any younger. I'd like to make one while I still look good and before I look like Phil Collins, which, eventually, I will.

I don't get the Britney (Britney Spears) thing. I certainly don't get the *NSYNC, the Robbie Williams or the Gorillaz thing. There's a lot of things I don't get.

Kylie Minogue is just a demonic little idiot as far as I'm concerned. She gets cool dance producers to work with her for some bizarre reason, I don't know why. She doesn't even have a good name. It's a stupid name, Kylie, I just don't get it.

I fucking despise hip hop. Loathe it. Eminem is a fucking idiot and I find 50 Cent the most distasteful character I have ever crossed in my life. It's so negative. Eminem's new song about his kid - isn't it the most ridiculous piece of music you have ever heard in your life? I just don't like the dragging women around on dog leads and all that stuff. I'm not fucking having that. I'm not saying they're directly responsible but that's how you end up with these fucking gangs of youths with hoods stabbing people. I'm not saying they need to sit around listening to 'All You Need is Love'. But kids are so fucking thick these days that they are very easily influenced, aren't they?

The boy bands of the day such as Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran could all play their instruments. It's so far removed from the bands of today like Westlife and Boyzone, who are utter shit. I am not a fan of Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet, but now there is pop music and alternative music and there is nothing in between the two.

I'm not sure about this Live 8 (2005) thing. Correct me if I am wrong, but are they hoping that one of these guys from the G8 is on a quick 15-minute break at Gleneagles and sees Annie Lennox singing "Sweet Dreams" and thinks, "Fuck me, she might have a point there, you know." It's not going to fucking happen, is it? Keane doing "Somewhere Only We Know" and some Japanese businessman going: "Aw, look at him, we should really fucking drop that debt, you know." It's not going to happen, is it?

[on London's O2 Arena] Any gig you can get to by boat that hasn't got a beach is wrong.

The scumbags are taking over the streets. I don't know what David Cameron and Gordon Brown are going to do about it. It all goes back to the Thatcher (Margaret Thatcher) years. It sounds like a cliché but that's when the rot set in.

We like annoying people. It's a Manchester thing. It's a trait. We just like pissing people off.

Phil Collins knows he can't say anything about me because I'm the fucking bollocks and that's the thing that does his head in, and the fact that he's bald.

[on Keane] Traditionally speaking, the three biggest twats in any band are the singer, the keyboardist and the drummer. I don't need to say anything else.

I fucking love U2 and I always have done - I love the size of that band. Whether you like them or not, you cannot deny that U2 have written some great fucking songs. People will not accept that Bono is sincere - in this cynical age, they think he's really just a c**t. But he's not.

Domestically, whatever Blair (Tony Blair) did will be overshadowed by Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction. But they brought in the minimum wage and for that alone it was worth it.

It would be with a heavy heart that I became a tax exile, but then again if you're earning a pound and somebody's taking 98 pence of it, what's the point?

We went to see them (Spinal Tap) in Carnegie Hall. He (Liam Gallagher) loved the film and thought they were a real band.

People fucking hate Phil Collins, and if they don't - they fucking should.

[on breaking up his act with brother Liam, who had threatened him] It was a really unnecessary violent act, and he was swinging his guitar around and nearly took my face off with it. He doesn't like me, in a violent way. I don't get on with him, but he takes it to a *new* level. There's no point in being in a band with people you fight with. I kind of did everybody a favor.

[on winning NME's Godlike Genius Award in 2012] I would like to thank NME for bestowing upon me such a great accolade. I have dreamt of this moment since I was 43 years old. I accept that I am now a genius, just like God.

Madonna was hardcore. She took it to the edge musically as well as everything else. Twenty years from now, will we listen to Lady Gaga? No. She might think she is making a stand for the freaks and the weirdos but they're not going to have any decent fucking music to play are they?

[on Lady Gaga] It's all about the meat suit and the controversy. Is it about the music? Really? She's got the publicity side sorted out, but where's the fucking music?

[onstage at the 1996 BRIT Awards, when Michael Hutchence presented Oasis with the 'Best Video' trophy] Has-beens shouldn't be presenting awards to gonna-bes.

We're going to do a live album when I run out of ideas for songs, or if Liam starts writing Oasis songs (ha ha ha).

Writing songs, that's what gets me going. Not the drugs or the sex or the rock'n'roll behavior, it's the music.

[on the worst possible psychological torture] Being sat beside Liam on a 15-hour flight. It happened just the once, going to Japan or somewhere. It's just horrible.

[on Liam Gallagher] He's rude, arrogant, intimidating and lazy. He's the angriest man you'll ever meet. He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup.

This is rock 'n' roll, not a charity handout. I don't care who you are, why you're here, what you expect. If you buy the ticket then you're going to get the show we put on. And if you don't like it, you know what you can do.

Sex Pistols I was into. I was just too young for them, but the first band that I'd seen and had a connection with was The Jam and seeing The Jam on The Old Grey Whistle Test (1971). And after that it was The Smiths and New Order, and they were from Manchester and that was mind-blowing. But the first band that I'd seen that I thought "I can do that" was The Stone Roses.

[on "Where Are We Now?" by David Bowie] The more you hear "Where Are We Now?" the better it gets. The video's mad - like his fucking cat directed it.

[on his second post-Oasis album] It sounds a bit like Dark Side Of The Moon. The sound is similar to High Flying Birds, but more psychedelic and tripped out. But it's not an electronic project.

[his retrospective appraisal of Oasis album "Be Here Now"] The sound of a bunch of guys, on coke, in the studio, not giving a fuck. All the songs are really long and all the lyrics are shit and for every millisecond Liam is not saying a word, there's a fucking guitar riff in there in a Wayne's World (1992) stylie.

[on Conservative chancellor George Osborne] He might be the most slappable man in England, the kind of man that would watch Coronation Street (1960) or EastEnders (1985) to get a perspective on the working class.

[in 1994] Phil Collins has got to be chased out of the charts, and Wet Wet Wet. It's the only way to do it, man, to fucking get in there among them and stamp the fuckers out.

If someone wants to know what I think of Adele, I'll fucking tell them. I just don't see what all the fuss is about. I don't like her music. I think it's music for fucking grannies. Music has nosedived into fucking blandness. A sea of cheese.

McCartney (Paul McCartney), Weller (Paul Weller), Townshend (Pete Townshend), Richards (Keith Richards), my first album is better than all their first albums. Even they'd admit that.

[on being a support act for U2] It will be both a pleasure and an honour to play my part in what still remains the greatest show on earth.