Liam Gallagher Releases Debt Solo Album Which He'll Be Touring in November

The cover for Liam Gallagher's debut solo album 'As You Were'. Image credit: Warner Bros Records / Liam Gallagher

Liam Gallagher, former lead singer of Oasis, is no doubt well known for his music and bravado. But how about for his talents as an agony aunt? The latter is what radio host Dave Berry was contemplating having the singer do when he appeared on Berry’s new show on Absolute Radio.

”With the Dave Berry Show they gave me a blank piece of paper.” Berry told The Evening Standard. “I’ve known Liam for many years. My plan is to not only have him help with the listeners’ problems but some of the problems we’re facing as humankind and see what his solutions are.”

Rehearsals at the Music Bank in London, a regular haunt, would see Liam take pleasure in giving his famous two finger salute to trains speeding past. Photographer © Jill Furmanovsky

Liam Gallagher was on the show, which is on weekdays 4pm to 7pm, the day before his new album dropped. While on the show he didn’t necessarily solve the world’s ills but he did deliver an amusing story about a fan who wanted to show him his John Lennon tattoo while Gallagher was out jogging. 

"I am on the heath about 6am one morning, and a geezer comes up to me and he goes 'Liam can I have a picture?' I said 'Come on, I'm in my running gear not now.' And he goes 'Are you still a John Lennon fan, do you want to see my tattoos?'" Gallagher told Berry.

Continuing, "I'm stood there jogging on the spot cos I'm keeping my heart rate up. I was expecting him to whip his arm up to show me his John Lennon tattoo on his bicep, but he whips his keks off. He is stood there in his little Y fronts, and he has this whole John Lennon thing all the way down leg on his thigh to his toe.

"It's only me and him on the heath, there's a geezer there with his keks down and so I've just sprinted off and left him. He's going 'Don't you like it?!'"

Liam Gallagher downs a pint on stage at The Point Theatre in Dublin in March 1996. Photographer © Jill Furmanovsky

Along with cathartically telling stories about strange interactions with fans while out jogging, Gallagher also played some tracks off his debut solo album, As You Were, which came out October 6.

The album has been getting pretty good reviews, with the NME giving it four stars and saying that it “isn’t hoary dad-rock indulgence, but a totally 2017 rock record with its sights set high.” It does also note though that “there’s a lot of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones here too.”

While The Guardian called tracks “What It’s Worth” and “Paper Crown” “fantastic: conspicuously better ballads than Gallagher Snr has come up with in 20 years” while also noting the “sharp production touches – the sampled guitar screech that powers the great single ‘Wall of Glass’”.

Photographer Jill Furmanovsky recalls about this shot, "The chalk blackboard and blood red wall were a gift to this session. Liam wrote the words himself." Photographer © Jill Furmanovsky

The production has been praised generally, and Liam Gallagher has had celebrated producers Greg Kurstin (Adele, Lily Allen and Foo Fighters) and Florence and the Machine collaborator Andrew Wyatt Read involved.

The solo album follows on from Liam Gallagher’s previous efforts with band Beady Eye, which was basically Oasis but minus Liam’s brother Noel Gallagher. Beady Eye split in 2014 however and Noel is due to release his latest album with his band the High Flying Birds, Who Built the Moon?, next month on Friday November 24.

Liam is due to embark on his first solo tour at the end of October too, performing 10 dates in England and Ireland to celebrate his new album. But if any Oasis fans were hoping to see Liam and Noel get back together again, it’s not going to happen any time soon.

Oasis in rehearsals before leaving for a US tour supporting U2, July 1997. Photographer © Jill Furmanovsky

Liam recently told the Independent about an Oasis reunion, “I would prefer to be in a band, and we should never ever have split up, but I’m certainly not yearning for it, you know what I mean? I was—I needed it four years ago, but I certainly don’t f***ing need it now. I prefer to be in a band—one that makes the same kind of racket as Oasis. I miss being in a band with my brother. But it’s not happening.”

You can order the album from Liam Gallagher’s website. Check out the single “Wall of Glass” from As You Were, below.

Rockarchive is delighted to be able to offer these iconic images, along with many other photos of Liam Gallagher and Oasis, as limited edition photographic prints which you can buy here.