Oasis reunion could earn Gallaghers $97m: Here’s why they need it

Noel is far better off than Liam but both have endured expensive financial hits along the way. While the Gallagher brothers will clear $97m from their comeback tour a far bigger payday is in the offing.

The fortunes of the Gallagher brothers have diverged since Oasis split. Liam, left, has never made as much as Noel. Picture: Supplied

‘No way,” Noel Gallagher declared just five years ago when asked whether he would ever play another gig with his brother Liam. “If I had [only] 50 quid in my pocket I’d rather go busking. No way, I can’t do it.”

The elder of the brothers was speaking after yet another vitriolic Gallagher bust-up. On Tuesday, however, with hostilities ceased or at least on pause, we learnt that the bad boys of Britpop - aged 57 and 51 - will unite next summer for 14 shows, with more added to meet “unprecedented demand”.

There was soon speculation that the shows could take as much as $776m at the box office, with hundreds of thousands of middle-aged fans eager to turn the clock back to the 1990s and belt out Champagne Supernova, Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back in Anger once again.

Fan Emily McShane, takes a photograph of a new street artwork depicting Oasis' Liam and Noel Gallagher, created by Manchester-based street artist Pic.One.Art., on the side of the Sifters Record store in Burnage, Manchester. Picture: AFP

An Oasis comeback was always likely to be enormously lucrative for the Gallagher brothers, particularly after such a long hiatus. But why do it now? Is it all about the money? And what does the tour tell us about the brothers’ finances?

For a few years in the mid-1990s, the Gallaghers fronted one of the world’s biggest acts. Oasis scored eight No 1 singles, eight No 1 albums and six Brit awards.

Historic accounts for Big Brother Recordings, the group’s main company, shows that at their peak the bandmates were typically raking in about $17.5m a year between them - big money for the music world in the days before Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.

The high point for Oasis came in August 1997 with the release of Be Here Now, their third record. It shifted 663,400 copies within three days and became the fastest-selling album in British history.

The cover of Oasis’s third record, Be Here Now, became the fastest-selling album in British history. Picture: News Corp

All this helped propel the Gallaghers on to The Sunday Times Music Rich List. By 2009, when Oasis split after yet another bust-up, their combined wealth was calculated at $100m.

In the years after the split the Gallaghers’ fortunes increased as Oasis album sales continued and Noel tasted success with his follow-up band High Flying Birds. The group’s debut album was the UK’s second biggest-selling rock record of 2011, after Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto.

Noel’s musical success explains why the Gallaghers’ joint wealth was calculated by Rich List researchers to have climbed to $116m by 2018.

Liam’s successor band, Beady Eye, split after five years. Their best-selling single, The Roller, peaked at No 31. His three solo studio albums later topped the UK charts between 2017 and 2022.

Noel was always the wealthier brother - and the more commercially attuned. The elder Gallagher was the principal songwriter so he has always received the lion’s share of royalties from album sales and record deals. His sibling’s big bank balance clearly needled Liam. In 2016 he was asked if his brother would make it to the premiere of an Oasis documentary. “Oh no, he won’t be here,” Liam replied. “He’s in one of his really, really, really, really, really, really, really big houses.”

Noel has had far more success post-Oasis than his brother. Gallagher's High Flying Birds are pictured performing at Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, on November 19, 2019. Picture: AAP

Financial records at Companies House give a flavour of the gulf between the brothers’ finances. Sour Mash Records, the label Noel set up to publish his post-Oasis music, shows $6.5m on its balance sheet. Liam’s main company has assets of just $160,000.

But the Gallaghers have endured expensive financial hits along the way. Liam’s three-year marriage to the Lethal Weapon 2 actress Patsy Kensit ended in 2000. The divorce settlement was not made public but was conceivably a seven-figure sum.

Liam’s three-year marriage to actress Patsy Kensit ended in 2000, with the divorce settlement likely having being a seven-figure sum. Picture: News Corp

A year later Noel split from his wife, the music publicist Meg Mathews, the mother of their daughter Anais. Their union ended with a $7.7m settlement for Mathews - $1.9m for each year the pair were married.

Liam’s break-up with his second wife, the All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, ended with a $10.6m payment in 2015. Court documents revealed this sum represented half the younger Gallagher’s wealth at the time. The same year, he agreed to pay child support for his two-year old daughter Gemma by Liza Ghorbani, rumoured at $5,800 a month. He has three other children, Lennon with Kensit, Molly with the singer Lisa Moorish and Gene with Appleton. The couple also chalked up $1.5m of legal bills - a sum described as “manifestly excessive” by the presiding judge.

Noel’s union with music publicist Meg Mathews ended with a $7.7m settlement for Mathews. Picture: AP

However, the cost of that legal brawl looks modest compared with Noel’s divorce from his second wife, Sara MacDonald. This constituted a $39m settlement for MacDonald, and the former publicist also received their country house, near the Hampshire village of East Meon on the South Downs. They share a son, Donovan Rory MacDonald Gallagher, born in 2007. Noel has a flat in Maida Vale, west London, where Paul Weller and Ronnie Wood have homes.

Liam and his manager-turned-fiancee Debbie Gwyther, 42, share a mock Tudor mansion a few miles away in Highgate, north London. He bought the $7.7 pad shortly before the pandemic.

The couple also rent an 11-bedroom Cotswolds mansion for almost $33,000 a month.

Liam owns a six-bedroom villa an hour’s drive from Cannes in the south of France, which he bought last year for about $5.8m.

Do these heavy settlements and a taste for the high life explain the decision to team up once again? There’s no doubt next summer’s shows will boost the brothers’ finances, but talk of box office takings of up to $776m look bold.

Noel’s divorce from his second wife, Sara MacDonald constituted a $39m settlement for MacDonald. Picture: Getty

Just under 1.4 million tickets will be available for the Live ‘25 Tour, prices (including fees) ranging from $140 to $520. Assuming an average ticket price of $340 suggests box office takings of about $465m. There will also be money from broadcasting rights. Then there’s the merch. T-shirts available on the Oasis website start at $58.

But even the best-known musicians typically see less than half of box office takings from their tours. Then there will be tax to pay. Even so, the Gallaghers should jointly clear $97m after tax from their comeback tour.

But there is a far bigger payday in the offing - for Noel, at least.

In recent years record labels and investment companies such as Hipgnosis have paid vast sums for rights to back catalogues. Queen recently sold theirs for $1.9bn. Phil Collins and his Genesis bandmates received about $397m.

How valuable are Oasis’s song rights? Those who buy back catalogues keep a careful eye on how often artists are streamed on platforms such as Spotify. That is ultimately where the bulk of revenues are expected to flow from. Oasis’s streaming numbers, however, have hardly been supersonic. Radiohead, Fleetwood Mac and even Gorillaz - Damon Albarn’s successor band to Blur - all have far stronger digital sales.

Some years ago, Noel identified 2025 as the year the songs’ publishing rights will be fully owned by him, as outlined in their record contract. A sale of song rights for hundreds of millions of dollars sounds like Noel’s masterplan. He just needs to keep things cordial with his brother for another 12 months.

The Times