Mark Lanegan: Oasis’ Liam Gallagher Bailed on a Tour So He Wouldn’t Have to Fight Me [Update]
Mark Lanegan claims that Oasis singer Liam Gallagher backed out of a 1996 tour with his band Screaming Trees so that the Brit-rocker could avoid a fight with the grunge musician.
The Screaming Trees frontman and solo artist makes the claim in his memoir, Sing Backwards and Weep, released last month. In it, Lanegan surmises that a tense encounter between the two caused Gallagher to leave the U.S. leg of Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory? tour supported by the Trees.
The animosity began when the pair first met. It was then that Gallagher made a crack about Lanegan's group's name, as both The Independent and The Sun reported this week. The Oasis vocalist jokingly referred to Screaming Trees as "Howling Branches" before Lanegan jabbed back.
"'Fuck off, you stupid fucking idiot,' was my brief, blase retort," Lanegan writes before going on to remember Gallagher as "an obvious poser, a playground bully. Like all bullies, he was also a total pussy."
The situation escalated from there, and the Screaming Trees singer recalls that the two rockers set a date for a physical fight. However, Gallagher was gone from the tour before the brawl could take place. (Indeed, Gallagher did abandon part of Oasis' 1996 U.S. tour, as author John Harris wrote in his 2004 book Britpop!)
"He had quit and bailed before I could have a go at him before his promised playground battle royale in Miami," Lanegan continues. "Typical, I thought. That phony motherfucker had pissed his pants and gone home to mama before I had a chance to blow this whole thing up myself."
Never one to be outdone, Gallagher has countered Lanegan's recollection with one of his own. Following the reports mentioned above, the Oasis frontman took to Twitter to offer his version of the events.
"Here's how I saw it," Gallagher recounted on Monday (May 4). "I asked you your bands name I was fucking around and called it something else you being an [uptight] junkie and not having a sense of humour got your little grungy knickers in a twist another bullshitter trying to sell a book."
Nearly 25 years after the fact, it seems the battles rage on.
Update: Mark Lanegan fired back at Liam Gallagher and is not backing down. See his tweet below:
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