Ride guitarist Andy Bell says Oasis “probably will” reunite at some point.
The guitarist initially found recognition with Oxford band Ride, who spearheaded the first wave of shoegaze artists in this country. Signed to Creation Records, Andy Bell witnessed the rise of Oasis first hand, before helping to form short-lived Britpop outfit Hurricane #1.
When that band splintered, Noel Gallagher reached out – with Andy Bell then joining an overhauled Oasis line-up, alongside drummer Zac Starkey and fellow Creation veteran Gem Archer.
Ride are enjoyed their second chapter, with new album ‘Interplay’ racing into the Top 10. In our review, CLASH noted:
Ride seem to be embrace and move past their illustrious past, resulting in one of the most finessed, intriguing albums of their career to date.
Speaking to Virgin Radio, Andy Bell reminisced about those early Oasis shows: “I got into [Oasis] very early on, and I saw some really early gigs of theirs… I saw them upwards of ten times all around the country, so yeah, I’m a huge fan,” he said.
The guitarist added: “It was a couple of years after Ride split, and I was in a new band called Hurricane. We had broken up, and there had been a story in the papers saying that my band had broken up, and I guess [Oasis] realised I was knocking around.”
Oasis celebrate 30 years of their iconic debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’ this year, and – as ever – speculation surrounding a re-union dogs the Manchester legends. Asked about the prospect of the band reforming, Andy Bell said:
“Yeah, they probably will. I think yeah, they probably will do it. I don’t think it looks likely right now, but life is long, isn’t it?”
He added: “As a Stone Roses fan, that reunion happened completely against the way things were looking. They were not getting on at all, and there was a lot of bad blood in the press and stuff with the Roses, and then suddenly you were hearing about gigs… I think we could see something like that for Oasis”.
Liam Gallagher was quick to shut this down, however, commenting on Twitter / x:
Andy bell from ride the shoegazing phenomenon should really not be getting people’s hopes up it’s not big and and it’s not clever LG x
He added to a comment: “it’s over we must all really move in for our own mental health…”
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