Sir Paul McCartney has lashed out at Oasis for saying they’d be "bigger" than his band The Beatles in 1996.
The 73-year-old rocker thinks the group made the "biggest mistake" of their career by saying they’d give the ‘Twist and Shout’ hitmakers a run for their money during a controversial interview with MTV over a decade ago.
Speaking to Q magazine, Paul said:"Oasis were young, fresh and writing good tunes. I thought the biggest mistake they made was when they said ‘We’re going to be bigger than The Beatles’.
"I thought ‘So many people have said that, and it’s the kiss of death.’ Be bigger than The Beatles, but don’t say it. The minute you say it, everything you do from then on is going to be looked at in the light of that statement."
Noel Gallagher – who was joined by brother and arch-enemy Liam Gallagher in the pioneering Britpop band ,which broke up in August 2009 – was slammed with backlash when he made the claim but he has since stated he has no recollection of making the statement and was probably out of his head on drugs at the time.
He previously admitted: "I might have been high when I said that. I think I was."
Paul’s comments come after the ‘Let It Be’ hitmaker admitted he was gripped by depression and "took to the bevvies" and almost walked away from his music career entirely when the iconic four-piece band – which also included John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr – went their separate ways in 1970.
He recently said: "I was depressed at the time, yeah. You would be. You would be too. I was breaking from my lifelong friends, not knowing whether I was going to continue in music. I took to the bevvies. I took to a wee dram. It was great at first, then suddenly I wasn’t having a good time. It wasn’t working. I wanted to get back to square one, so I ended up forming [his band] Wings."
Paul McCartney: Oasis shouldn’t have said they’d be ‘bigger than The Beatles’
