Starsailor bassist James ‘Stel’ Stelfox says Liam and Noel Gallagher can’t match Oasis’ success anymore.
The 43-year-old musician admitted the industry has changed so much since the band release their debut album ‘Love Is Here’ – which peaked at number two in the UK Album Charts – in 2001, and he pointed to the changing fortunes of the sibling rivals as evidence of the change.
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, he said: "It’s really difficult to sell records now.
"Even if you look at Liam and Noel recently, I think they had hit records last time but if you look at the sales and what they used to do, it’s just not the same. The whole record industry has changed."
While Oasis’ debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’ has sold over 2,000,000 copies in the UK alone since its 1994 release, Liam’s chart topping solo debut ‘As You Were’ sold over 300,000 copies when it was released last year, and Noel’s latest High Flying Birds LP ‘Who Built the Moon?’ went to number one in 2017 with sales of 78,000 album-equivalent units.
The ‘Silence Is Easy’ band had a rivalry with the Britpop legends in the early 2000s when Noel reportedly called singer James Walsh a "c**k".
The ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ star reignited things last weekend when he asked if people jumped overboard when Walsh started to sing on the ferry over to the Isle of Wight Festival.
The singer responded on Twitter: "Ha ha. The fact people are still arsed he had a go at us almost 20 years ago & he’s still biting is genius"
Stel didn’t acknowledge the feud, and he explained that the changing industry meant there was less pressure on some artists than there was in their heyday.
He said: "We’re not as popular as we used to be in 2001 until 2004, something like that, but that’s the way it goes…
"If we’d tried some of these things 15 years ago, we wouldn’t have got them on the record. But now you just think, let’s make a record for ourselves as much as other people."
And he revealed Starsailor will be keeping busy as they start work on the follow-up to 2017’s ‘All This Life’.
He said: "I think we’ll get through the festivals this summer, and then we’ll get into the studio and get in down. The last album we did was quite a quality a record really, so we’ll try and keep to that same level. Hopefully!"
Starsailor play the Cool Britannia Festival on Sunday 1st September September 2019. Tickets: www.coolbritanniafest.com
Starsailor’s James Stelfox: Liam and Noel Gallagher don’t sell like Oasis did
