Noel Gallagher said Oasis breaking up in 2009 helped cement their legacy as one of the greatest British bands of all time.
The group disbanded following Gallagher’s abrupt departure after a heated confrontation with brother Liam at the Rock en Seine festival near Paris.
Since their break-up fans have desperately pleaded for the Gallaghers to reunite, calls that have so far proved fruitless.
Gallagher, the older of the siblings and Oasis’s primary songwriter, said towards the end of the band’s time together audiences had grown bored of them.
Speaking on Sky Arts programme Noel Gallagher: Out Of The Now about his decision to leave, the rocker said: “It’s not a decision I took lightly”.
He added: “And I’d written every meaningful song that was ever recorded by Oasis. And it was my life, I directed it and creatively it was my thing. With the benefit of hindsight it was the best thing for me and for the band.
“Because the band now, Oasis back in 2009 were not lauded as one of the greats of all time. There was a kind of undercurrent of, ‘well they should really call it a day’. That’s what I felt anyway.
“And I felt that people had stopped listening to the records and were coming to see us trot out the hits and it’s a position I never wanted the band to be in. But now of course we’re seen as up there with all the greats.”
Gallagher, 54, also recalled the night Oasis split up after he clashed with Liam.
“Oasis tours were always about the struggle anyway,” he said on Out Of The Now.
“The incident in Paris, that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, really.”
Gallagher, who formed Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds after leaving Oasis, said he was sitting in the back of a car outside the music festival in France when he made the decision to leave the group.
He said: “And the driver pulled off and that was it. I didn’t feel a sense of relief because I knew there was a s***storm coming. And there was going to be a lot of nonsense talked about it.
“One of the biggest bands ever imploded, finally. And I couldn’t go back to England because the press had descended on my house and my missus was there with my kids.
“So we had to kind of spirit her out in the middle of the night and they came to join me in France somewhere. And then when we eventually got back to England, of course all f****** hell broke loose.”
Noel Gallagher: Out Of The Now airs on Sky Arts, Freeview Channel 11, on Thursday 10 June at 9pm and is repeated on Saturday 12 June at 9pm.
