(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, the long-awaited second album from Oasis, has gone down in Britpop folklore – not least because the first week of the six-week recording session ended in a violent fight between Liam and Noel Gallagher that nearly destroyed the band.
“A fight?” recalled one member of the group’s entourage. “There were pellet guns, fire extinguishers, a TV hanging out the window with it still plugged in.”
During the 1995 session at a studio in South Wales, a bored Liam – still waiting for a call to record his vocals – spent the afternoon in a nearby pub, where he made some friends over a stiff drink.
When he returned to the studio with his new followers, Noel took offense. He tried to force the group out, and Liam “lost control” by jumping at his brother and attacking his guitars. Noel hit back with a cricket bat.
The band’s photographer, Michael Spencer Jones, said he had seen some mess before, but this was “on another level”. “It was chaos and the destruction in Liam’s room afterwards was like nothing I had ever seen. It was like a nuclear explosion had gone off.”
Liam Gallagher to perform live at the O2 Forum Kentish Town on March 25, 2024
Liam Gallagher and his girlfriend Debbie Gwyther wear Burberry at the February 2018 show during London Fashion Week
The damage totaled £800, which the band paid to the studio. They returned a week later to finish recording the album, which sold a whopping 345,000 copies in its first week.
For Liam, it was all part of life as a rock ‘n’ roll star. Like having his teeth knocked out in a drunken brawl on tour in Munich in 2002, which led to his five-star hotel being raided by 20 armed police and a 50,000 euro fine.
So the organisers of next year’s long-awaited Oasis reunion tour can be forgiven for some hesitation. But Liam is a changed man. He toured solo this summer and there are no reports of broken guitars or TVs hanging out of windows. Instead of his late-’90s rider of 24 cans of quality beer, the 51-year-old is limiting himself to one pint after every show and is in bed by midnight.
The person behind the transformation is 40-year-old Debbie Gwyther, Liam’s girlfriend of ten years and his manager. She is hailed as his savior, the tamer of the rock legend, the woman who managed to organise a completely sober Gallagher tour of Britain.
A friend of Liam’s tells me: ‘He’s like a different person on this tour, there’s no rock ‘n’ roll to be seen. It’s all very sensible and tame. Debbie knows what’s best for Liam. She’s strict with him. She’s not only his girlfriend, she’s his manager, so she knows exactly what needs to be done. Unlike his previous girlfriends and wives, he listens to Debbie, he adores her and trusts that she knows what she’s doing.’
As those who have known Liam for years admit: ‘It takes an incredibly strong character to have any control over him. A lot of people have tried and failed, but he loves her and knows what a positive difference she has made to his life.’ Simply put: ‘She doesn’t take any s***.’
Not only did Debbie help sober up Liam, who proposed to her on Italy’s Amalfi Coast in 2019, but according to a source, she also played a vital role in organizing the Oasis reunion.
Although the ‘brilliant businesswoman’ played hard with international promoters Live Nation and SJM, and with Noel’s team, her greatest negotiating achievement was between the two brothers.
Debbie, 40, has been Liam’s girlfriend for ten years and is also his manager
Noel and Liam Gallagher proved they’ve buried the hatchet of their 15-year feud when they met up this summer to pose for a photo together in celebration of Oasis’ comeback tour
“Debbie came into the scene after the band broke up, and was a fresh perspective and a cooler head without all that baggage,” a source says. “Debbie blew everyone away. Let’s just say if it wasn’t for her, things wouldn’t have gone nearly as smoothly as they did.”
‘She was determined to get Liam back on stage with his brother.
“She’s been saying for years that she thinks they should try to patch things up – and she loves Liam’s family, especially his mother, Peggy, and wanted them to patch things up for her, too. It’s hard to imagine this ever happening without her. She should be working for the UN with those skills.”
Debbie was a working-class girl growing up in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, the daughter of a postman and a housewife.
She did not go to university, but moved to Dalston, East London, in her late teens to find work in the music industry.
Debbie met Liam when she was working as his personal assistant in 2013 – after taking a job at his then management company Quest, run by Paul McCartney’s manager Scott Rodger. The pair began a relationship after he divorced All Saints singer Nicole Appleton in 2014. He has said Debbie introduced him to “a whole new world” outside his comfort zone of Primrose Hill, north London, where he lived during his marriages to Ms Appleton and actress Patsy Kensit. It is also where he raised two of his children, sons Lennon, 24, and Gene, 23, whose mother is Patsy.
Liam admits Debbie ‘saved’ him. He said: ‘Debbie picked me up when I fell. She just said, ‘Stop being such an idiotic d***head.’
‘She took me out of the house, introduced me to all sorts of people outside my world, made me do new things. I lived in London for a long time, but I only really knew Hampstead.’
He added: “She was a breath of fresh air, man. She helped me right away. She and I like to do the same things. We like to laugh. I found my match, I found my soulmate. It’s good because the kids love her, the boys love her.”
But Debbie wasn’t always known for her down-to-earth sobriety. She and her sister Katie, who also works in the music industry and helps manage Liam’s career, had a reputation as party animals when they emerged on the London rock ‘n’ roll scene.
They ran a PR company, Fear PR, and were regulars at gigs. Debbie and Katie often had late-night drinking sessions in seedy venues, but few could match their stamina. ‘They were a pretty wild couple when they wanted to be,’ admits an insider. ‘But they’ve calmed down now.’
Debbie Gwyther out and about in London in June 2019
The 1996 Oasis concerts at Knebworth saw the highest demand for concert tickets in British history
As well as owning a £4million house down the road, Debbie and Liam this year moved to a country house near Stroud in the Cotswolds, which they reportedly rent for £17,000 a month. The move, friends say, is another part of the ‘New Liam’. Less time has been spent refurbishing the bar at their London haunt, The Flask, and the couple have instead been spotted walking their dog on a nearby common. Liam sets his alarm for 5am for an early morning run.
In his pre-Debbie years, he would still have been partying at that time, friends say. Debbie – whose Lake Como wedding to Liam was postponed last year when he underwent hip surgery – once said: ‘The Liam I know and the Liam in the public eye are completely different. He’s impulsive and he swears a lot, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be soft at the same time.
“He has a lot of pressure on his family. The way he treats me, the way he treats my family, his children, his mother, is the reason I love him. I knew he would never be happy if he didn’t sing.”
But it wasn’t always easy.
In 2018, Liam was photographed attacking Debbie in a nasty late-night incident at London celebrity hotspot Chiltern Firehouse.
CCTV footage showed Liam putting his hands on her neck and arguing under the influence of alcohol. This later led to police questions, but the pair strongly denied that she had any bad intentions. Debbie was even angry that the footage had been published.
As one source later put it, “They’re used to intense moments – it’s their world.”
‘What seems terrible to some is different to them, and they have processed it themselves.’
There are fewer fiery moments in their lives now. Liam even has “great” relationships with all his children. He was estranged from his eldest, daughter Molly, 26, over a brief affair he had with model Lisa Moorish while he was married to Ms Kensit.
“That was Debbie too,” says a friend. “She knows what’s best for Liam and he listens.” Let’s hope her peacekeeping skills hold up during next year’s sold-out tour.
