Noel Gallagher believes Oasis should have taken a break in the mid-90s but says he couldn't because he was happy living in the public eye.
Noel Gallagher became "addicted" to fame.
The Oasis guitarist believes the band should have taken a break at the height of their mid-90s success, but he was enjoying the trappings of celebrity too much to stop.
Noel - who along with his bandmates played two historic nights at legendary UK concert venue Knebworth House - said: "From the defining moment, which was the lights coming on at Knebworth in 1996, at the end of that second show, to (original members) Bonehead and Guigsy leaving, during that period I was kind of just doing it for the sake of it. I didn't know what else to do. What we should have done after Knebworth was let the whole thing settle and taken two years off. But with the drugs and all that, you get so addicted to the attention, you also become institutionalised to the band."
Although he concedes he should have taken some time out, Noel - whose third album with Oasis, 1997's 'Be Here Now', was panned by critics, despite being the fastest-selling album in UK chart history -
has no regrets about his hedonistic days.
The 'Falling Down' rocker - who quit drugs in 1999 without going to rehab - told Culture magazine: "You start off being a kid in an Adidas top and you end being this guy in a fur jacket and two pairs of f***ing sunglasses. Which, let me tell you, is amazing! Those times were incredible. I wouldn't want to go back to them for all the tea in China. That would be a joke. But I'm glad I lived through all that madness, all the fur coats and the crocodile-skin shoes and the drugs and the women. We made it look like what it is, the best job in the world."
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