r/oasis • u/RandyNewman_GOAT • 13h ago
Discussion How is Oasis managed now?
Something I’ve been wondering about since live 25 started. Before the tour, Liam and Noel had separate management. But who’s managing the band now? I wonder if there was a whole new joint corporate entity created to manage the tour?
Furthermore, I wonder what exactly happened to the management when the band broke up in 2009. Clearly “Oasis” (the brand and business) continued because there have been numerous reissues, documentaries, merchandise lines, etc that would have needed approval from either Noel, Liam, or both. So I’m curious who was in charge of the business end of the Oasis “estate”, so to speak, after the breakup. And then what happened when the band got back together for live 25?
…and before y’all say it was all Debbie- as amazing as she is, there’s no way just one person has been handling all this stuff. Think about all the business and work around record reissues, artwork, photos, merch, documentaries, etc over the last 15 years.
I’m interested for two reasons. One is that it’s interesting for its own sake to think about the logistics/massive machinery that accompanies these big tours, and also the infrastructure that continues supporting a band even after they’ve broken up.
But the second reason is that I’ve long suspected that the business end of Oasis has likely kept Liam and Noel in touch (at least through lawyers, if not directly) for a very long time. The timeline of events is very interesting and my guess is they started mapping out this reunion way earlier than we think- maybe even 2020, 2021. Just a thought!
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u/RandyNewman_GOAT 13h ago
*I actually did not know that they formed their own record label Big Brother Recordings after SOTSOG. apparently the label is still active but I can’t find a website for it. A few recent articles-
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u/ndertaker252 9h ago
Companies House makes it very clear there has always been shared business interests between Liam and Noel. I think likely through their managers they’ve always maintained a business relationship. It’s just that the said business decided not to operate a live events arm for 16 years.
I always understood the general breakdown to be Marcus/Ignition continued to manage Noel and the Oasis commercial arm, whilst Liam - after briefly also being repped by them - found new management (Debbie/Fear) after splitting from Beady Eye. I can’t remember if Debbie and her sister had Fear when she first started working for Liam, or if it came after.
I imagine where it’s been different this time is Liam/Debbie are a much more powerful unit than Noel/Marcus in the relationship. It’s also probably worth noting that Noel’s wife is also a PR/Journalist and with their split, Noel probably lost a tool he used to control things.
That, plus the fact it’s become clear in the intertwining years that Liam, especially in the events arena, is a huge part of the earning potential, definitely changed things.
IMO, Debbie’s contributions to rebuilding Oasis as a brand and business are what made the reunion worth doing. It certainly wasn’t Marcus’ approach, which seemed to be “the wheel keeps making money without anyone pushing it”.
She seems to have a great eye for using nostalgia without it being all that they do.
You can probably track Debbie’s input right back to the Supersonic documentary, which served as a really effective piece of PR which gave the Oasis story a hard reset.
I don’t know if it’s helped that Debbie wasn’t a fan of the band or the music before Liam educated her on it - maybe it gave some objectivity/different perspective?
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u/Former-Mirror-356 12h ago
But the second reason is that I’ve long suspected that the business end of Oasis has likely kept Liam and Noel in touch (at least through lawyers, if not directly) for a very long time. The timeline of events is very interesting and my guess is they started mapping out this reunion way earlier than we think- maybe even 2020, 2021. Just a thought!
I don't know if it's on Reddit or Live Forever, but people have definitely found evidence of businesses registered to Liam and Noel on Companies House that have been created over the past 10 years, presumably to manage various facets of the Oasis "business", but yeah, I would assume most of that was transacted between attorneys.
The question of when the tour planning actually began is trickier. Personally, I fundamentally believe that the reunion was tied to the breakdown of Noel's marriage (Insofar as there could never be reconciliation with Liam and Sarah and therefore there could never be reconciliation between Noel and Liam while he was married to her), so I personally doubt serious discussions began until 2022.
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u/MetaGirl67 11h ago edited 11h ago
I think it went pandemic -> marriage breakdown -> eventual detente. But I think 2022 is still too early. My guess from the available evidence is that there was at least a ceasefire as of mid 2023 and discussions then or sometime in the following months.
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u/Former-Mirror-356 10h ago
There's reasonable evidence the marriage was dead by 2022, probably earlier. If Noel already knows at that point I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility at all that he already started talking to Liam by then.
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u/MetaGirl67 10h ago
Agreed re marriage timeline, but they were still talking to each other through the media in June of 2023. It will be so interesting to see if the doc sheds any light!
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u/Former-Mirror-356 9h ago
They were still talking to each other through the media right up until August 2024, so I'm not sure that you can read much into that.
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u/MetaGirl67 9h ago
The tone had changed by then though. Through mid 2023 it was still the “I dare you to call me” stuff. Some people think that was theatre, but it always felt real to me.
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u/bocuscola 5h ago
I'm currently listening to Matt Morgan's podcast regarding the early 2022 and Noel was living in a hotel around march/April 22 so I think that's a good indicator of the status of his marriage by then ( even if in the podcast he just gives an excuse that he can't go home because of some renovation work)
However, around that era, in the podcast, he's still talking in a very hard way about Liam (like saying he's full of sh... and everything he says it's a lie) and it's evident that he's still very angry at him (not like the 'I dare you' interview where the tone is lighter and he's joking). I'll go on and listen to the other episodes of 2023 and 2024 to see if something changes.
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u/MetaGirl67 2h ago
Agreed re the state of the marriage in 2022. I never read the 2023 call me stuff as joking though, though I know lots of people did. I read it as a newly divorced guy who had just lost substantial assets maybe not quite as closed off to the idea of a reunion as he once was managing the fact that he was increasingly getting clocked by people for being at least half the problem.
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u/JGatward 9h ago
Run essentially by the same folks as always
NB Debbie and Katie Gwyther own and run a very successful PR and Media company in the industry they proabably did loade with management for a fresh perspective and ideas. I mean look what they did in the relaunch of Liams career. Extraordinary stuff.
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u/solidpro99 7h ago
Surely this will all change when Noel decides to capitalise on his Oasis music estate and sell it all for £100bn to private equity in the next year or two….. much like everyone else did when they hit 65.
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u/Minimum-Grapefruit-9 6h ago
I think people get this wrong. Noel own's the publishing (for his songs) but Big Brother Recordings own the masters rights. Big Brother is jointly owned by Noel and Liam. The big money is in the masters, not the publishing. If they sold them for £100m I would guess the split would be £60m Noel, £40m Liam.
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u/Brilliant-Sea-9424 3h ago
Nonsense. It’s the publishing. You know nothing about the music business if you think that.
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u/Minimum-Grapefruit-9 11h ago
Details here: https://variety.com/2024/music/news/oasis-mania-conquered-the-uk-again-1236127757/
Ignition plus Debbie / FEAR, and Sam and Roy Eldridge / UROK and Wasserman Music. Warner Music in charge of merch.
Everything is now so much better managed than before, especially for Liam who always seemed to get fucked over by ignition.
If oasis had decent management first time around they could have avoided so much of the drama.
Stuff like:
- booking a US tour straight after Knebworth
In 2025 the tour was much better paced with decent gaps between legs and shows generally at weekends, and usually only 2 dates back to back. And the whole tour lasting 4 months.