OASIS - GALLAGHER HAILS ARCTIC MONKEYS AS NATURAL SUCCESSORS

OASIS guitarist NOEL GALLAGHER is proud to hand his rock mantle to indie stars ARCTIC MONKEYS, because the teen band also hail from northern England. The THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING IDLE star once believed THE LIBERTINES would succeed Oasis as the most important band in Britain, but the PETE DOHERTY-fronted group split following his descent into drink and drugs. Gallagher is delighted by the I BET YOU LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCEFLOOR sensations' meteoric rise to fame, and is glad to let a new generation of northerners take over. He says, "They're an amazing band and they're northerners, like us. I look at these and I know they're not going to p**s it away, because they're solid, they love each other, those four. And us northerners don't f**k it up... "I saw The Libertines and they had something for a while but they f**ked it up. They're the only two things that I've seen since Oasis that had what we had and The Libertines lost it."