Noel Gallagher wishes he’d taken “a decade” off after Oasis’ Knebworth shows.

The guitarist believes the quality of his former group’s work suffered because his brother, frontman Liam, always wanted them to work on new material, whereas he would have been happy to take a lengthy break after the 1996 concerts.

He said: “In that period, 97 to 2000, I could have done with a lot of time off, but Liam, to his credit, always pushed us back into the studio.

“I’d have had a decade off after Knebworth and gone ‘Well that’s enough for me, need to go on holiday and I’ll see you in 10 years’.

“There was some good songs but not really great albums, you know what I mean, but its all part of the story I guess.”

Noel – whose debut solo LP ‘Noel Gallagher’s High-lying Birds’ topped the chart on Sunday (23.10.11) – admits he felt pressured to live up to the success of Oasis’ first two albums, ‘Definitely Maybe’ and ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory’.

He added to Absolute Radio: “With the first two albums, I wrote those before we had a record and then after the success of ‘Morning Glory’ I had to write an album as the guy that wrote those two albums, and I found that very difficult because I wanted to party.

“I wrote that album while I was on holiday, and I’ll put it to you like this, I had a great holiday. And then I came back, and I played these demos that I did and everybody went, ‘They’re amazing’.

“But for a few years I found I couldn’t find the inspiration, but now I’m kind of cool with it.”