Zak Starkey responds to rumours he’ll rejoin Oasis: ‘I don’t know!’
Starkey is the leading force behind the supergroup Mantra Of The Cosmos
By Nick Reilly
Zak Starkey has offered the curtest of responses to rumours that he’ll be rejoining Oasis for their reunion tour later this year.
Starkey was the drummer for the Britpop icons between 2004-2008 when he replaced Alan White behind the kit, lending his efforts to the band’s live shows and drumming on the albums Don’t Believe The Truth and Dig Out Your Soul.
And while it’s been speculated that Starkey could return behind the kit for the band’s massive reunion tour this summer, it seems that he is keeping mum about a return.
Starkey was speaking to Rolling Stone UK about his supergroup Mantra of the Cosmos – which features Ride’s Andy Bell and the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder and Bez – when he explained how busy schedules with individual projects often proved to be a stumbling block in the group’s activities.
When RS UK asked if an Oasis reunion tour could be a stumbling block for Starkey, the sticksman refused to be drawn on the prospect.
“Err, I don’t know,” he swiftly responded. “I don’t know.”
A genuine statement of facts or an impressively diplomatic silence? Who knows, but we’ll be able to err, Dig Out the facts of the matter when the full reunion line-up is unveiled in the coming months.
His response comes after Shaun Ryder recently told the Daily Star that the group “sort of know…” if Starkey would be involved – but didn’t elaborate further.
Either way, there was a Oasis reunion of sorts when Noel Gallagher joined Mantra of the Cosmos on their single ‘Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous)’ back in January.
“’Noel came to me and said he had a song that that didn’t really work for High Flying Birds, but he thought that it would work for Mantras,” explained Starkey.
“So I took the vocals off it and sort of rebuilt it with Mantra music under it and kept Noel’s vocals and Sean’s vocals and and a big rolling tom fill by Chris Sharrock.”
And what’s next for the group? “We’ve got a great follow-up to ‘Domino Bones’ that I’ve been working on with Shaun. It’s a lot more epic than that song but let’s wait and see what happens. I don’t want to jinx it at the moment.”