Noel Gallagher has confessed that the first three Oasis albums were written in a blizzard of cocaine, and as he did so inadvertently suggested that his band aren't that much cop any more now that he's off it.

As part of the promotional blitz that's preceding new album Dig Your Own Soul, Gallagher spouted to Spin magazine, "Before 1997, I hadn't written a song without the aid of the old Colombian marching gear. Don't forget, I was on drugs before I was even in a band. The whole of the first three albums were written on drugs.

"I remember being off my nut and going into the back room and setting the goal of writing a song in 10 minutes - that was 'Supersonic'.”

Like Baudelaire, De Quincey and Coleridge before him, Gallagher has found narcotics to occasionally open the route to artist inspiration. Indeed, later in the same interview he suggests that for him, perhaps the cokey is the only route to inspiration: "All those albums and all the B-sides were written on drugs. That's why they're so good. And that pisses me off,” he said. "I think, 'Maybe I should get back into taking drugs, and then it would be brilliant again.' But that thought lasts less than a second.”