Are an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. The group initially consisted of Liam Gallagher, Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs, Paul McGuigan and Tony McCarroll, with Liam asking his older brother Noel Gallagher to join as a fifth member a few months later to finalise their formation. Noel became the de facto leader of the group and took over the songwriting duties for the band's first four albums. Stylistically influenced by the Beatles and other British Invasion acts of the 1960s, they are characterised as one of the defining and most globally successful groups of the Britpop genre