🔗 Share this article

By every measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary thing. It took place over the course of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a local cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had barely covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to fill even a more modest London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable situation for the majority of indie bands in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can identify numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly drawing in a much larger and broader audience than usually displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their look – which appeared to connect them more to the burgeoning acid house scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a world of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way completely different from any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point that the melody of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were doing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the songs that graced the decks at the era’s indie discos. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music quite distinct from the standard alternative group set texts, which was completely right: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The fluidity of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s him who propels the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into free-flowing groove, his jumping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

At times the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that comes to thought is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its flaws might have been fixed by cutting some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “reverting to the groove”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks usually coincide with the instances when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can hear him metaphorically willing the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is completely contrary to the listlessness of everything else that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a some energy into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre one suspects listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded completely after a disastrous headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively energising impact on a band in a slump after the cool response to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, weightier and more fuzzy, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a point of difference was still present – particularly on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his playing to the front. His popping, hypnotic bass line is certainly the star turn on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Always an friendly, clubbable figure – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was always punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reformation failed to translate into anything beyond a lengthy series of hugely lucrative gigs – a couple of fresh singles put out by the reformed four-piece served only to prove that any magic had existed in 1989 had proved unattainable to recapture 18 years later – and Mani discreetly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a great excuse to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their confident attitude, while Britpop as a whole was informed by a aim to transcend the standard market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their clearest direct influence was a sort of groove-based change: following their early success, you suddenly couldn’t move for alternative acts who wanted to make their audiences dance. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, aren’t they?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”