🔗 Share this article

By any measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary thing. It took place over the course of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a regional source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the established outlets for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had hardly covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill even a more modest London venue 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 conceivable situation for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can identify any number of causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously attracting a far bigger and more diverse audience than typically showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their look – which seemed to align them more to the expanding acid house movement – their confidently defiant demeanor and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a scene of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible truth that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums grooved in a way completely unlike anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point that the melody of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were playing behind it really didn’t: you could move to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to the majority of the songs that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the standard alternative group set texts, which was absolutely right: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s Mani who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into free-flowing funk, his jumping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song isn’t really the vocal melody or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy guitar work, 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 initial element that comes to thought is the bass line.

In fact, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was underwhelming, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but believed its flaws might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “returning to the groove”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often coincide with the instances when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can hear him figuratively willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is totally at odds with the listlessness of everything else that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly attempting to add a bit of energy into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a catastrophic top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising effect on a band in a decline after the tepid response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, weightier and more fuzzy, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – particularly on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his bass work to the front. His popping, hypnotic bass line is certainly the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an affable, clubbable figure – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably punctured if Mani “let his guard down” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and permanently grinning guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion failed to translate into anything more than a long succession of hugely lucrative gigs – two fresh tracks put out by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that whatever spark had been present in 1989 had turned out impossible to rediscover 18 years later – and Mani discreetly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which additionally offered “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of ways. Oasis certainly observed their swaggering approach, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a aim to transcend the standard market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their clearest direct influence was a sort of rhythmic change: following their early success, you suddenly couldn’t move for indie bands who aimed to make their fans dance. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, aren’t they?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”