The Stone Roses

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The Stone Roses were one of the most influential bands to come out of England during the late 1980s and early '90s. Along with the Happy Mondays, they comprised the core of the Madchester Baggy scene, centred around Manchester, England, though purists would argue that "Madchester" happened around The Stone Roses without them being an active part of it. Ian Brown hated the term "Madchester" and took offence with interviewers who referred to them as such.

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Early years

The Stone Roses were formed in Manchester during the early-1980s by guitarist John Squire and vocalist Ian Brown. Childhood friends, Squire and Brown had both played in bands before, although Brown had previously played bass. They recruited a talented drummer, Reni (real name Alan Wren), with bassist Pete Garner and rhythm guitarist Andy Couzens completing the original line up.

In their early days the Roses had an aggressive, punky sound, and their influences ranged from The Clash and The Sex Pistols to Manchester band Slaughter and the Dogs. They had a dedicated following in Manchester, but they were considered unfashionable and somewhat uncouth by the local music scene at the time, a scene dominated by Factory Records and Tony Wilson. (Publicity shots from around that time feature Squire in a bandana and Brown wearing leather trousers.)

In 1985 the Roses released their first single, the Martin Hannett produced double a-side "So Young/Tell Me". A doom-laden affair, it was largely unsuccessful and was later disowned by the band. At this point Brown had yet to develop his trademark cool delivery and had a shouty, in-your-face style, and the rest of the band had not yet found the groove that was to characterise their best material.

By the time of their next single, "Sally Cinnamon", the Roses' sound had changed considerably. Released in 1987 on FM Revolver records, "Sally Cinnamon" contained chiming guitar hooks and a strong melody, and sounded more like The Byrds than the Pistols. Brown had developed a new, softer singing style and Squire and Reni were becoming more confident and streamlined, and much less noisy.


By 1988 Pete Garner and Andy Couzens had left the band, and the Roses brought in bassist Mani (Gary Mounfield), thus completing the definitive Roses line up. The band quickly became much tighter as musicians, and developed a trademark visual style - baggy clothes and Jackson Pollock shirts/guitars/drums. A single, the psychedelia tinged "Elephant Stone", followed, along with an album deal with Jive/Zomba offshoot Silvertone Records.

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First album years

Image:TheStoneRosesOSM.jpg In 1989, The Stone Roses released their eponymous debut album, produced by John Leckie. "The Stone Roses" was a remarkable debut album. It opened with "I Wanna Be Adored" and closed with "I Am The Resurrection", both songs capturing the sense of youthful invincibility and ambition that pervaded the album as a whole. Now considered a landmark in British rock, the album was well received by the most of music press and word of mouth was starting to spread about the band.

The singles "Made Of Stone" and "She Bangs The Drums" followed to moderate success. Later that year the band released a double A-side single, 'Fools Gold/What the World is Waiting For', which charted in the UK at no. 8 in November 1989. Originally intended as a B-side, "Fools Gold" quickly became the Roses' most famous song and a performance of it on Top Of The Pops cemented their national fame. Fools Gold was the band's most adventurous song yet musically; almost 9 minutes in length, it featured a virtuoso wah-wah guitar performance from John Squire over a beat resembling James Brown's "Funky Drummer".

Coming from out of nowhere the Roses were now the right band at the right time. Like their peers Happy Mondays they had an arrogant swagger and streetwise attitude reminiscent of the Rolling Stones in their pomp. The Roses had a broad appeal too; their upbeat, danceable sound and positive outlook had much in common with the blossoming rave scene at the time, yet they also appealed to more traditional indie fans.

In 1990 The Stone Roses decided to stage a huge outdoor gig at Spike Island in Widnes. The gig took place on 27 May 1990 and was attended by approximately 27,000 people. The event at the time was considered a failure due to sound problems and bad organisation, yet has become legendary over the years - a Woodstock for the baggy generation. The band had shown that "indie" bands could play gigs of a scale more commonly associated with acts such as Queen or U2. The Roses followed Spike Island with another big gig at Glasgow Green, and by July had released their final single for Silvertone, "One Love".

"One Love" reached number 4 in the UK charts, the Roses' highest chart placing yet, although musically it was something of an anti climax after the high-water mark of "Fools Gold". After the release of "One Love" things quickly began to unravel. It was to be the Roses' last original release for 4 years, as they entered a protracted legal battle to get out of their deal with Silvertone. The band quickly lost the momentum they had built up following their debut album, and disappeared out of public view as quickly as they had arrived.

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Second coming and breakup

Eventually they wrangled themselves out of their contract with Silvertone and signed a large contract with Geffen Records. In late 1994, a whole five years after their debut, the Stone Roses released their follow-up album, Second Coming. Mostly written by John Squire, the music now had a dark, heavy blues rock sound inspired by Led Zeppelin. Although this worked brilliantly on the single, "Love Spreads", overall the album sounded well produced but short on ideas, and it fell well short of the standard set by their iconic debut.

The album was justifiably seen as a let-down by much of the music press. However "The Second Coming" wasn't a complete failure by any means - songs such as "Ten Storey Love Song", "Begging You" and the aforementioned "Love Spreads" (the latter reaching #2 in the UK charts) showed the Roses could still conjure up the old magic. It was just that these highlights made the mediocre songs (and there were a few) much harder to swallow for the fans, because the Roses hadn't ever released anything sub-standard before - even on B-sides of singles.

It should be noted that the view of Second Coming as sub-standard is limited largely to England. Most American fans of the band view Second Coming as equal to the first album, and some hold the view that Second Coming is the superior album.

During their absence The Stone Roses had left a huge gap in the music scene and they returned to find a new wave of soundalike bands had taken their place. The Britpop scene had arrived and the Roses, along with The Smiths, The Jam, The Kinks and The Beatles, were hailed as founding fathers. The Roses were mostly positive about Oasis but held most of the scene in contempt, John Squire calling them "Kensington art-wankers".

In March 1995 Reni left the band - the beginning of the end of The Stone Roses. The Roses, not the most media-friendly band in the world, gave no real explanation for his departure. A replacement drummer, Robbie Maddix, was found, and the band soldiered on.

A secret comeback tour of the UK in April 1995 was planned but this was cancelled after the music press announced the dates. A major blow to the band's status was the cancellation of their planned UK comeback performance at the Glastonbury festival in June 1995. John Squire had suffered a mountain biking accident in Northern California just weeks before the show and had broken his collar bone. This was simply bad luck on the band's part, but many fans were still extremely disappointed and many expressed their anger. The band finally booked a full UK tour for November and December 1995 and all dates sold out in a day.

Disaster followed on 1 April 1996 when John Squire left the band, to the anger of the remaining members, particularly Ian Brown. Recruiting former Asia and Simply Red session guitarist Aziz Ibrahim to fill Squire's shoes, the band persevered for another six months before Ian Brown and Mani dissolved the group after a disastrous performance at the Reading Music Festival at which disappointed fans booed the band, and threw things at the stage.

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Post Roses history

John Squire formed The Seahorses, who released one album before breaking up. In 2002 Squire released his first solo album, Time Changes Everything and followed this up with 2004's Marshall's House. Mani joined indie-dance act Primal Scream as bassist. Ian Brown has released four solo albums to some considerable success, and has regularly entertained crowds at some of Britain's biggest music festivals. Reni started a new band called The Rub in 1999, and played several gigs, the Manchester University concert the most notable; the band, including former Rose Pete Garner, was introduced by Mani. Nothing has been heard of The Rub since that tour, although in early 2004 John Squire claimed that Reni had recorded an "interesting" solo album.

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Influence

The band are considered to be one of the founders of the Britpop music genre. Indeed, Liam Gallagher was inspired to be a rock star after seeing a Stone Roses performance as part of the anti-Clause 28 concert at Manchester's International Two venue (May 30, 1988) and had been blown over by Ian's stage presence. Although Ian was a technically poor singer, he was a natural showman and held the crowd in the palm of his hand throughout. His style has also been mirrored in the likes of The Charlatans' frontman Tim Burgess and, in their early days, Blur's Damon Albarn. The band were noted for their dislike of traditional gigs and would often prefer to put on their own events reminiscent of the early Acid House scene.

Whilst some later Britpop songs contained social commentaries, often ironic or cynical, such as Blur's "Country House" and "Girls & Boys" and Pulp's "Common People", The Stone Roses' work tends to be more idealistic and about innocent romanticism. It is also more confident that a change can occur in society and that The Stone Roses were the ones to do it. The song 'Elizabeth My Dear' obviously seems to be anti-monarchy and 'I Am The Resurrection' speaks for itself. The 1968 student riots in Paris are said to have been some inspiration for their first album, with the colours of the French flag shown sideways on the cover, and with lemons alongside placed upon Squire's Jackson Pollock-type painting. (Lemons had been used to counteract the effects of tear gas during the riots.) The Stone Roses' serious sense of making a statement saw them identified with punks (aided by the fact that graffiti stating 'The Stone Roses' was seen right throughout Manchester when they released their first album), though the bands' image was also a combination of sweetness, fiery moodiness, intelligence, artistry and soul. The Stone Roses' also made nods towards psychedelia, most notably 'Fools Gold', as their forefathers The Byrds had in 1966 with 'Eight Miles High', whilst 'Elephant Stone' rivaled the joyous perfection of The Byrds' 1967 song 'So you wanna be a rock and roll star'. Many of The Stone Roses' songs were moody and more drum-laden, and seemed to bridge dance and indie.

Their appearance on BBC 2's The Late Show in 1989 infamously ended early after they exceeded the allowed level of noise for the building, thereby cutting out the sound. Ian Brown shouted 'Amateurs' as the presenter, live on air, vainly reassured that the problem would be fixed.

The Stone Roses is thought to be by many the first Britpop album recorded. Although the band was part of the dying Madchester scene, their debut album introduced a new sound to British listeners. Bands influenced by the Stone Roses include Blur, Pulp, Suede, Ocean Colour Scene, Kula Shaker, Coldplay, Manic Street Preachers, Muse, Stereophonics, The Bluetones, The Charlatans, The Verve. As stated earlier, Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher says that it was after seeing the Stone Roses in concert that he decided he wanted to be a "rock 'n' roll star". Added to this, Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner has admitted that Ian Brown is the band's musical hero.

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Reformation?

In July 2004, Ian Brown surprised fans in Dublin, Belfast and Surrey by playing sets consisting mainly of old Stone Roses numbers from the 1989-90 set. Brown followed this up by performing a mixture of Roses numbers and his own material on his UK and Ireland tour later in the year. At his return gig in Manchester, not only did he perform seven Roses tracks, including "Waterfall", "I Wanna Be Adored" and "She Bangs The Drums," but was joined on stage for a bow by Mani, bringing the two former Roses members on stage together for the first time in over 8 years. Brown was also joined by great friend Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher to perform the single they wrote together, "Keep What Ya Got," and DJ James Lavelle, whose group UNKLE released "Reign" featuring both Brown and Mani later in the year, reaching number 40 in the UK singles charts.

In May 2005, Squire told Time Out magazine that he would consider a Roses reunion. [1] In the same month, he, Mani and Reni were spotted together at a concert, leading to much speculation that a reunion was not just under consideration, but imminent. Later in May both Reni and Mani confirmed that they were open to the idea of the Roses reforming, but with Reni saying it wouldn't happen in 2005. [2] Reni also confirmed he has started writing songs with the intention of performing them with Mani. However, since all Stone Roses songs were written by Ian Brown and/or John Squire, any material produced will almost certainly be used for a different project. Following Kylie Minogue's cancellation of her Glastonbury 2005 performance, rumours circulated that the Roses would reunite to fill Minogue's slot. Interestingly, both Brown and Primal Scream were booked to appear at Glastonbury, making some fans hopeful that Mani would join Brown onstage after Primal Scream's set. Eventually it transpired that a performance by the Roses failed to materialise, but Ian Brown did break his silence on the subject of a reunion soon after the festival. He stated that Squire should contact him personally if he wants to do a reunion, rather than use the media as a vehicle for a reunion. Ian Brown is said to still be angry at his former colleague John Squire for leaving the band and as such is unlikely to consider a reunion in the near future. Squire reportedly sent Brown a box of Maltesers with a note reading "I Still Love You" for Christmas when Brown was imprisoned in 1998 (a throwback to a tradition the two held from Christmas as children), but apart from that the pair have been said to have not spoken since Squire left the band. In September 2005 a reunion looked a lot less likely, as Ian Brown commented to several journalists that "there's more chance of me reforming The Happy Mondays than the Stone Roses." Happy Mondays in fact have reformed, but yet Brown appears pessimistic about a likelihood of any reunion. Fairly recently, on Soccer AM, bassist Mani jokingly claimed that the Stone Roses would reform "The day after Man City win the European Cup".

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Personnel

Classic Line-up (November 1987 - March 1995)

Other members

  • Andy Couzens, guitarist. Left band in July 1986 after a dispute with the bands manager Gareth Evans and formed The High, who had a small amount of success during the "Madchester" era
  • Pete Garner, bass. (February 1984 to August 1987)
  • Cressa, (Steve Cressa) unofficial 5th member of band and live guitar effects technician (1989-1990)
  • Robbie Maddix, percussion, backing vocals (until July 1995). He replaced Reni in April 1995
  • Nigel Ippison, keyboards, backing vocals. Performed keyboards with the band during the latter stages of the Second Coming tour from July 1995 onwards.
  • Aziz Ibrahim, guitar. He replaced John Squire in April 1996.
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Discography

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Albums

The Stone Roses (1989)
Peak Chart Position:
Second Coming (1994)
Peak Chart Position:
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Compilations

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Singles

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Plaudits

The debut album has consistently performed well in critics' best album lists, eg:

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External links


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