Can it be true? Those STONE ROSES, legs-aChrimbo, halfway up a glacier, mugging St Bernards for brandy and slagging awf our dear old Queen Mum (gawd bless 'er)!!!??? STUART MACONIE flew to interesting Switzerland to avalanche with the gold fools. Freeze-framed by top linguist TIM JARVIS.
So there I was at the foot of the Eiger, at midnight; watching the lights of Grindlewald twinkle through the clouds of my own breath, basking in a rosy glow of beer and cognac emanating from within.
Watching the Stone Roses as they crane out from the bar balcony, debating alpine geography and star formations, it suddenly occurred to me that, not only is this possibly the life, but if all the Peter Snows and John Coles of pop are right about the glittering future of these boys, then this is just the kind of story that would keep me in beer in many a Lancastrian bar for years to come. As I wonder this aloud, John and Reni pause from their deliberations over Orion's belt.
"That sounds suspiciously like the 'where will you be in ten years time' question."
And?
A wry chuckle goes up. "And you'll just have to wait and see, won't you."
Has this been the year of the Stone Roses? Is, as they say, the Pope a Catholic? It's a much tougher proposition to answer why? To wonder why it should be that a band who've been playing their wares since 1985 should suddenly have press and punters alike falling over themselves to say 'top', 'mega' and all those other wacky Manc things.
Most of what has been written about The Stone Roses is wrong, and has said more about the social lives and cultural aspirations of the journalists than about just why it is that The Roses stand neatly poised on the edge of immortality. The Stone Roses are electric with potential, alive with the threat of greatness; they are already too big to be smothered by some tired and shabby theorising about the 'chemical revolution of the new dance scene' or, for that matter, about the 'boiling swamp of youthful creativity' that is (ahem) 'Madchester'. As the Roses themselves are the first to admit, people have danced to pop music from Elvis Presley through the Sex Pistols to Acid House.
To say The Stone Roses are a dance band is true, but only as true as saying they are a pop group or a rock group. What is most exciting about them is their cocky, undaunted ability to delve into different idioms and, more importantly, different eras and fashion something all their own and everything to do with now.
Too much of what has been written about the Stone Roses could (and should) have been said about The Shamen, about The Beloved, about any one of those minor dilettantes. The Roses are too sharp to be dragged down to this level; too bright and possibly too beautiful. In order to become the phenomenon that everyone says they will be, they need to put their records in the homes of people who think Italian House is this year's Smurfs and MDMA is something you put in your engine in winter. Fortunately for The Stone Roses, they know this, and they know they can do it.
They're entering the Christmas season in just the right frame of mind, with their name ubiquitous in every poll that counts, their faces on the telly and 'Fools Gold' still gracing the charts.
It is fitting that six months of idle speculation about the true nature of the band (mutant indie guitarists or modern dance happening) should climax with 'Fools Gold / What The World Is Waiting For', a record that, frankly, left us none the wiser. Sure, 'Fools Gold' was the nearest thing to a fully-fledged trance-dance workout they had yet produced but what does that say? And, as Danny Kelly rightly pointed out, it was essentially the spirit of Sly And The Family Stone reborn.
Dance is too cosmetically modern a word for it; it came from a glorious tradition of 'grooves', a legacy of funk that embraces George Clinton, The Ohio Players and Chic. It had nothing in common with The Wedding Present, but even less in common with Inner City. Flip the record over and you got an exultant piece of pop brashness that invokes the Stones or Buffalo Springfield with its vibrance and grittiness. Confused? Let's hope so. For this ambivalence, this youthful assumption that the musical world is their oyster, is what makes The Roses future look so worth watching.
So a year that begins with your PR man and your record company scattering tapes like confetti and nagging hacks to come to your gigs ends with you as the new Prince Regents of pop. Once upon a time getting your faces in the Manchester Evening News was a red letter day. Now, if you fancy a pre-Chrimble jaunt to do your press shots in the Swiss Alps, then before you know it you're taxi-ing in at Zurich Airport. The idle indulgence of pampered performers? Not in the least. It would only have been that if they hadn't taken me.
THE BUSINESS man on the Berne-Interlaken train attracts our attention and indicates the young Swiss 'alternative type' on our right. His jeans are a display of badly Biro-ed peace symbols, in his ears are expensive Walkman headphones, and his hands are busy with the construction of a spliff that is the soft drug equivalent of modelling the Pompidou Centre in balsa shavings.
"Do they do this on the trains in your country?" he asks, seemingly more disappointed than angry with his fellow countryman.
"All the time, mate. Here, relax, have some of this," says Ian Brown, handing the chap the industrial-size bottle of Courvoisier that would prove the downfall of so many that evening. It seems our business friend's prudishness does not extend to strong drink as he takes a slug big enough to stun an ox.
We are en route to Interlaken and some 'top' photo opportunities via what seems like every branchline and siding of the Swiss railway system. Still, it's an education in itself, watching the stand-offish Swiss coming to terms with seven Brits full of the joys of December and quaffing deep of brandy; four of them attired in the kind of voluminous flares that have probably only just gone out of style in the Swiss rock fraternity (nationalist slurs - Number One is a series of 50. Collect the set.)
The only really sticky moment occurs between ourselves. One of the brightest ideas for the cover shot is a recreation in the alpine snow of the famous Beatles' 'Help' cover; the boys, if you remember, lined up and giving a semaphore message. The Roses response could hardly have been less enthusiastic if we'd suggested a poolside romp with Linda Lusardi. More of this anon. In the meantime the atmosphere is not unduly soured and we retire to a buffet car more reminiscent of the lounge bar at Groucho's.
By the time we arrive at Interlaken it's shut. An out-of-season lakeside resort, pretty as a chocolate box and quiet as the grave. We have to knock up our night porter, who, after a certain amount of persuasion and an offer to join us, agrees to supply us with beer, sandwiches and a pitcher of Brandy.
I can vouch for no-one else but after an hour or so I became suffused with 'tiredness' and 'emotion'. So much so that without much in the way of prompting I began to bellow my opinions about boxing and Rugby League. Soon a rare old conflagration was under way which the polylingual Jarvis attempted to translate for the benefit of our bemused night porter who, frankly, seemed more interested in the herbal delights of the Lebanon and drinking our beer. In an attempt to locate the toilets, Ian and I blunder into the kitchen which is, rather charmingly, awash with cockroaches. Mercifully, oblivion was just round the corner.
"WELL, IT certainly did turn into After Dark last night, didn't it?" offers Manny helpfully as, in the morning mist, I tried to shake off what experts are already calling one of the ten great European hangovers. Too little snow and too many cockroaches have curtailed our stay in Interlaken and we head, instead for Grindlewald, a village higher than the highest point in England, nestling, almost surreally, at the foot of some of Europe's highest mountains, notably the Eiger and Jungfrau.
And so after a day of frost, fondue, liqueurs and cablecars it became impossible to put things off any longer. The Stone Roses have a reputation as good lads who, at the first sign of a tape recorder, become surly mutes. In the only open bar in Grindlewald it was my turn to find out.
Do you hate being interviewed?
Ian: "Not at all. I don't hate anything. It's just that sometimes the attitude of journalists and the questions they ask can piss you off. But having said that I don't expect anyone to get us right after meeting us for 20 minutes."
Reni: "No-one can ever get the right impression from a picture and a 1,000 words. You can't compress the whole of four people into that. When you do you end up with misinterpretations like 'Scallydelic' and nothing could be further than the truth."
You must be aware, though, that your reputation goes before you. You're supposed to be arrogant and difficult?
Ian: "Have you found us arrogant and difficult? I really don't think that we are. What it boils down to is that if someone asks us a dumb question we just don't bother answering it. Too many groups feel they have to play up to people all the time."
And what's your idea of a dumb question?
Ian: "What are your songs about?"
John: "Where will you be in ten years time? What would you be doing if you weren't in a group?"
Manny: "We fully admit that we've got this reputation for being awkward. That's the price you pay when you're just strong-willed enough to not always do what people ask you."
What do you put your foot down about?
John: "Doing semaphore signals in the snow!"
Reni: "All the stuff that you know about. Not supporting all these big groups who've asked us. Not doing Jonathan Ross."
Ian: "It may seem like a cliché but we will not compromise. We will not do what we don't want to. We wouldn't go on Jonathan Ross because we don't like the programme. I don't care if we could be seen by nine million people. We've got more self-respect than to stand there and have fish thrown at us. Yourself is all that you've got. What's success if you don't have peace of mind? At the moment everyone is telling me how 'you'll do well in America, son'. Really? Tell me about it. Some people treat you like imbeciles."
Is that because you're lads from 'oop t'north'?
Ian: "Awww, f--- that! We ain't got no chip on our shoulder about where we come from. We don't give a shit about where people are from."
Hence your now legendary 'It's not where you're from, it's where you're at' remark?
Ian: "Well, it's the truth. It's other people who are intent on making a big deal about where we're from. I believe in people, in real people wherever they come from and whoever they are."
John: "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel and the same goes for regionalism."
Manchester seems to be one of your least favourite words?
Reni: "Not particularly. It is where we're from, after all. If someone describes us as Manchester band the Stone Roses then factually they're correct."
Ian: "You have to take it in the right spirit. I thought the Madchester issue of the NME was funny. You can get much too serious about these things either way. But it's when people assume that we're all one big family. The only group we know is the Mondays and what we basically have in common with them is that we listen to the same records, go to the same clubs and wear vaguely similar clothes."
John: "I don't know anything about the other Manchester bands. I couldn't claim to tell you the slightest thing about Inspiral Carpets or what they claim to be about."
I hear that the other word guaranteed to annoy you is 'psychedelic'?
John: "Well, that really depends on what your definition of psychedelic is. If you're talking about ostrich feathers and all that then no, we don't like it. But the literal definition of psychedelic is mind-expanding and there's nothing wrong with that."
Manny: "It's a stupid, boring old term, it pisses me off. Somebody should have the imagination to find some new label for us."
Like 'Scallydelic', you mean?
Mani: "No. Scallydelic is this term that's been dreamt up by someone to try and lump together things that shouldn't be; a term intended to associate all these kids from Northern council estates who take drugs. If you want to be accurate about it Scallies come from Liverpool anyway. Basically, because there's f--- all about, some fictitious movement is being latched on to in Manchester."
Does it amuse you that after four years of struggle, you're an 'overnight sensation'?
John: "It wasn't slogging, it was work but it wasn't slogging."
Ian: "We don't mind how people perceive us. In many ways we have just happened. We've only had an album out since April. People seem to feel we should be suspicious of this new found popularity, but why? We like our music so why shouldn't everyone else? And it's fair enough for people to only be getting into us now. If you've been a Stone Roses fan for five years it doesn't make you any better than someone who picked up on us two weeks ago. In fact, it's completely warranted to be just getting into us now. A couple of years ago there was no LP around and we'd hardly done a gig outside Manchester."
John: "The biggest change that I've noticed has been on a business level. In the past, record companies have been very suspicious of us. Very dubious about us wanting to encroach on what they see as their territory, to design our own sleeves and that kind of thing. Of course, things still happen beyond our control. Like the old company releasing 'Sally Cinnamon' which we resent."
Ian: "It's disgusting. At the time we were lucky to get a thousand of those put out. Still, see how things have changed. Now we fancy doing press shots in Switzerland and somebody fixes it!"
Did you re-invent yourselves?
Ian: "In 1985 what few reviews we got said we were 'psychedelic'... exactly like they do now. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of re-invention gone on there, does there. Inevitably things have changed; no-one's any good when they first start out. Our songs are better now, we're generally a much better band. And we grew up in public."
John: "Perhaps in the beginning we might have done things differently. I suppose we've learned from our mistakes. But again that's inevitable. Otherwise you must believe that everything we've ever done is top."
What is this supposed attitude that your fans admire so much?
Ian: "How should I know? Define your attitude. It's just like me asking you that question. I would never claim to understand what's going on in another person's head. I've no idea what our fans see there."
John: "To understand questions like that we'd have to be able to distance ourselves from the music. To not be involved in the playing and recording and perceive it just as a fan. And we're never gonna get that chance."
Well, let me take a guess. Like the Mondays, you're not supposed to give a toss.
Reni: "About our fans? I could... but not to the extent where I let it rule my life."
John: "It's very flattering when you hear that other people get off on what we do. But ultimately if you're happy with it yourself..."
Do you really want to be adored?
Ian: "Of course. Who doesn't?"
Mother Teresa?
Ian: "But millions of people in the world do exactly what she does. You pick on her because she's famous. What about all the millions of unsung heroes?"
John: "Doesn't Mother Teresa want to be adored by God? Anyway, you're taking the song too literally. You're assuming it's about stardom in the music business and it isn't. It's much more personal than that."
Let's get back to not giving a f---. You talk more about flare dimensions than you do about politics.
Ian: "That's not true. We're quite happy to speak about politics. We don't give a f--- but we do if you see what I mean. We do have a social conscience. We do care. This business of just dousing yourself in a trance. Forget it."
John: "You only have to listen to realise that we care. About everything. Is what we do a shambles or a rollercoaster? There's a lot of thought in what we do."
Who do you respect?
John: "Tony Benn."
Reni: "Me Mum."
Ian: "Martin Luther King. Anyone who is fearless. Anyone who will do what they think is right, regardless of what other people think. I haven't met many musicians but a lot appear to be pretty false."
And who do you despise?
Manny: "Maggie and the Royal Family. Six hundred years of piss-taking is long enough, don't you agree?"
Ian: "The Queen Mother. Because she seems so aware of the hypocrisy of what she's doing. I think that's so patronising."
So why become a pop group which is fundamentally pretty silly?
All: "No it isn't!"
Ian: "How can you say that? It isn't always serious and earnest but it doesn't have to be trivial. What about when you wake up in the morning and you feel bad and you put a certain record on and you feel good? That's a positive thing. There are certain things that you just can't say in a book or a film."
Manny: "Free your mind and your ass with follow!"
Turning to Ally Pally. Wasn't there a feeling that whatever happened it had to be an anti-climax?
John: "Why? Was there that much press before the event? Was there much beyond the normal news items?"
Reni: "Yeah, the funny thing was it was labelled as a hype after the event."
Manny: "It was crap. It was a disaster."
Ian: "It wasn't crap. It was under par. We were struggling all night against the sound as everyone knows. There were a lot of nothing moments but there were a lot of good moments too!"
Such as?
John: "The opening chord change in 'I Wanna Be Adored'. You see, at least we had a go. We could have played three nights there but we didn't. We did one night and had a go."
Ian: "The promoter said, 'I've never met people like this, you could sell this place out three nights and make a load of money'. But I just couldn't do that. I couldn't say to people, 'Come and see me tonight. Then come and see me tomorrow night and see what different clothes I've got on'."
How do you feel when faced with this new-found adoration. Do you want to slap them round the head and tell them to wise up?
Manny: "How could be possibly take that attitude after we've foisted ourselves on them?"
John: "We don't feel that way because we know it isn't blind devotion, we understand what they see in us."
Ian: "Sometimes, when I've been mobbed in Japan or whatever, I've wanted to talk to them, to try and get through that we're only human. But you have to realise that some people enjoy putting you on a pedestal. Fame hasn't changed life that much really. It makes life different, not more difficult. Life was difficult before. All it means is that going to clubs is harder and spending any time without ending up talking about The Stone Roses all night."
How does a guitar band suddenly become part of the dance revolution?
John: "I dunno. You see, I think too much has been made of the indie/dance crossover anyway, it implies that people think in rigid categories. Are people really so selective in what they listen to? Everyone I know has a cross-section of music in their collection. It's just the love of amplified sound."
Ian: "I would hate it to get like America where music is really compartmentalised. Things that have happened as part of this dance revolution have affected us. Like the new law where you can get six months for throwing a party. That's the kind of event we'd rather be associated with than doing football grounds or the rock 'n' roll circuit."
Reni: "If there are a few thousand people on the motorway looking for parties and the police are out to stop them then there must be something going on."
What was Top Of The Pops like?
Ian: "Good. We should be on Top Of The Pops. I like seeing our record go up and Kylie and Phil Collins go down. There's no point moaning about them. You've got to get in there and stamp them out. Because I believe that we have more worth."
My girlfriend doesn't think you're that good.
Manny: "Ha! That's great! Well, as Bobby Brown would say, that's her prerogative."
But after she'd seen you on Top Of The Pops, she said she sort of realised what the fuss was about.
Ian: "Well, I must say that's very decent of her."
Are you the most important group in the world?
Ian: "Too f---in' right we are. We're the most important group in the world because we've got the best songs and we haven't even begun to show our potential yet."
THE MOST important group in the world? When you get to my age you tend to baulk at questions like that. But if they had answered that last question any other way then I'd have been as suspicious as hell... and sure that they weren't the most important.
I spent three long, enjoyable and punishing days with The Stone Roses, during which time I harangued them about the barbarism of boxing, they plied me with medicine for my flu and Reni and I - having been ejected from Grindlewald's only bar by gun-toting Polizei - spent half the night in high-speed, comic argument about Moz, Sean Ryder and the nature of pop.
They are neither arrogant nor difficult. But they do have something, that edge, that aura of intransigent cool coupled with a fresh, insouciant verve that we haven't seen since.… Ah, you don't get me that easily. The mountains of Switzerland were last week's thing but The Stone Roses are on top of the world and things are still going like clockwork.
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