Their second album took longer to record than the equivalent World War took to wage. Meanwhile, Geffen kept them in golf clubs and "heroin". Last time they showed their faces, the wider trouser was fashionable. On their return, the only interview they gave was with The Big Issue. But the real big issue is Adrian Deevoy's $4million question…
IAN BROWN, The Stone Roses' slight singer, and myself are in a toilet cubicle in a Stockholm nightclub. We are, let's not be coy, taking drugs. Brown bends low over the lavatory lid and inhales a generous white line smoothly through a rolled bank note. He straightens up, smiles and says, "Help yourself." Outside, a small voice is repeatedly whining, "Go on, let us in ! I've got some great speed." Dabbing at his tiny nose, Brown sniffs, "Nah, leave him out there with his Category Bs."
That was five years ago, when The Stone Roses were at the height of their powers and, it could be said, the height of their powders.
"I've haven't done chemicals for three or four years now," says Brown, allowing some green tea to infuse in his London hotel room. "Don't smoke ganja either. I've only had coke twice in my life and it turned me into the most arrogant, unbearable person in the world."
"I woke up one day," declares be-hatted bassist Gary "Mani" Mounfield in the chewiest of Manchester accents, "and thought, Shit, I've been taking drugs now for longer than I haven't. I want to bring kids into the world. I don't want to end up dead before I'm 40. So I sacked it."
"I've always said," says Brown, felling a little of his "It's-not-where-you're-from-it's-where-you're-at" homespun philosophy coming on, "If you haven't had an E, you don't need one."
IT WAS the good, good year of 1989 when the Roses arrived, bringing with them an unshatterable self-confidence, a movement we would come to call "Madchester" and one of the finest debut LPs made by anyone you can think of, pal.
For 14 giddy months, their star shone like something that had been taking evening classes in advanced shininess: they had all but invented a new dancedelic, guitar-spattered sound; they exuded a powerful, pouting charisma that invited worshippers to simultaneously kiss their lips and their arse; they hung together like a proper band, sharing a gentle communal consciousness, and a wickedly parched sense of humour; they wore floppy flares and larger bloke's shirts and looked great; all four members were eminently quotable (when Smash Hits asked drummer Reni what his most valuable possession was, he coolly replied "The purity of my soul"); they could write songs that comfortably accommodated the book of Revelation, insurrection and unrequited love; they could, give or take the occasional vocal hiccup, play blindingly well live (if the venue had a roof, they'd happily blow it off). They were the Roses, handsome, hippy-rhythmed and home-grown, and very few people with the full complement of eyes and ears didn't love them.
Then it all went pear-shaped. A high court case with their then record company Silvertone prevented them from recording. Protracted legal hell ensued. Having extricated themselves from their independent deal, the band re-signed with Geffen Records for two million of your English pounds. Then it all went quiet. Too quiet.
That was 1990 and, save for the odd sighting or hopeless music paper door-stepping, The Stone Roses all but vanished. Rumours naturally, and unnaturally, abounded: they had all become monks; Ian Brown was a junkie; guitarist John Squire had had his astronaut application accepted by NASA; Mani has given it some toes with the Geffen advance and ploughed it into Welsh real estate; Reni was living in Los Angeles, and furthermore in sin, with Johnny Depp.
So what did happen ? What time do you call this ? And more importantly, when are you going to stop treating this place like a hotel ?
Not uncommonly for a rock group, The Stone Roses went away and made an LP. The fact that the record took longer from start to finish than World War II is, Brown and Mani now insist, neither here nor there (mention of the War also prompts a symphony of blocked-drain laughter and appreciative murmurs of "Killer fact, that").
The LP, which boasted the characteristically immodest title Second Coming, was released on December 5, to thunderous indifference. In many senses, they had left it too long. The majority of their baggily-attired fanbase were now saving up for a down-payment on their first-stair carpet. The new generation of techno record buyers had never heard of them. The only people who still regarded them with any genuine affection were the knocking-on-30-year-olds whose hedonistic youth was soundtracked so unforgettably by the group's first LP.
Then there were the music critics. Callously let down by a band whom they believed they had created. And then, insult to injury, the group re-emerged and announced that they would not be speaking to their old chums from the music press, preferring instead to break their half-decade silence in the company of The Big Issue. What were the cheeky young monkeys playing at ?
"WELL I KNOW five years is a long time," chirped the perma-pertinent Depeche Mode, "and that times change / But I think that you'll find / People are ba-sic-lee the same." As Ian Brown and Mani pimp-roll rhythmically down a carpeted corridor of the Kensington Hilton discussing "top tunes", Mohammed Ali and mountain-biking, it is remarkable how well they look. Later, principal songwriter John Squire and drummer Reni join their colleagues for photographs. Despite having what will become full-blown pneumonia, Squire appears, if anything, younger than he did last time around, while Reni clearly won't be troubling the Lost Looks Dept for several years to come. There is, it would seem, a lot to be said for doing sod all.
"We've tried to look after it, the physical," explains Mani later, over a fag and a beer. "You've got to do your best, especially if you've got a new generation coming out of you. I don't want to be 50 and 18 stone, wheezing and coughing in my chair and can't play football with my kid. I'm here for life, man. Till I'm 120."
"We never promised anything to anyone," says Ian Brown, speaking in a supersoft Manc mumble, calmly stirring his herbal brew and opening The Stone Roses' first music press interview by attempting to explain what kept them. "In April '92 we spent a month with John Leckie producing and then we never returned again until July '93. We started again then and finished in September '94 and had a few months off in between. We never even thought about doing the LP during 1990, 1991. Or 1992."
"There were things going on in people's lives that you need time for," says Mani, referring to Brown's two-and-a-half-year-old son and his own nipper-to-be due next summer (although the release date could go back). "But it was 350-something days in total. Actual recording time."
"We couldn't record anything because of the court case with Silvertone," Brown elaborates. "We risked everything with that court case. So we couldn't do anything for all of '91. Then we had to work out a new deal."
Enter Geffen Records with their wheelbarrow of wonga.
"Geffen actually signed us in March '91," recalls Brown. "They paid all our court costs but it was two and a half years later before they even sent anyone over. That surprised me. They kept sending money over but they didn't want a return. They said, Whenever you're ready, whenever you're happy, just take your time and give us an LP as good as your last one and we'll see what we can do with it. They trusted us. They'd ring up and say, Have you done anything in the last six months ? And I'd say, Yeah, I've been down the beach with my boy. Musically, I've done nothing. And they'd say, Right you are, keep at it. As long as you're happy. And even when we gave them this album, they said, If the next one takes five years, that's OK. Take your time."
So what did you do with the money ?
"They gave us a million pounds up front," says Brown, completely unfazed by the figure, "and when we finished the record they gave us another million. I got a house in the mountains in Wales by the sea. But mostly me and him give it away."
"I retired me Mam, first thing," says Mani. "Got her out of the rat race. She had the lion's share of what I had. She's as happy as Larry."
WHEN SECOND Coming eventually, well, came, the $4million question (as far as Geffen were concerned, particularly) was, Is it any good ? Well, so-called rock overlords, is it any good ?
"Yeah," laughs Brown quietly, "We think it's pretty good."
Describe it, as if to an alien.
"It's diverse, isn't it ? All the bass, drums and main guitar chops were done at the same time. Only the vocals and lead guitar we overdubbed."
Could you have knocked it off in a week ?
"We probably could have knocked it off in a week," laughs Brown, "but it was a case of having the right heads in the room. We just kept doing it over and over until we captured the right one. See, you have to be able to play and these three can play. Any style."
Didn't you get bored with the songs ?
"Never," says Mani, vigourously shaking his large fur Diddyman hat for extra added conviction. "You can never get bored with making music. You'd get bored if you was a fucking hod-carrier on a building site but not when you're doing something you love."
John Squire wrote just about all the songs, tunes, words, everything. Couldn't anyone else be bothered ?
"It wasn't that," says Brown. "Last time me and John both did the lyrics and both did the melodies. But this time John had written a couple himself and when I listened to them they didn't need anything adding and he was on a roll, so he kept going."
Do you think his lyrics are up to much ?
"Yeah, I like them," Brown offers defensively, "I'm happy singing them."
Are the lyrics ("I'm on the sidewalk, baby" (Actually "I'm on a tightrope, baby" - Paul), "Hell have no fury like a woman scorned" deliberately corny ?
"Never noticed that," sniffs Brown, clamming up for the first time as he used to in early interviews, preferring to let his beautiful eyes do the talking.
There's still a lot of biblical imagery in the lyrics. What's that all about then ?
"Well, I read The Bible, me," he squints inscrutably. "I read The Koran as well. I'm a believer. They're powerful. I've been to the Coliseum and I went to the place where the Roman emperors sat and you get a feeling off that. And I went to the Sistine Chapel and I got a feeling off that. And the steps that the Catholics stole. The Holy Steps. They took them during The Crusades. I'm interested in all that and when you write lyrics it's going to permeate through."
And as regards the overall sound of Second Coming, can we use the words Led and Zeppelin ?
"We've had that a lot in reviews," Mani says with a dismissive flick of ash. Maybe it's because there's raucous guitars and then it's pretty funky on the undercarriage. People have always got to look for you sounding like someone else. I don't think we sound like Led Zeppelin. We sound like us."
"But we saw this black-and-white film of Led Zeppelin from 1969," interjects Brown, "and we'd always been dead against Led Zeppelin. Especially because of me uncle and that."
Eh ?
"He used to force them on us. I thought they were rock dinosaurs. Didn't want to know. Then we saw this clip of them off Danish telly and it was fucking so powerful. And we thought, Right, they've got something there."
But a lot of the actual riffs on Second Coming will sound very familiar to even the most casual student of Led Zep (to give them their full title).
"We got a box of all the old Chess records during the recording too," Brown changes tack. "John Lee Hooker, and all them. I think maybe that came through more than Led Zeppelin, although John and Reni are right into Led Zeppelin now. John loves them."
Would it be fair to say that the LP sounds like a record made by dopeheads ? Did you smoke a lot of dope whilst you were making it ?
"I did, yeah," nods Brown. "Loads. That's why I stopped. I'd smoked too much and it'd turned me head to mush. When you're in a studio and you just smoke it all day and all night, you get a false idea of what you're doing. You get hyper-critical and you never get to the end of it."
And what of the reviews when the LP was finally released ? Often cruel and disappointed ?
"To be honest," confesses Brown, "I really thought people would be going, Fuck me, they've done it again. Another brilliant LP. When we mixed it in New York, I thought, they'll hear this and just go, Wow, 10 out of 10. And I was a little surprised when I read the reactions. I thought, maybe they're writing this because we're not talking to them."
Why didn't you talk to the press ? Were you attempting to create further mystique by only granting an audience to The Big Issue ?
"No," Brown says with a don't-be-daft grimace. "I was lying on me bed one night in the hotel in London reading The Big Issue and I thought, We should be in this. Then I went to the studio and Pennie Smith, the photographer, said, The Big Issue called and they want to do a feature with you. I was like, Oh, that's a coincidence. So we did it. I thought people would think, Right, sound, nice one. But they just got upset because we hadn't spoken to their paper. We never said, We're never going to talk. We weren't scamming it. It was just something more than getting your nipples out to make yourself bigger."
IN THE FIVE years it took The Stone Roses to make their second LP, many things musical came - say hello grunge, techno, ragga, jungle, Suede, Oasis - and many went - wave goodbye Happy Mondays, acid house, Nirvana, and Wee Papa Girl Rappers.
"But that's what happens in music, isn't it ?" argues Mani. "There has to be the Next Big Thing every year. It gives them something to write about."
"Suede seemed like a step backwards to me," Brown ruminates. "Like when us and the Mondays were written about a lot of things seemed to be getting more and more real. Then house music broke. But Suede doing their '70s Bowie imitations took it back again. It was like London wanted something of its own. It was at that time that hip-hop and black music should have come through. To me, bands like Suede and Blur were in the way. Oasis are good but the others just got in the way."
Why are Oasis good and Blur not ? It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Oasis come from Manchester, would it ?
"Oasis are real. Proper real," asserts Mani. "That always shines through."
"Oasis," deadpans Brown, "just aren't… drama students."
"The reason why no British band has taken the US in the last 10 years," continues Brown, warming to his theme and regaining some of his old arrogance, "is that none of them have been any good."
"America's there for us if we want it," he claims boldly. "It's ours."
Then the band will go out on their first-ever full-blown tour. Are they nervous ? Are they arse. "We're going all over the world," Brown reveals breezily. "We want to do more in a year and a bit than we've done in 10 years. We're going to play in Britain. We've got a big tent and we're going to play little clubs as well. Back to eye level. But we're going to take the US."
But before these self-assured young-ish (and still "uncertain" about their ages) men depart for the Americas, would they care to scotch a few rumours that did the rounds during their leave of absence ? At one stage John Squire was looking like Meat Loaf. True ?
"Take a look at him," smiles Brown. "Meat Loaf ? I don't think so."
Mani had become a property baron in Wales. True ?
"I live in a flat with my girlfriend in Monmouth. We just nest up the whole time. I stay in and respect my lady."
Ian had developed a heroin habit ?
"Never at all," says Brown flatly.
Ian's voice had completely packed up on account of his heroin habit ?
"No, never." Flatter still.
Reni had joined a monastery ?
"If he did, we never noticed."
The whole band became enthusiastic golfers ?
"Oh, that's bullshit, that one, man," scowls Mani.
So you've heard it before ?
"Our old manager thought it would make us look classy if he put that about," sighs Brown. "He played golf. We fucking played pitch and putt when we were on the dole and I've never picked up a golf club since. Apart from when we had a court case in Wolverhampton and the day before we drove a buggy around the golf course. That's one of the two rumours that really bothered me. The other one was that we wouldn't play on Terry Wogan because Terry wouldn't speak to us after we'd played. We never went on Terry Wogan because we didn't want to be part of that shit."
And did The Stone Roses' legendary self-confidence ever wane during even the darkest days of making this most difficult of second albums ?
"Course not," boasts Mani, proudly. "Even before being in bands we were always the four most confident guys on the planet anyway."
"Oh aye," says Brown, triumphantly stubbing out his cigarette. "We've always been right big heads."
Back To Media 1995