The Stone Roses Reforming? – Mani Names Ian Brown As Reason Stopping Reunion

The Stone Roses remain fresh in people’s minds as one of the seminal bands of the late 80s and early 90s, and a founding member of the much-acclaimed Madchester scene. However, they split up in 1996, and have all gone their own ways, and concentrated on solo projects since.

As much as many of us would like to see them reform, the split was acrimonious, and the chances have always been very slim of a meeting of minds, and any sort of reunion. In particular, the relationship between lead singer Ian Brown, and guitarist John Squires is non-existent, with Brown angry after Squires left the band in April, 1996, which lead to the band splitting later that year.

There has been many reunion tours and bands reforming over the last couple of years, with The Verve, and The Police two of the most credible and biggest names amongst that ever-burgeoning list. So, could it now be time for the Stone Roses to finally put their differences behind them and reform to show us all what we’ve been missing?

Mani, who lives just down the road from me, and who I see on a regular basis, recently spoke to the BBC about his career, his current band Primal Scream, the state of the British music scene, and the Stone Roses.

On the new Primal Scream album, Beautiful Future, he talks about the collaborations with Lovefoxx from CSS, and Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age. He also states that the whole band have been straight for the last nine months, with no drinking, no drugs, and no partying for any of them.

But with no disrespect to Primal Scream, the most interesting part of the interview comes when he is asked about the chances of the Stone Roses reforming.

I spoke to John [Squire, guitarist] and Reni [drummer] about it a few years ago and they said they’d love to do it at some point in time, but Ian Brown seems dead set against it.

People will always be interested but you should ask Ian Brown about that one. If he changes his mind then we’ll probably do it, but then I’ll be back to Primal Scream after the one year of doing it.

I would love to see it happen, but I can’t see it ever doing so. Ian Brown has moved on completely, seemingly happy to plough his own solo furrow, and the rest of the band are all still involved in music in some way, so there’s not really the motivation there to reform.

I don’t know how big the Stone Roses were in the rest of the world, but in the UK, they were huge for a time, and most British music lovers would be totally behind a reunion, however short-lived it happened to be. We just need someone to persuade Ian Brown.

[Photo Source: scalleja at Flickr]