Blending guitar melodies drawn from the 1960s with a restrained rhythmic pulse rooted in 1980s club culture, the Stone Roses shaped the direction of British guitar pop across the final years of the 1980s and the opening stretch of the 1990s. Once their self-titled 1989 debut turned into a nationwide phenomenon in England, numerous other acts pursuing comparable sounds rose to prominence, among them the Charlatans UK, Inspiral Carpets, and Happy Mondays. Nevertheless the Stone Roses proved unable to build on that opening triumph, taking five years to deliver a successor and then gradually dissolving across the eighteen months that followed its arrival.
The Stone Roses grew out of the remnants of English Rose, a Manchester outfit started by school friends John Squire on guitar and Ian Brown on vocals. In 1985 the Stone Roses came together properly when Squire and Brown recruited drummer Reni, whose full name is Alan John Wren, guitarist Andy Couzens, and bassist Pete Garner. The band began performing in warehouses throughout Manchester and quickly built a loyal local audience. At that stage their sound mixed classic British 1960s guitar pop with heavy metal textures and occasional goth-rock elements. Couzens departed in 1987; Garner soon followed and was succeeded by Mani, born Gary Mounfield. The revised lineup cut its first single, “So Young,” which Thin Line Records issued without noticeable impact. Pete Garner died on November 3, 2023; he was 61. Late in 1987 the Stone Roses issued their next single, “Sally Cinnamon,” which foreshadowed the band’s melodic, ringing guitar style. By autumn 1988 they had signed with Silvertone Records and released “Elephant Stone,” a track that locked in their catchy neo-psychedelic approach.
In the wake of “Elephant Stone” the Stone Roses’ momentum accelerated sharply. Early in 1989 they were filling venues in both Manchester and London. That May they issued their self-titled debut album, which combined 1960s guitar hooks with a modern acid-house rhythmic feel. The record earned enthusiastic notices, and a wave of similarly styled groups soon surfaced across the U.K. By summer’s end the Stone Roses were widely viewed as the vanguard of a movement that merged rock & roll with acid-house culture.
“She Bangs the Drums,” the third single from the debut, became the band’s first Top 40 hit toward the close of summer. In November they scored their initial Top Ten entry when “Fool’s Gold” reached number eight. By year’s end the group had advanced from club sell-outs to filling sizable theaters throughout Britain.
Reissues of earlier singles dominated the charts for the first half of 1990. The band resurfaced in July with “One Love,” which debuted at number four. Ahead of that release they staged their own festival at Spike Island in Widnes; more than 30,000 fans attended, and it remained their final English concert for five years. Afterward the Stone Roses entered a protracted legal dispute with Silvertone Records, seeking to exit the label while the company obtained an injunction that blocked new releases. Over the ensuing two years the litigation dragged on while the group claimed to be preparing a follow-up, yet they produced almost no new music. Several major labels negotiated privately with them during this period. The case reached court in March 1991; two months later the band prevailed and signed a multi-million-dollar agreement with Geffen Records.
Across the next three years the Stone Roses worked intermittently on their second album, amassing many unfinished recordings. They maintained a minimal public profile, though the silence stemmed less from deliberate mystique than from inactivity and a shared interest in football. In spring 1994 Geffen insisted the album be completed; the band finished the sessions that autumn, resulting in the record titled Second Coming. “Love Spreads,” their return single, premiered on Radio One in early November. It drew muted critical response and peaked at number two rather than the anticipated number one. Second Coming itself met with mixed notices and lingered only briefly inside the Top Ten.
An international tour planned for early 1995 to promote the album repeatedly fell through. Before it could begin, Reni exited, leaving the group without a drummer. Robbie Maddix, previously a member of Rebel MC, took his place. With the new addition the band undertook a brief American trek; at its conclusion John Squire suffered a broken collarbone in a bicycle accident. The injury forced cancellation of their scheduled headlining appearance at the 25th Glastonbury Festival, which would have marked their first British concert in five years. While Squire recovered, the Stone Roses continued to lose standing, even as contemporaries such as the Charlatans and former Happy Mondays vocalist Shaun Ryder achieved unexpected returns to favor.
A keyboardist joined the lineup before the U.K. tour that closed out 1995, the band’s first domestic run since 1990. In spring 1996 Squire declared he was leaving the group he had co-founded in order to start a more active project. The Stone Roses stated they would continue with a replacement guitarist, yet by October the band had disbanded. Squire’s new outfit, Seahorses, released its debut album in June 1997, while Brown launched a solo career in 1998 with Unfinished Monkey Business. Mani became the permanent bassist for Primal Scream and also appeared on several Stereophonics tours.
Beyond repeated statements from Squire and others ruling out any reunion, the Stone Roses generated no public developments for nearly fifteen years until 2011. Early that year, following an emotional reunion between Brown and Squire at the funeral of Mani’s mother, speculation mounted that the band would return for at least one performance. In October 2011 they confirmed a full reunion that included tour dates opening with three shows in Manchester in late June 2012 and continuing through the festival circuit. By December a new recording contract was announced, with future releases slated for Universal in Great Britain and Columbia in the United States. Four years later the first material from sessions at Paul Epworth’s studios surfaced. In May 2016 the band issued the single “All for One,” marking the first new music from the original four-piece in roughly twenty-one years.
