The Stone Roses

Features Timeline Dec 2011

By Cam Lindsay1985 to 1988
The band hire a manager, Howard Jones, who previously managed Factory Records' club the Hacienda; he sets them up with legendary producer Martin Hannett to begin working on a new album. At some point, Hannett locks them in a room and refuses to let them out until they write a new song; they emerge with "This Is the One." They play their first headlining show in London supported by the Last Party. Sessions with Hannett begin at Strawberry Studios in Stockton, Manchester and they record their debut single, a double A-side called "So Young" and "Tell Me." They premier a new song titled "I Wanna Be Adored" during a session at Piccadilly Radio. After a tour of Sweden, they return to Manchester to play their first gig in their hometown and to finish their album with Hannett. Upon completion, they decide to scrap the album and just release "So Young"/"Tell Me." The unreleased album will later surface in 1996 as a bootleg under the name Garage Flower, without the band's permission. During a gig at Clouds in Preston, violence breaks out. Mani tells the NME: "About three songs in, people started whacking each other with chairs, pool cues. It seemed like the entire town of Preston had turned up to have it with us." Failing to make much of an impact, Wren and Brown begin spray-painting "Stone Roses" to get attention, which comes both positively and negatively. They hire a new manager, Gareth Evans, and work on new material that sees more of a songwriting collaboration between Brown and Squire. Their sound begins to veer away from the goth-infused post-punk and take more of an influence from indie pop. They release a new single, "Sally Cinnamon," in early 1987. The single sells out of its 1,000 copies upon release. Bassist Pete Garner leaves and is eventually replaced by Mani, who was previously in the Waterfront. They play a show at Dingwalls in London in early 1988, which is attended by Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis and a rep from Zomba. Both make offers, but Travis goes so far as to hire New Order's Peter Hook to produce their next single, "Elephant Stone." Hook is tapped to produce the band's debut full-length, but opts out due to commitments to New Order. Instead, they hire John Leckie, who is best known at the time for producing XTC and the Fall. Stone Roses get an opening stint for local heroes James, but do everything they can to turn it into a headlining slot, from postering bills with their name as headliners to delaying their start time. In the crowd is a impressionable 16-year-old named Liam Gallagher as well as a rep from Zomba named Roddy McKenna, who signs them to offshoot imprint Silvertone. The label buys the "Elephant Stone" sessions from Rough Trade and releases the single in October.

1989
The band begin recording their debut album with Leckie. They release "Elephant Stone" and "Made of Stone" as singles but neither make a dent in the charts. The Stone Roses is released in April and debuts at number 32. Despite the poor chart performance, the album receives universal praise and goes on to sell more than 300,000 copies in the U.S. before they ever step on American soil. Bob Stanley, a Melody Maker writer and co-founder of Saint Etienne, writes: "this is simply the best debut LP I've heard in my record buying lifetime. Forget everybody else. Forget work tomorrow." Sounds writer John Robb, who will author of 1997's The Stone Roses And The Resurrection Of British Pop, writes "the Stone Roses have revolutionized British pop." NME will eventually call it "the greatest British album ever." Squire designs the soon-to-be iconic album cover, a Jackson Pollock-inspired painting titled "Bye Bye Badman" featuring paint spatter inspired by Northern Ireland tourist attraction Giant's Causeway and sliced lemons nailed to the canvas, a nod to the Parisian riots of 1968. They perform on the BBC's The Late Show, where one minute in the power goes out, causing Brown to shout "Amateurs!" in the background. They release another double A-side single, "Fools Gold/What the World Is Waiting For," which reaches number eight. In the NME Readers Poll, the band win Band of the Year, Best New Band, Single of the Year for "Fools Gold" and Album of the Year. Interest in the Manchester music scene is strong thanks to the Roses, as well as Happy Mondays, James and the Inspiral Carpets, and it's given the nickname Madchester (coined by the Happy Mondays). The scene also spawns a sound and fashion known as "baggy": the music is an amalgam of '60s psychedelia, funk, house and guitar-driven rock, while the fashion is inspired by rave, hippie, football and retro cultures. Reni sports a bucket hat that becomes so iconic and influential it earns the nickname of the "Reni hat."

« Page 1 | Page 3 »

GET IT!