Money talks, but the reunion should have ended after "the drummer's a c***t" incident in Amsterdam and it transpired they'd been touring with a possible stand in drummer (I've forgotten who it was now, maybe whoever had been playing with Brown live) as they were expecting things to flare up at some point. Reni has definitely been used as a scapegoat for the fact that Brown and Squire were obviously unable to write together again, and Brown's tunes stank. One song with hilariously bad lyrics that sounded like the band went in a cracked it out in one go with little thought, and pure Brown solo track using a loop that was equally dreadful. Piss poor. I'd imagine Brown had refused to sing any of Squire's songs, because there's no way he hasn't got songs laying to waste.
When £1.8 millions gets deposited in your bank account out of the blue as a tour advance it probably encourages them to all get on together! The Stone Roses' Mani is surprised to find £2million in his bank account | Daily Mail Online
The band quietly split and pulled it back together a bunch of times over the reunion. Even just before the press conference they fell out and then reigned it back in. Reni a huge factor into things between him and Ian. I’ve heard rumours more stuff was recorded and demod but never made it out, also rumours of a third track alongside AFO/BT but no real substance to that one. The great shame in all of this would be that had they had better management who pushed them on during 2013 when they had downtime to make a record instead it probably would have happened. I can’t help but wonder what Ian’s latest record would have been like had it had the rest of the roses on.
Still find it very hard that a drummer (and excellent backing vocalist) as amazing as Reni will probably never do anything else again, and has only appeared on two albums and a few tours in his career. I guess he has got more than enough money now to be set up for life but how great would it be if he joined another band or started a new one.
well I was at the 3rd Heaton Park gig and my friends and I walked in and out of the 'Golden Circle' many times, totally unchallenged during the day and we enjoyed The Roses right at the front.
Except that was Squire, not Reni. Doh! Do It Yourself was a good album - the deliberately jocular lyrics threw some people off, so what. Some great riffs on there. Not going to be remembered as a classic, but then most albums aren't. Easy to forget how big the band were. People forget that Squire wrote most of the lyrics on the debut too, let alone all the music. People like to point at SC and the Seahorses and crack on that Brown was the "talent", ignoring the fact that Squire clearly just doesn't repeat himself from album to album.
Is that right that Squire wrote most of the lyrics on the debut? I thought as they were credited to Brown/Squire it meant that Ian Brown wrote them - can't imagine he had much to do with the music. I know that most of the Second Coming songs were solely composed by Squire though, music and lyrics.
Well, according to Ian Brown - 'becasue he is a ****' insert your own applicable term of endearment here...
I believe the rumor was that their old Simon Wolstencroft was the stand in drummer who toured with the band just in case Reni bailed. I wonder if Reni still had animosity with Brown since I believe Ian brought in Robbie Maddix to replace him. Reni apparently came back a few days after quitting and wanted back in the band and Ian said it was too late he was replaced.
The band that justified my music taste in my youth. My taste was so retro so when Madchester happened and guitars came back into the forefront it was perfect, The Roses were the perfect band at the time. Self titled album was beautiful retro but modern pop music that hadnt really been attempted since the Jam and the like. Then the borders were pushed , Fools Gold was a perfect fusion of the dance and pop cultures at the time. Then it all went south due to boring record company disputes etc. However....... When Love Spreads did come out , I loved it , still my fav Roses single . My favourite comeback ever. Beautiful B-side Your Star Will Shine and then the crushing disappointment of the Second Coming. Squire did an artwork and decorated it with the legend - (i paraphrase) "i will not desecrate the memory of seminal Manchester band The Stone Roses' And it should have been left at that. From the best comeback single ever to the worst comeback ever All for One was a travesty , a seahorses b-side at best Shane Meadows doc was embarrassing , Ian Brown autotuned in the studio. And the cash grab tour. Sell your legacy to pay for Ian's divorce because he gets unacceptably 'handy' with his partner. I wish they had never reformed. Kudos to Paul Weller for sticking to his guns with The Jam I will prefer to keep my memories of about 3 summers at the turn of the 90's when the debut was everyones go to .
Other than Brown and potentially, maybe, Mani, I really & genuinely believe they don't give a s***. They just happily exist, doing whatever they do. It seems weird to us living in the real world, why wouldn't you want to be making music, touring - be a rock star!! I really don't think they care about any of that anymore. In Reni's case I'm not sure he ever did...
Ulitmately this is why all bands reform - to make money. They might give us all the rap about other stuff but essentially it is the money. And then when they get back together they discover why they split up in the first place... even the surviving Beatles getting back together was because George needed the money. As you day kudos to Paul Weller for not reforming The Jam, but then he doesn't need to. Ask Foxton and Buckler and they would have a different view... I would say as big a kudos to Robert Plant for refusing to go on the road as 'Led Zeppelin'. For sure he doesn't need the money anyway but the amounts they could have made following the O2 gig must have been eye watering...
My impression of Reni (which could be totally wrong) has always been less that he's 'difficult' and more that he's principled and/or has high standards. He could have made easy cash drumming with whoever he wanted for the past thirty years but didn't, supposedly because he didn't want to bother if it wasn't going to live up to his previous work. If that's the case, I really wouldn't averse to a few more musicians having the same mindset rather than plodding on to ever-diminishing returns, eroding any mystique they might once have had. The Rub/Hunkpapa didn't last long once it was obvious they weren't anything special and I wonder if the problems with the reunion really kicked off once it became clear they'd be releasing new, sub-par material. As far as Brown's singing goes, it'd be nice if he could nail it live a bit more often of course but I've never been able to imagine anyone else singing on Stone Roses songs. His charisma and style of delivery is as crucial to the overall vibe as anything the other three bring.
Yep and occasionally he did hit it right, Get a bootleg of Glasgow Green 1990 for the best vocal Ian Brown vocal performance . As the years go by though, how much of the debuts impact was the music and how much was John Leckie magic.
The simpler lyrics like Adored are Brown's probably 100%. Most are joint written - it wasn't a case of Squire writing the music and Brown writing the lyrics and melodies at all. I think Squire claimed Waterfall was l70% his lyrically.
Interesting that SimonWolstencroft was on tour with them just in case Reni bailed. Presumably they did lots of rehearsals with him?
I know it was - but you could use the same analogy..Squire was a great guitarist...would be a shame if he didn't form another band....he did and they weren't really very good at all.
Of course the management did, there was a lot more money in more dates than a new album that, it turns out, would've almost assuredly been a massive disappointment. Just like how I'm sure there's tons of unreleased stuff from the washout years of '91-'94, I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff from the reunion era, and I'd wager all of it is pretty uninspired, or else we'd have heard it. You can blame a lot of it on lingering tensions between any band members you want, but the two reunion songs they put out convince me that a bigger issue was just a lack of inspiration, direction, or just quality ideas to begin with. The '89-90 years were lightning in a bottle, and apparently that was basically it (even as someone who likes much of Second Coming).
My memory my be frazzled, but I saw the Roses in Sheffield late 95...and I recall that Ian Brown sounded great. Then I saw the infamous Reading set in 96...and...oh boy...
If this is true they should have finished (or rerecorded) these tracks when they reunited. They have to be better than the two songs they released
