The Stone Roses: War and Peace

by Spence, Simon

  The Roses themselves, although all still signing on the dole, maintained a beguiling swagger and confidence that they were going to be huge. As far as they were concerned, it was a done deal. With little other distraction, they worked hard on honing their new sound, rehearsing five days a week at International II, often stepping out of the basement and onto the main stage. In the band’s early set list there had always been two guitars fighting for space; with Couzens gone, there was more room for the songs to breathe. ‘John could play nice melodic stuff,’ said Garner. ‘We could hear ourselves properly. We had Reni singing. As upsetting as it was with Andy, after he’d gone the sound changed quite drastically.’

  The band dynamic also altered once Couzens had left. As a five-piece, there had always been two camps within the Roses: Squire and Brown in one, and Reni and Couzens in the other (Reni had moved into Couzens’ parents’ house), with Garner playing the diplomatic Henry Kissenger role. ‘After Andy left, it was like a unit again,’ said Garner.

  Brown and Squire, both now in steady relationships, were still sharing a flat and deeply committed to the band, more new songs spilling out of their partnership. Brown had started listening to Prince Far I and ‘War on the Bullshit’ by Osiris, alongside band staples such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Hendrix and Love. To add to the list of classic songs they had already written, they added ‘Waterfall’, ‘Going Down’, ‘Mersey Paradise’ and ‘Elephant Stone’. The set list was now shorn of all their aggressive early material and packed with definitive masterpieces.

  ‘Me and John would plan all the time,’ Brown said. ‘The band was all we talked about. We lived together so we had nothing but time on our hands to get things right. When we were writing songs, we’d spend two or three days sometimes just to get one word – because a word needs to roll right. We were so deeply into it. “Waterfall” was the first time we went, Wow this is it.’ Squire worked on the band as if it was a job, not a hobby, and applied himself with single-mindedness and persistence that bordered on the obsessive. ‘We got together with the deliberate intention of composing classic songs,’ he said. The band, he felt, was ‘original, commercial and inspirational’ all at the same time.

  All they needed was a deal, and Evans was determined he would be the one to strike it. Howard Jones discovered Evans had succeeded on 19 September 1986. On that day, David Rose, the MD of A&M Records, visited Manchester with a cheque for £30,000 and a contract for the Roses to sign to A&M. Evans was aware that Jones had been negotiating with A&M, using the Roses’ Hannett album as bait, and had been hastily, desperately, organizing an alternative. He was worried that if the band signed to A&M they would get rid of him. In the afternoon, with the band unaware of the offer Jones and Rose were hours away from presenting, he had the Roses sign a contract with FM Revolver.

  ‘I got to the International and showed the A&M contract to Ian, and his face was a picture,’ said Jones. ‘He said, We’ve signed. That was the moment where I knew it had all gone a bit pear-shaped. I’ve got an album, I’ve got a band I know is going to be brilliant, and they’re now signed to a Birmingham heavy metal label and Gareth doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.’ There was talk of the possibility of cancelling the deal with FM Revolver, but it would involve lawyers and be protracted. It was too late.

  FM Revolver was actually based in Wolverhampton, but Jones was correct in his main assertion: it was a subsidiary of a company called Heavy Metal Records. How Evans had come to strike a deal was down to his relationship with Dave Roberts, who acted as an A&R man for the label. Roberts had got the infamous Macc Lads a deal with FM Revolver, and Evans knew him primarily through his work as a journalist for Sounds.

  ‘Gareth rang me at home one day and said, I’m managing this amazing band, The Stone Roses, they’re selling out the International, big following here,’ said Roberts. ‘He gave me this big speech and then asked about the label and distribution. I think Gareth got us confused with Revolver Records, which was based in Bristol, and part of that whole Cartel distribution network [which included Rough Trade, Red Rhino, Backs, Fast Forward, Nine Mile, Probe and Revolver]. He got FM Revolver mixed up with Revolver.’

  What had swung it for Roberts was hearing a demo of ‘Sally Cinnamon’ that the band had cut at Spirit studios in Manchester. Spirit owner John Breakell said Evans had supplied cases of beer to lubricate the recording session: ‘Did Gareth give me any money for recording? Probably not.’

  Roberts thought the demo was amazing, and suggested to FM Revolver boss Paul Birch that they should be branching out. John Squire was as shocked as Howard Jones when he travelled down to Wolverhampton to meet his new prospective boss. Sat in the reception area, Squire could see Birch at his office desk. He had a bouffant poodle hairdo, dyed blond, and skin-tight spandex trousers. ‘I’m not going in fucking there with him,’ Squire said.

  Squire was reassured he would not have to deal with Birch – who kept his real passion for Northern Soul fairly well disguised – and it was Roberts who would handle the relationship between the band and the label. Roberts organized for the eight-track Spirit demo recording of ‘Sally Cinnamon’, plus, from the same session, a new version of ‘Here It Comes’ and the first cut of ‘All Across the Sands’ (one of the most underrated songs in the Roses’ repertoire) to be remastered in Macclesfield at Cottage Studios. ‘We didn’t really have budgets to go recording stuff, and I thought the demos were great in their own right,’ said Roberts. ‘We took the demo and tried to brighten it up a bit with the band, and that became the “Sally Cinnamon” single. I think they were pretty desperate to get a record out. We just paid for those tracks to be remixed, that was the token advance, probably a few hundred quid.’

  Squire designed the cover for the single, with a photograph of an old-fashioned bubblegum machine taken by his brother Matt, and Roberts organized a photo shoot for promotional purposes. This took place at the run-down Belle Vue greyhound-racing stadium and saw both Squire and Brown in Mary Chain-influenced leather trousers. Squire’s striped jumper and Reni’s outdoor jacket had started to more closely resemble the band’s breakthrough style, although Brown’s hair was still closely cropped.

  However, Brown’s musical tastes were now radically shifting. In the contract with FM Revolver there was an option to record an album, and Brown discussed this with Roberts. ‘We were talking about what kind of producers they would want to do the album,’ said Roberts. ‘Ian said we should be using some kind of dance producer. He said, We’re not an indie band, we should be a dance band and we should be trying to bring in those kinds of elements. I was surprised because I pretty much perceived them as an indie guitar band. But Ian had that vision.’

  Before the single was released, label boss Birch insisted on seeing the band live. Evans made sure the show, the Roses’ first in six months, at the International on Friday, 30 January 1987 was packed. It was their perfect set-up: all their gear was already there and they were familiar with the club’s PA system, lights and crew. Evans may have signed them to the wrong Revolver – and dumbfounded the band during soundcheck by asking that the vital monitors be removed because they looked ‘untidy’ – but he was an expert at promotion.

  The band was amazed by the turnout of over a thousand people. The Roses’ core following was closer to fifty, all of whom Evans had put on the guest list. That day Evans had everyone connected with his clubs – the DJs, bar staff, and even Brigitte in the kitchens – on the streets giving away free tickets. Friday and Saturday nights at the International were club nights, and Evans would make his money at the bar. Birch left impressed. ‘Sally Cinnamon’ was scheduled for release at the end of February 1987.

  Mancunion, the Manchester University Students’ Union newspaper, was also at the International and interviewed the band for an article that ran under the headline ‘The Coming of the New Stone Age?’ Brown was asked his thoughts on the scene: ‘A lot of people say it’s really good on the indie scene but I don’t think it is,’ he said. ‘Th
ey all seem to be doing the same thing, a lot of twee-type things. A lot of people on the indie scene say they’re not interested in commercial success. That’s rubbish – everyone in the music business is in it to make money. The only difference between the indie scene and the national scene is that they don’t sell as many records. It’s the same set up with agents and backers just on a smaller scale. It’s all about pulling in bribes and favours. It is a sick business, the only way to do it is to make enough money to get out of it.’

  The release of ‘Sally Cinnamon’ was delayed as Birch and Roberts created a new ‘indie’ imprint to house the Roses. FM Revolver/Heavy Metal Records product was distributed by BMG, a major record label. To qualify for the indie charts, which Birch and Roberts were aiming for with ‘Sally Cinnamon’, the rule was no distribution by a major record label. They formed the Black imprint to house the Roses’ single and struck up a deal for independent distribution with the Cartel to get round that problem.

  To help promote the single – which was coming out on 12-inch vinyl only – Evans arranged to pay for the 10,000 print-run of Buzzin’, a free, A3-sized, music newspaper originating from Stockport, in exchange for putting the Roses on the cover. Brown would appear on it alone, wearing a beret. The photograph and the other shots of the band used to illustrate the three-page spread were taken at an Italian restaurant in Rusholme, an evening Evans had orchestrated. During the proceedings he proudly presented the band with the management contract to sign. ‘He had a photographer there taking photos of us eating food and signing the contract,’ said Garner.

  ‘The angle on these photographs is spaghetti, so don’t eat it all at once,’ Evans instructed the band. As Evans had wanted, the contract was for ten years and guaranteed him and his partner Matthew Cummins a 33.3 per cent share of the band’s gross earnings. Evans had got an angle on everything, and although Garner said he had no idea what Cummins actually did, the argument was that, as there were two managers and everything was split equally, then 33.3 per cent represented two sixths.

  The band sought no competent advice before signing the contract and didn’t take it seriously. They drank red wine and were still laughing away the onerous nature of the contract, even suggesting Evans double the length of the terms. Managers taking a figure of 25 per cent was not unheard of, so although Evans and Cummins were clearly over the line, they were not that far over it. Plus, paperwork meant nothing to the Roses, and they felt they could walk away from the deal in the future. It was a situation everyone was happy with. Evans and Cummins were reassured and the Roses were loved. Both parties felt they had got one over on the other. ‘When you’ve got nothing and someone’s offering you something, yeah, I’ll sign it and worry about it later,’ said Garner.

  In the Buzzin’ cover feature, the Roses praised their new manager, defining the relationship they had with him as, ‘upfront, no bullshit’. The band were asked about the year and a half that had passed since their debut single, ‘So Young’, had packed every dance floor in the city’s clubs. ‘We blew it,’ said Reni. ‘No, what happened was: we did a few gigs, poorly attended gigs, released a single that really sold quite poorly and everybody thought there was a hype on because we came from nowhere but when you think about it, where were we in the first place, we had nothing with “So Young”, we only sold a few thousand copies.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, we put out “So Young” and the next thing we wanted people to hear was “Sally Cinnamon”,’ said Brown. ‘There was nothing we really wanted to put out in between those two songs.’ Were they bothered that people may have thought them washed up in the interim? ‘It doesn’t bother us at all,’ said Squire. They were also asked about the radical new sound (‘softer, vocals more restrained, mellow acoustic edge’, as Buzzin’ described it) of ‘Sally Cinnamon’. ‘We learned how to write,’ said Brown. ‘I also think it’s because we produced “Sally Cinnamon” ourselves. We’ve got a record coming out that sounds the way we want it to. Anyone who hears it and thinks we’ve mellowed out should come and see us live, because live we’re just as hard as we always were.’

  Looming large in the article was Evans, driving the band and interviewer round the city in his Jeep. ‘ “So Young” is now going on the Black Market for £4.50,’ he bragged. ‘And they’ve just played “Sally” at Legends and the place went wild. That was just an upfront tape copy; there had been no promotion behind the single or anything and the dance floor was packed; it was good, and still this band is going to make it, still this band has got a huge following in Manchester.’ Buzzin’ described Evans as a man with ‘firebombs on the end of his tongue’.

  The response to the release of ‘Sally Cinnamon’ in May 1987, however, was muted. ‘It was weird,’ said Garner. ‘It’s almost like it was all over but we knew we were actually becoming a really good band, just nobody else knew. I don’t even think “Sally Cinnamon” was representative of where we were at musically. It was a bit throwaway. The new stuff we were doing was a lot better than that. People knew us in Manchester but outside we weren’t really getting any press, we’d only played these odd places, we’d never done a proper tour in England.’

  ‘Nothing happened with “Sally Cinnamon”,’ said Dave Roberts. ‘Piccadilly Records in Manchester sold the bulk of them but nowhere else cared. We didn’t get any radio play, didn’t get any reviews. We didn’t have budgets for a PR or pluggers, we generally did everything ourselves. I tried to plug the NME with it. No one came back even acknowledging it, let alone saying they didn’t like it. No one cared.’

  Evans handed over cash and instructed all the staff at the International clubs to go out to every record shop in Manchester and buy the record – about four or five times. Having seen that FM Revolver had failed to get the record in the city centre Virgin shop, he paid the store a visit and persuaded them to stock it. He managed to get another local record shop to devote an entire front window to the single. Tony Michaelides at Piccadilly Radio gave it his full backing, and within weeks it became his show’s most-requested track. Evans also engineered a spread in the Manchester Evening News and a small feature in Cut magazine where he distressed the journalist by throwing a can of Special Brew through a window during the photo shoot.

  Even so, ‘Sally Cinnamon’ only just managed to scrape into the lower end of the indie charts in June, thanks largely to sales in Manchester. The Happy Mondays, by contrast, were being talked of as ‘the band of 1987’ with their John Cale-produced debut album Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out) and singles ‘Freaky Dancin”, ‘Tart Tart’ and ‘24 Hour Party People’.

  The Roses played a meagre ten shows in 1987, four of them at the International club. ‘The gigs they were doing at the International were always strange,’ said Dave Roberts. ‘I went to see them in Liverpool after “Sally Cinnamon” came out and there were about six people in the crowd. Five of them I’d invited. It was all pretty low-key apart from in Manchester when they played the International every month to a thousand people. But the band’s attitude never wavered. That gig in Liverpool, Ian was still a total star. He was quite confrontational live but in a good way. He was in your face, moving around, just an amazing charismatic front man.’

  When the Roses played the International on 26 June, sharing the bill with The Waltones, they finally picked up some favourable national press. The show was reviewed for the NME by Dave Haslam, who would prove to be a useful ally. As well as writing for the NME, Haslam ran popular Manchester magazine Debris and was a DJ at the Haçienda. ‘Sally Cinnamon’ was a big record at Haslam’s regular Tuesday Temperance club night. In his NME review he picked out Reni and Brown for particular praise, predicting a bright future for the band.

  Dave Roberts, who had heard the band rehearsing at International II, was also now convinced of their potential. The deal FM Revolver had struck was for two singles and an album, and Roberts tentatively booked studio time at Cottage Studios. Contractually the Roses were due
a small advance for this second single. This, plus the cost of recording, represented an investment Paul Birch felt was a risk after the poor sales of ‘Sally Cinnamon’. ‘Paul wasn’t sure about the band and nothing was resolved,’ said Roberts. ‘We didn’t really make a decision about the second single. We didn’t say, No, we’re not doing it, and the band didn’t force our hand.’

  ‘We thought they were wankers,’ said Brown. ‘We phoned up and said we don’t recognize the contract.’ By releasing ‘Sally Cinnamon’, however, FM Revolver had given the band a platform from which they could progress. Evans had got the bit between his teeth and was now hoping to sign the band to a new label and a more lucrative contract. The bubblegum pop sound of ‘Sally Cinnamon’ had finally shaken off ‘the albatross’, as Brown called it, of ‘So Young’. It was the start of a new beginning for the Roses. But for bassist Garner it was the beginning of the end.

  7.

  Mani

  Pete Garner had been a close friend of Brown and Squire since he was thirteen. He was now twenty-three and deeply unhappy. Much had happened in the intervening ten years, not least the fact the band he had joined in 1983 was now on the verge of achieving something magnificent, with the bulk of their classic songs and their definitive sound all but complete. But while Reni, Squire and Brown had developed into world-beaters, his playing was in stasis and his confidence had begun to ebb away.

  ‘The problem I had was I was in a band with arguably the drummer of his generation, the front man of his generation and the guitarist of his generation and little old me on bass. Everybody had moved up three levels and I’d moved up one level. I felt like I was letting the side down.’