Off stage the divisions between Squire and Brown were as pronounced as on stage. Squire now largely travelled on the crew bus, where his pop-star pretensions attracted those comfortable with preen and sheen. On the band’s bus Brown, often sullen, defensive and hard to reach, defiantly played hardcore hip-hop, gangster rap and reggae. The potent, aggressive lyrics were a turn-off; not just for Squire’s crowd, but also for the man he had relied on throughout the tour for support, Maddix – who went between UK venues in an XJS Jaguar.
Brown, despite his apparent isolation from Squire, still cared. He had made it clear he didn’t want to see anyone giving cocaine to Squire, whose episode with pneumonia had been more serious than had been reported in the media. But the communication channels between the two men had disintegrated slowly over three years and now were all but irreparable. It was, again, sad. ‘Sometimes John would come down in the morning, and as opposed to coming over, he’d go stand with the crew,’ said Maddix. ‘I did say to Ian, You should at least say hello in the morning to one other. Mani would say, John’s strange, it makes you feel as if you’ve done something wrong, so you don’t know what to say to him for half the day. Then you realize there’s nothing wrong, it’s just a lack of people skills.’
At Wembley Arena, the UK tour’s final show on 29 December, the Roses, supported by The Manic Street Preachers, played to 12,500 fans in an atmosphere of triumph. The band had never truly delivered a big gig in London, until now.
Backstage, after the show, celebrating with family and friends, the band were euphoric, imagining where they would go next and looking forward to recording new material. The high of the show made the possibilities seem endless. Squire did not share in the celebrations, and had quickly disappeared back to his hotel, in Brixton. ‘John’s then missus said, I don’t know what’s the matter with him, because as soon as we got in the hotel he was jumping on the bed like a baby, saying, We’ve smashed it, we’ve smashed it!’ said Maddix. ‘She asked John, Why didn’t you tell them that? Why have you come all the way back to the hotel to do that? Why aren’t you with your mates? If you’ve got this feeling, why are you not there?’
Geffen were anxious that the Roses capitalize on the momentum, and wanted the band to start recording a new album as soon as possible. In January 1996 they began this process. Maddix had moved to Lymm to be close to Brown, and, with Ipinson-Fleming, they began to loosely outline a handful of songs in a basement studio at Maddix’s new home. Mani was on holiday in Jamaica and Squire was being non-committal. The world tour had generated £1.2 million but the band’s debt, and the touring costs, had eaten up almost all of that – and the Roses made only a few thousand pounds each for their efforts. The $4 million advance due from Geffen couldn’t come soon enough.
Unable to contact Squire, Brown, Maddix and Ipinson-Fleming invited accomplished Mancunian session guitarist Aziz Ibrahim to help them flesh out the new songs. Like Ipinson-Fleming, Ibrahim was a pal of Maddix, and the pair had worked together many times in the past. ‘Robbie told me that they’d had problems getting hold of John but they wanted to complete the songs they were writing, so would I come in and help with guitars?’ said Ibrahim. Work continued through February, on four tracks – ‘Ice Cold Cube’, ‘Nah Nah’, ‘Black Sheep’ and ‘High Times’ – intended for the new Roses album.
Brown and Maddix already harboured concerns that Squire’s private meetings with Geffen, pronounced role with the band on stage and non-communication were signs he planned to get a new project off the ground. They hoped the progress being made on the new songs would convince him of the life left in the Roses. It seemed foolish now, after ten months of hard struggle to get the band working again without Reni, to throw it all away.
But that was exactly what Squire was about to do. For him the disintegration of his relationship with Brown had been frightening. He could not see it being fixed easily, and the prospect of working together under a bad atmosphere was not appealing. The news that the band were recording demos of new songs without him, with a new guitarist, further led him towards the decision that the time had come. He saw his control of band, particularly the songwriting, being wrestled away.
‘John took it the wrong way,’ said Maddix, ‘but we’d be asking him to come down.’ They had no intention of replacing Squire, quite the opposite: they were trying to re-engage him. It became apparent, however, that Squire was actively avoiding contact. Mani, back from Jamaica, Brown and Maddix made visits to Squire’s Manchester home, but he never answered the door. Finally, Squire called Brown. ‘I don’t believe in the band any more,’ he said. He felt ‘like a fraud’. The conversation was surprisingly convivial. Squire said he wanted to quit, but the two men shared twenty years of history. Surely they could work something out? ‘There was a chink of light,’ Squire said. And there was $4 million on offer to record the new album. Brown told Mani and Maddix that Squire was thinking about leaving the band. ‘It came as a massive shock,’ said Maddix. ‘We were just about on top of the world, just about to do a new album. Geffen were just about to send the money.’
On 21 March 1996 the Roses – Squire, Brown, Mani and Maddix – met to try to thrash out a future at John Kennedy’s London office. No definite decision had been reached, and there remained hope that Squire could be talked around. It was the first time since the end of the tour they had all come face to face. ‘We’re in the meeting and there’s silence,’ said Maddix. ‘Kennedy doesn’t say a word. John’s facing us, and Mani tried to say, Come on, John, and plead to his better nature.’
‘It’s us,’ said Mani. ‘You know what Reni did to us, you’re doing the same thing, whatever it is, just make it known and we’ll fix it.’ Squire snapped back, ‘I’m not your keeper.’ Mani was hurt by the remark, angry. Brown saw red, accusing Squire of ‘taking the absolute piss’. Squire seemed relaxed, unconcerned that his leaving the band would put the $4 million advance from Geffen in jeopardy. When the rights to the band’s name came up, he even made a joke. ‘You can have the vowels and I’ll have the consonants,’ he said. It only cranked up the hostility.
‘Ian now wanted to murder John,’ said Maddix. ‘I knew it was finished.’ Maddix tried to defuse the situation, saying, ‘John is free to do what he wants. I don’t want John to leave, but the fact is you cannot make someone do something they don’t want to do. We just have to accept it.’ A nervous Kennedy seized on this comment. ‘Listen to Robbie,’ he told the band. ‘What about the bills?’ Brown asked Kennedy. The band’s lawyer was owed £75,000 in legal fees. ‘Wipe that off,’ said Kennedy. ‘No,’ said Brown. Kennedy insisted. ‘My gift to you guys.’
On 1 April 1996 Squire released a statement to confirm he had quit the group. ‘After lengthy deliberation, it is with great regret that I feel compelled to announce my decision to leave The Stone Roses,’ he said. ‘I believe all concerned will benefit from a parting of the ways and I see this as the inevitable conclusion to the gradual social and musical separation we have undergone in the last few years. I wish them every success and hope they go on to greater things. My intentions are to continue writing while looking for partners in a new band and to begin working again as soon as possible. Thanks for everything.’ A statement from The Stone Roses, jointly signed by Brown, Mani, Maddix and Ipinson-Fleming, read: ‘We feel as cheated as everyone else who has heard the news. We are in the middle of recording the next LP. We’re disgusted yet feeling stronger and more optimistic than ever.’
The news put the Roses back on the NME front cover, on 6 April, under the headline ‘The Stone Roses Split! John Squire Quits’. Two weeks later, Squire was on the NME front cover to talk about his future, having already found a bassist for his new band. Described as ‘the musical genius behind the most important rock band since the Sex Pistols’, Squire said that playing with Maddix had liberated him. ‘Musically, it became apparent I existed as a separate entity and that you can play with different people and have “the experience” in a different way. It helped me decide I c
ould be in a different group.’ He didn’t want to ‘compromise’ and ‘fight’ to make the music he wanted to make. He made a point of denying that his leaving the Roses had anything to do with Brown’s voice, and said that he didn’t feel as if he was the ‘gifted one [who] dragged the rest of the band behind’. He couldn’t understand the hostile statement from the Roses. ‘I thought it was an honourable time to go. Reni seemed to get a pat on the back when he left.’
It appeared, from the outside, as if the Roses would continue, although the NME suggested Squire had taken away their dignity, the band was now a ‘debacle’ and Brown was ‘fatally flawed’. ‘There is no reason the Stone Roses cannot continue and remain on Geffen,’ said the band’s publicist, Terri Hall. There was much media speculation about who would replace Squire, rumours of a new Roses album in the autumn, and confirmation the band would play the Reading Festival on 25 August. The Roses, however, knew there was no replacing Squire, and that it was over. The band’s agent, Nigel Kerr, had a few deposits for gigs that had been pencilled in before Squire had left, and the band intended to honour these responsibilities. They could also do with the money, as no more would be coming from Geffen now.
‘It was never going to carry on, from the day we had the meeting in London and John left,’ said Maddix. ‘We spoke about it. We said, It’s not going on, it can’t go on. I said to Ian, I told you it was going to end like this because you guys weren’t talking properly. That’s it. He said, I know. There was none of this, Who can you get on guitar? We had no intention of replacing John – it was never going to work. It was over.’ The band was not short of offers. They were approached by Slash, who was on the verge of leaving Guns N’ Roses, and former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, who both felt they were up to the job. ‘It’s not like we couldn’t have replaced John,’ said Maddix. ‘But the whole point was who [would leave] next? Ian? It was done.’
Brown, Mani and Maddix stewed for the next two months, upset and angry – the bright and brilliant future they had imagined for the Roses had been snatched away by Squire, for reasons they did not completely understand. Geffen were now aware of the band’s decision to break up, and made no effort to dissuade them from doing so, believing Squire had been the main creative force in the Roses.
In July the Roses began rehearsing at a nightclub in Southport, close to Maddix’s new home in Birkdale, for a small clutch of European festival dates that would be a prelude to the Reading Festival. They had seriously considered using Kelly Johnson, former lead guitarist and singer with all-girl heavy metal band Girlschool, as guitarist for the dates. The idea had a perverse charm. Instead, however, they turned back to Aziz Ibrahim, who was given two weeks to learn Squire’s guitar parts. ‘I told him, All we’re interested in is doing these gigs the way people remember [the band] and that’s it,’ said Maddix. ‘There is no more.’
Brown was ‘obviously hurting a lot’, said Ibrahim. ‘There was a lot of bitterness. They all knew how great a thing it had been, and saw other bands pick up the baton where they’d dropped it, knowing they could absolutely squash them.’ The band were flushed out of the Southport nightclub after a day, when news that the Roses were rehearsing there leaked and fans mobbed the place. Rehearsals concluded at the Renaissance Gym in Manchester.
The idea of a happy ending was doomed from the start. For the first festival show, in Spain on 2 August, none of the Roses’ equipment showed up, and they were forced to beg and borrow what they could. They made a brave attempt to play ‘Fools Gold’, but ‘it was a disaster,’ said Ibrahim. ‘Mani was the first to kick off on stage, and he started having a go at Robbie, then Ian was having a go at him. It ended up in a big fight.’ The three other European festival dates, in Portugal, Denmark and Hungary, saw a gradual improvement in performance, but the prospect of bringing this new version of the band before 60,000 fans at Reading Festival (the band’s biggest ever audience) was daunting.
Mani had already been approached by Primal Scream and asked about the possibility of joining them, but there was a loose idea that he, Brown, Maddix and Ipinson-Fleming might carry on playing together under a new name, with a new musical identity. On 24 August, the eve of the Reading show, Mani told Brown and Maddix he had made the decision to go with Primal Scream. ‘It really created a bad stink,’ Mani said. Before the Roses took to the stage there was an ill-tempered press conference. The band had planned to bow out with good grace, claim that no one had fallen out, and announce that this was the last Roses show, a final chance to enjoy the music. But Brown and Mani became agitated with questions about Squire, particularly when asked whether there was any virtue in carrying on without him. Their pride got the better of them; both had been upset to see Squire take to the stage earlier in the month, as a guest, with Oasis, at their zenith – playing two massive Knebworth shows to a crowd of 250,000. Squire was a ‘regular, coked-up, spoilt brat guitarist’, ‘pathetic and weak’ and on a ‘power trip’, said Brown. ‘You’re all dumb, complete wankers, the lot of you,’ Mani said.
‘They were hurting, they were very raw,’ said Maddix. ‘We’re only human, we all say things,’ said Ibrahim. ‘Frustrations sometimes get the better of people. I called John a joker. I’ve no idea why I said it. If anybody was a joker it was myself, thinking I belonged in this band.’
The band’s posturing gave a contrary impression to the one they had intended, many now believing the Roses saga would continue, and that this was the unveiling of a new line-up. Their behaviour at the press conference had destroyed any sense of goodwill towards them among the media. The knives were out. Brown said he wanted to use the Reading Festival show to ‘smash the myth, and destroy the mystique of the Roses’, allowing for this band of musicians to continue without those shackles. Instead, it was his reputation now on the line.
He had stayed up the night before, drinking and smoking, and never even began to get to grips with the show. The short eleven-song set was shorn of most Second Coming tracks, save for ‘Daybreak’, ‘Ten Storey Love Song’ and ‘Breaking into Heaven’, and packed with classics such as ‘I Wanna Be Adored’, ‘She Bangs the Drums’, ‘Waterfall’, ‘I Am the Resurrection’ and ‘Made of Stone’. The band included two new songs: ‘High Times’ and ‘Ice Cold Cube’. The response from the crowd, despite press reports that suggested people were in tears and leaving the scene in thousands, was overwhelmingly positive. ‘I saw arms in the air and smiling faces,’ said Brown. ‘But when I heard the tape a couple of days later, I thought, Oh, the singing is appalling. The band was smoking but the singer let them down, definitely.’
It seemed predetermined that reviews would be uniformly negative – and they were, although this did not stop the NME from putting Brown on the cover, on 21 August, to help sell their Reading issue. Variously, the gig was described as a ‘nightmare’, an ‘embarrassment’, a ‘tragedy’, a ‘farce’ and ‘unlistenable’ – with particular scorn reserved for Brown’s off-key singing and the girl dancing on stage with the band.
Even those who hoped it wasn’t over – and there had remained a part of Brown that couldn’t let go of the name and the dream – were now resigned to the fact. The festival dates, including Reading, had generated around £200,000 for the band kitty, but there were many debts still outstanding. ‘Even at the end, we owed,’ said Maddix.
Some of the festival money was channelled into buying the old Square One studio in Bury, where the Roses had rehearsed and attempted to record Second Coming tracks in 1993, and they renamed it Rose Garden. ‘The idea was we could record there on whatever we were going to do next, and other people could record there and pay us,’ said Maddix. ‘But we had problems with one of the partners involved in the deal, and everything started falling apart. Everything was so raw – no one was thinking business, even me.’
Brown wanted to carry on playing with Maddix, Ibrahim and Ipinson-Fleming, but Maddix told him it would be a mistake, and would only continue to fuel the idea that they were trying to keep the Roses alive. He wr
ote a song called ‘What Happened to Ya’, ‘specifically about John and Ian’, and gave it to Brown, advising him to use it as a start to build a solo career. Brown was skint and often slept on Maddix’s couch, his personal life as broken as his dreams and self-belief. A solo career, he felt, was beyond him. ‘He was looking at me with tears in his eyes, saying, Are you selling me out as well?’ said Maddix. ‘I was trying to say to him, I’m doing the complete opposite, my friend. Here’s a song, why don’t you write an album about what you’re going through, what we’ve all been through, here’s your start.’
It was the beginning of something new, but also the sad end. On 29 October 1996 Brown released the following statement to the press: ‘Having spent the last ten years in the filthiest business in the universe, it’s a pleasure to announce the end of The Stone Roses. May God bless all who gave us their love and supported us throughout this time. Special thanks to the people of Manchester who sent us on our way, peace be upon you.’
17.
Fifteen Years
A new Roses album was released in November 1996. There had always been rumours that, in the period between their 1989 eponymous album and Second Coming, the band had recorded and abandoned an album of lost material: a glorious batch of golden ‘Fools Gold’-style workouts. It was a haunting thought of what could and should have been. Instead there were more arguments, as the Garage Flower album finally saw the light of day.
Brown thought he had bought back, and owned, the Roses’ 1985 album recorded with Martin Hannett. ‘He didn’t,’ said Howard Jones. ‘He bought the multi-tracks, not the mix. The album is the final agreed production mix, which is what I had.’ Jive/Zomba approached Jones, who had managed the band between 1984 and 1986, about the album, with a view to releasing it. Jones had kept Squire’s original artwork, intended for the record sleeves of the planned 1985 singles ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ and ‘This Is the One’ – and the art was included in the package.
The Stone Roses: War and Peace Page 28