Good years for the Roses

“You know what one of our objectives was when we started? To save the world from U2! As it happens, the only thing we saved was their career. They took the Stone Roses and Mondays’ LPs with them into the studio and came out with Achtung Baby. They’d heard the records and thought, ‘We can do a bit of Beatles, a bit of Jimi. Add a few dance beats and away we go’. Which is what great groups do.”

Ian Brown is casting his mind back to the days when every Manchester street corner had a baggy band on it. Unlike Shaun Ryder, who confesses to having forgotten entire years, the singer’s recall is almost total.

“I’ve never been a big drug head,” he maintains. “I never took lots of ecstasy, I never took lots of trips. I’ve not had an E since 1991. I gave up liquor ‘cause I was in New York, drinking white rum and smoking blunts. Them blunts are an inch in circumference and left me throwing up like a dog. I smoke weed every night but it’s medicine, innit?”

For someone who “hates, loathes and fucking detests nostalgia”, Brown gets remarkably animated when asked to sum up the spirit of ‘88.

“It was young people doing their own thing, which is always healthy,” he gushes. “The first six months were great, but then it was about putting warehouse parties on and selling flares down the market. It was like punk in that it started off as a vibe, a community – but then it became a money making exercise.”

Although the Roses are only bit part players in it, the 39-year-old will be putting his (king) monkey suit on next week and journeying to London for the 24 Hour Party People premiere.

“A lot of people slag Tony Wilson, but I rate him for what he’s done. He’s a really intelligent guy who, despite having the Cambridge education, has stayed in Manchester and made things happen there.

“Is he a Manchester hero? No, the Manchester heroes are Denis Law, George Best, Ryan Giggs…(laughs). The people I remember most fondly from them days are the kids off the street. I was saying to me girl, ‘You could make a film out of them just talking about their lives’. They’ve always been more entertaining than the muppets in the magazines.”

Given his admiration for Tony Wilson, why did the Roses by-pass Factory and sign first to Revolver and then to Silvertone?

‘’Cause they had New Order,” he says baldly. “We’d always have been second in the pecking order to them, which is not what you want, is it?”

Brown intends adding his ten pennies worth to the Madchester debate next year, when he brings out his own book.

“I’ve music to get out first but, yeah, I am going to do it. There’ll be stuff in it about me upbringing, the Roses and the time I spent in prison. I won’t spoil the surprise, except to say there’ll be a few revelations made and scores settled!”

Mani we know about, but what are the rest of his former bandmates up to?

“As far as I’m aware, Reni doesn’t get up till six o’clock every night. John (Squire) I don’t have a clue about.”

Is there even the remotest chance of the Roses treading the boards again?

“No. It was brilliant – but never return to a lit firework.”

Ian Brown’s Music Of The Spheres is out now on Polydor.