Stone Roses

No second coming as Squire's attack on Ian Brown kills off talk of a Stone Roses revival

By Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent

31 December 2004

A bitter attack on the former Stone Roses front man Ian Brown by the band's guitarist, John Squire, looks to be the final blow to hopes that they might reform.

Fans of the band, whose eponymous first album in 1989 put them in the forefront of the music scene, have long lamented the split in 1996 after a schism between Squire and Brown.

They were thrilled this year when a tour by Brown saw him eschewing the solo material he has produced in recent years in favour of performing favourites from the Stone Roses back catalogue instead.

But Brown's fierce insistence that he wanted a Roses tribute band, Fools Gold , as support was evidence that tensions remained. He claimed the band had received offers of £1m to perform in 2005, but that he would not do it "just for the cash".

A scathing attack by John Squire in the latest issue of Q magazine looks set to dash the fans' hopes for good. Brown has previously blamed Squire's use of cocaine for problems during the making of their second album Second Coming . But the guitarist now insists his intake was moderate. "If I had been strung out, I couldn't have made that record," he said.

Instead, he attributes the difficulties to Brown's fondness for marijuana, claiming Brown was almost incomprehensible at times. "Ian smoked too much dope. When he was stoned, he was at best a tuneless knob and at worst a paranoid mess," he said.

The Stone Roses had descended into rock excess after winning fame and fortune at the beginning of the 1990s. As legal proceedings to release them from a poor record deal and sign them to a bigger label dragged on, the band slowly fell apart and never hit the musical heights again.

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