REVOLVER:WITH BAND members responsible for songs including Love Will Tear Us Apart, How Soon Is Now?, Fools Goldand Blue Monday– to name just a few – there were huge expectations for the Manchester supergroup Freebass. But there was always something wrong with the picture.

Firstly, this was a band with not one, not two, but three bass players (Peter Hook, Mani from The Stone Roses and Andy Rourke of The Smiths). Never mind: with their pedigree and musical experience, they must know what they’re doing, right?

With most every label in the world laughing them out of it for having a band with three bass players (most bands will tell you even one is quite enough, thank you), Freebass persisted, even if it did take them five years to get their debut album recorded.

If you thought Dublin had a bitchy indie music scene, it's like The Brady Bunchcompared with Manchester's. With each of the bassists thinking their old band was the most significant Manchester band of all time, it was never going to be all Friends Reunited around Freebass's way. But what has transpired is so bizarre you could get a screenplay out of it that would make This Is Spinal Taplook like a Panoramadocumentary.

Peter Hook described how Freebass would work musically: “Mani does the low part, Andy Rourke in the middle and I do the high bit. It works out quite well.”

The first crack in the edifice came when it was reported last year that Rourke had left the band and gone to live in New York (but would still play with them live).

Then, with the album, It's a Beautiful Life, due out next week, Mani took to his Twitter account, calling Hook a "self-centred sellout". Goodness.

He was just warming up. On the upcoming Freebass album, he tweeted: “It’s where it belongs mate. In the f**kin’ bargain bin before it’s even released.”

Mani also slated Hook's one-man show, Evening of Unknown Pleasures,wherein he performs Joy Division music and does a Q&A session about the band. Mani, of course, has no time for such nostalgia. He's currently rehearsing for the upcoming Primal Scream tour, in which they will play their 1991 album Screamadelica.

One of the more remarkable aspects of this bout of handbags between famous Manchester bass players is not just how personal it got, but the fact that it happened at all. During the Britpop era, when cocaine and Dutch Gold were the refreshments of choice, there’d be a good ruck every

week. But when you meet people from that era now, the majority of them are all clean and serene 12-steppers.

The record industry, battered

by recession and those pesky downloaders, now often insists on “media and lifestyle training” as part of a band’s recording contract. Occasionally an Amy Winehouse will slip through the net, but in general today’s rock stars are wary of “profile” and insurance and US visa issues. It has all got a bit macrobiotic and Pilates.

These days it can be difficult for even the most revered of musicians to make a decent living, which probably explains why Mani seems to have gone to an internal Priory Clinic and is now giving it all the “out of context” and “sorry about that” treatment.

“I wish to apologise unreservedly to Peter Hook and his family regarding comments made on a social-networking site, which was totally out of character for me. It was a venomous, spiteful reaction and I chose to vent my frustrations and anger at one of my true friends in this filthy business, and ventured into territory which was none of my concern.

“Twenty-two years of being tripped up, face down in the mud and being kicked in the face with an iron boot will do that to the most stable of men. I hope I haven’t blown a great friendship forever. Sorry Pete.”

Thankfully Mani got that out just before the Freebass album hits the shops. As a good bass player, he knows a thing or two about timing.

• Freebass's It's a Beautiful Life is out next week