Gary "Mani" Mounfield, the new player on Primal Scream team, has signed up in time to join the Scream's return to rock 'n' roll's premier league.
The story of Primal Scream is one of tough, third division plodding followed by a sudden, spectacular musical victory via 1991's era-defining Screamadelica album. Before, the band were just a bunch of slack, leather-clad indie-heads, puttering along on some second-hand Stones riffs, and generally coming across like gormless schoolboys trying vainly to emulate their rock 'n' roll heroes. Then came Loaded, the remix tune which brought Britpop out onto the dance-floor, and introduced clubbers to the joys of riffola.
Screamadelica cemented the crossover, and won the Mercury Music Prize for Album Of The Year. It also won the hearts and minds of an entire generation, and set a standard for every would-be guitar hero or technophobe to follow. But the Primals themselves weren't up to the challenge, and the 1994 follow-up, Give Out But Don't Give Up, was a rock 'n' roll cop-out, a return to the band's rock beast posturing of old and the fans ignored it.
Primal Scream's latest album, Vanishing Point, is also out of step with current trends, but in the most refreshing way. It's patently a return to Screamadelica's experimental spirit, but it steers clear of the block-rocking big beats of Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, taking a more gently undulating path down the backroads of dance culture. There's lots of ambient dub, rare grooves and jazzed-up loops, and even the odd rockisms like Medication and Motorhead (a cover of the Motorhead tune) are tempered with some light-handed arrangements.
Former Stone Rose Mani joined the band near the end of the album's recording, but his relentless, funked-up bassline can be heard on the superb Kowalski, the first Top 10 hit from the album. "I'm excellent, mate, I'm in good form," says Mani. "It's a good piece of work. But I don't get to play on enough tracks. I'm looking forward to the next album so I can be on everything."
He will be playing the album onstage when Primal Scream head out on their rescheduled concert dates.
"The vibe is absolutely pure optimism and happiness, it's great," enthuses Mani. "We're all really, really enjoying it, lots of smiling going on - we're all really up for it, mate."
It wasn't all smiles last year when The Stone Roses made their final, disastrous headline appearance at Reading. But while The Stone Roses were dying a slow death, Mani was already making plans for his new life, and his thoughts turned to his old buddies, Primal Scream.
The Stone Roses might have been dead, but the Scream weren't looking too lively at the time either, so Mani may well have come out of the frying pan into the fire. Tales of copious chemical abuse followed Bobby Gillespie's gang wherever they went, and the Give Out album was regarded as the dying gasp of a decrepit indie dinosaur. Did Mani have any idea that Primal Scream were about to make such a creditable return to form?
"Yeah, I know what the guys were capable of, they're all excellent musicians, and I'm not surprised that they've come back with an LP that's so good. I think the last LP was a little bit more of them being caught up in a seedy underworld of drugs, it was a bit directionless, and I don't think any of the guys are too happy with it. It's got its moments, but I think it was a million miles away from Screamadelica, just as The Second Coming was different from The Stone Roses' first LP.
"The biggest similarity is they'll always do the unexpected, they'll never take the expected route, and I've grown up on that vibe for 10 years with the Roses. So there's no change there."
Mani has already started recording new material with Primal Scream, "really out-there, mad stuff", which will see the light of day during the next year. The band also collaborate with artists such as Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine, Jackie Liebezeit from Can, and William Reid from the Jesus And Mary Chain (Bobby Gillespie's old band). So, it looks like the Scream remain ready to try something new with someone new.
"We're up for experimenting as much as we can, and working with different people. It isn't a problem for us, there's no egos to deal with, and no one gets pissed off if we want to bring in a different guitarist. We can do exactly what we want - it's complete freedom in music at the moment."
And is the band's celebrated willingness to experiment with mind-altering chemicals as strong as ever?
`There's not so much getting off our heads at the moment, I think everyone's grown up a little bit. We're none of us getting any younger. Obviously, we can still do it if we want to, but I think we're just more focused on the music, 'cos it was the boys getting off their heads that nearly killed a few of them on the making of their last LP. They're lucky that they've all survived it and come out the other side, so I think they're all more cautious and more wary about doing that kind of thing."
Far from being out of his head, Bobby Gillespie is "the most in his head person I know at this moment in time!" Mani says, and, listening to the fine, sharply-focused music on Vanishing Point, we must concur indeed. Welcome to the Scream Team, Mani - it's a good year for the ex-Roses.
Primal Scream play the SFX on Wednesday and Thursday August 20th and 21st. Vanishing Point is out now on Creation Records.