Guitarist supreme John Squire talks to Dave Simpson about Ian Brown, the acrimonious Stone Roses split and how he found his voice
John Squire and Ian Brown should have been the Lennon and McCartney of the 1990s. Thirteen years ago, they were the creative force behind the Stone Roses, who were in an unassailable position at the top of British rock. Their deebut album, also called The Stone Roses - recently voted the greatest album of all time in a BBC poll - had rescued Britrock from its stadium-rock doldrums and paved the way for virtually every subsequent development in British rock, notably Oasis. Somehow, though, it all went horribly wrong. A second album, Second Coming, arrived a whole five years later as the Roses' impetus was lost in a sea of litigation and apparent sloth. Eighteen months after that, the band split.
Two and a half years ago, singer Ian Brown caused a furore when he came clean about the "real story" behind the band's demise. In fact, he insisted both in songs and interviews, it was all John Squire's fault. His estranged guitarist, songwriting partner and soulmate since childhood, had succumbed to cocaine, aloof behaviour and rampant egomania.
Squire has never responded. As Brown's solo stardom has progressed, his former partner has spent years in retreat in rural Cheshire, since the collapse of his successful but short-lived post-Roses band, the Seahorses.
Now he is finally breaking his silence with a solo album, Time Changes Everything, which contains several searingly honest songs about the Roses, and with his first interview in five years. We meet at a quiet pub in Manchester. With his tousled hair intact at 39, Squire still looks more guitar hero than casualty and, if there is any egomania or excess, it is kept utterly in check. When he talks, it is with quiet, carefully measured sentences - if this man takes coke, he should have a strong word with his dealer. He is alert and thoughtful, occasionally responding to a question with a question ("Have you had therapy?" . . . "Have you?"), but bats off bizarre rumours that he abandoned music for mountain-biking ("I was well into it but haven't ridden for a year") and that he grew an enormous beard ("True. I shaved it off and I keep it in a box").
The real Squire is hardly known at all. But now, singing his own lyrics for the first time, he wishes to be "honest". On 15 Days, he regretfully, but affectionately, traces the career of the band who "aimed for the Pistols and the Byrds, and the clouds that flew above them", with a sly pop at Brown ("That crown of thorns suits ya, son"). "It was spewed out," he says. "After the first couple of lines it was like taking my finger out of a dam. I've maybe been writing it subliminally for the last seven years."
It's strange to hear Squire singing - in a distinctive voice not unlike Bob Dylan's. He says: "I just thought, 'F**k it! I'm not going looking for another singer.' It just couldn't be the same as it was with Ian." More eyebrows will be raised by a beautiful song called I Miss You (". . . and I know that, deep down, you miss me too"). Squire explains that it's partly about his ex, partly about the happy times with the Roses, and partly about Brown.
They were very close. Brown and Squire met in a Manchester sandpit aged four, with the gregarious, mouthy Brown, the prototype Liam Gallagher, finding the key to drawing the artistic but quietly strong-willed Squire out of his shell. When Squire spoke, Brown would finish his sentences, but mostly Squire poured things out through his guitar. Their heady brew of pop, dance and personal politics was sired in Squire's house. I Am the Resurrection drew life in the backroom; Fool's Gold in the spare bedroom; She Bangs the Drum in the lounge. So when Brown began to character-assassinate Squire, the guitarist understood the reasons. "I dumped him, didn't I?" Squire has never been in any great rush to hit back: "I didn't want to hate him."
Now, though, he seems ready - if not exactly willing - to set the record straight.
As Squire tells it, the relationship fell apart during the second album. "When my daughter Janie came along, we had to go away to write, because we couldn't get enough time together on our own," he says. "We went to the Lakes, Scotland. But very little came from those trips. The partnership was drying up. "We were still great friends. Probably too friendly. Maybe if we'd have had a go at each other it would have been sorted out." Instead, minor musical differences erupted into chasms.
Brown wanted the band to go in a more groove-oriented direction in the vein of Fool's Gold.
Squire insists that "didn't work out", pointing to the disappointing follow-up, One Love. He spent a year trying to operate an $1,000 sampler and felt he was beating his head against a brick wall. He rebelled with guitars, further alienating Brown. But the real breakdown of the relationship seems entwined in this business about cocaine. Brown maintains Squire "cut him out". According to Squire, he was forced into taking responsibility for writing the group's songs, when he could have "really used some help". Squire insists there was nothing like the excess Brown has claimed. "The only thing I did to excess were guitar solos," he says, drily.
However, he admits the coke made him paranoid. As Squire tells it, the cocaine controversy arose from a 1995 interview he gave to the LA Times. "People were asking us why it took so long to come up with the second album," he explains. "We'd done other interviews and the same excuses about the court cases [the Roses ended up in litigation when they left their first record company, Silvertone] and having children were getting recycled. I thought the guy deserved something more."
After initially extolling ecstasy, Brown's views on narcotics now are almost Old Testament: marijuana (natural, good), coke (evil). Thus, Squire suggests, he has acquired the Judas role because he "confessed". Nothing about this is entirely black and white. For example, Brown reckons drummer Reni left because of Squire. Squire reckons he left because of an argument with Brown. Faced with questions about Brown, Squire becomes more uncomfortable until he suddenly erupts.
"I didn't believe in the band any more," he says. "I realised that the person inside Ian wasn't the person I loved. I couldn't find him. I looked into his eyes and he was a different person. It was a frightening experience." Asked why or how Brown changed, Squire refuses to "become a grass". "I don't want to stick the knife in, all I can say is that he became a complete stranger. It was bizarre, because everyone assumed we were the best of friends, which puts a tremendous amount of pressure on you." Squire left the band.
He's immensely proud of what the Roses achieved - "No one loved or worked harder for that band than me." The Roses stood for something that has been lost among today's pop puppets - preserving dignity, which may explain band members' conflicting accounts. "We were never afraid to say no," he says. That's why, despite offers of millions and a greatest hits set in the autumn (selected by all four members, although not together), there will be no revival tour. "I'd rather remove my liver with a teaspoon," says Squire.
Since the Roses ended, he has appeared rootless. When the Seahorses imploded, Squire and singer Chris Helme offered conflicting accounts over who left first. A subsequent experience with the Verve's Simon Jones and other musicians similarly ended with both sides offering different explanations.
Time Changes Everything was recorded with musicians Andy Treacey, Jonathan White and John Ellis, and Second Coming co-producer Simon Dawson. Squire's revered, plangent guitar style is unmistakable.
Now, the most gifted guitarist of his generation is also a singer. He used to sing his melodies to Brown, which was a "total chore". Now he's bubbling about the challenge of his new role, admittingto "starting to understand the pressures on a vocalist . . . holding a note, remembering the words, doing it over and over and not letting your mind wander." You can't help but wonder if this comment carries a new-found sympathy with Brown.
Their paths have diverged. Brown digs rap, Squire classic rock. Brown lives in London; Squire's remote farmhouse - where he writes in his garage - is adult life's equivalent of his childhood bubble. He has few mates, preferring the company of his current partner, Sophia, two children from different couplings, a hound and local goats. He insists he's mostly happy yet confesses to occasional bouts of terrible melancholy. In the past, he's considered "taking himself out of the game". Now, he rejects therapy but is working on himself, going "back to blueprints". His new songs are helping confront a lifelong habit of "bottling things up".
In December, 1999, as prisoner BE9311 Ian Brown languished in Strangeways jail, the result of a notorious altercation with an air stewardess, he received a Christmas gift of a box of Maltesers chocolates, the present Squire had given him each year when they were kids. "He knew what it meant," sighs Squire. Inside, was a little note: "I still love you." Brown responded with thanks through a third party, but there has been no further communication.
Squire misses Brown's humour most, particularly the wicked impersonations he would do of people they both knew. Those and their great adventures - acid trips and making snowslides in the road, where "if you had the right shoes you could slide for 20 yards".
Lennon and McCartney ended up bitching and communicating through songs, and were never fully reconciled. Would Squire be interested in a meeting, or reconciliation? He falls silent for an age, and then whispers: "It's long overdue." - (Guardian Service)
Time Changes Everything is on the North Country label.