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By any metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and remarkable phenomenon. It unfolded over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local source of buzz in Manchester, largely overlooked by the traditional outlets for indie music in Britain. Influential DJs wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had barely mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a more modest London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were huge. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their performance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable situation for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously drawing in a far bigger and more diverse audience than usually displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which appeared to connect them more to the burgeoning acid house movement – their cockily belligerent attitude and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a world of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way completely unlike any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument that the melody of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing behind it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to the majority of the songs that graced the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way got the impression that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds rather different to the standard alternative group influences, which was completely right: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and funk”.

The smoothness of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s Mani who propels the moment when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into loose-limbed groove, his jumping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, or even the drum sample borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, driving bass. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that comes to thought is the low-end melody.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s underwhelming follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “could have swung, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its flaws might have been fixed by removing some of the layers of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the groove”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights often occur during the moments when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him figuratively urging the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is completely at odds with the lethargy of all other elements that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly attempting to inject a bit of pep into what’s otherwise just some nondescript country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded completely after a catastrophic headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively energising effect on a band in a slump after the tepid reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, weightier and increasingly distorted, but the groove that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – particularly on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his bass work to the fore. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an friendly, sociable presence – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the press was invariably broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that bore the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and permanently smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reformation did not lead to anything beyond a lengthy series of extremely profitable concerts – a couple of new singles released by the reformed quartet served only to prove that whatever spark had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to recapture 18 years later – and Mani discreetly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which furthermore offered “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of manners. Oasis certainly observed their swaggering attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was informed by a aim to break the standard commercial constraints of alternative music and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct influence was a sort of rhythmic shift: following their early success, you abruptly encountered many indie bands who wanted to make their audiences move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, aren’t they?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”