Coming up Roses

For a band with such a cherished place in British rock history, the Stone Roses enjoyed surprisingly modest success.

A glance through the record books reveals that, upon its release in March 1989, their now-legendary self-titled debut album entered the UK charts at No.32 and peaked seven months later at the dizzy heights of No.19.

Since then it has gone on to be universally acclaimed as a musical landmark. Fifteen years after the release of The Stone Roses, its status is so exalted that it regularly tops polls as the Greatest Album Of All Time.

'I suppose the reason is because it sounds timeless,' muses Ian Brown, the singer whose simian swagger gave the Roses their focal point - and Liam Gallagher a role model to ape. 'I think it still means a lot to the generation that bought it, and it's been discovered by each successive generation that got into Oasis or whatever. It's still got a good fresh sound.' He smiles a big confident grin that bisects his implausibly high cheekbones. 'I think if it came out this week it would do better than No.19.'

Over the years that landmark album, which defined the 'Madchester' fusion of rave culture and indie rock, has accumulated sales of about three million and revenue of about £50 million. Not that Brown or guitarist John Squire, who co-wrote every song, reaped much benefit. 'The first cheque we ever got was in December 2002,' reveals Brown. 'And it was the last. We waited 14 years and got £25,000 each.'

Not that he's bitter. Brown may appear a menacing figure onstage but off it he's thoughtful and charming company, devoted to his family and a philosophy of peace and love --something of a surprise from a man once jailed for 'threatening and abusive behaviour' against an air stewardess. He was not guilty, he still insists, although Manchester magistrates disagreed, sentencing him to four months in Strangeways Prison in October 1998.

Today, aged 41, he lives in Bayswater with his Mexican wife Fabiola (who directed the video for his new single) and their four-year-old son Emilio, spending weekends in Manchester with his two other sons, 12-year-old Frankie and Casey, eight. Business is booming, too, with an acclaimed fourth solo album, Solarized, plus a new single with fellow Mancunian Noel Gallagher, 'Keep What Ya Got', and a batch of live dates where he will at last be resurrecting some of the Stone Roses' old songs.

In July, at a one-off show in Claremont Landscape Garden in Surrey, he sang a set of classic oldies like 'I Wanna Be Adored' and 'Fools Gold', backed by a band that included members of a Roses tribute group, Fools Gold. It was the first time he'd played any of those songs since the Roses split in 1996 and he's promising more of the same at Brixton this week.

The band's swan song, six years after their epiphany in front of 30,000 people at Spike Island, was a disastrous headline show at the Reading Festival in August 1995. Squire and drummer Alan 'Reni' Wren had already left the band and Brown's muchmocked singing was painfully out of tune. 'I was in a different key to the band, but I didn't realise 'til I heard a tape the next day,' he admits.

Today, Brown says he regrets that the Roses even made it as far as their second album. Emerging in 1994, a leisurely five years after their debut, following lengthy litigation with their first record company, Silvertone, it featured a marked shift in style towards heavy rock, with Squire writing most of the songs alone. 'I didn't realise it at the time but the music is like fifth-rate Led Zeppelin,' confesses Brown now.