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By any measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It unfolded during a span of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the established outlets for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel did not champion them. The rock journalism had hardly mentioned their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack even a smaller London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the main attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable situation for the majority of alternative groups in the end of the 1980s.

In retrospect, you can find numerous reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously attracting a far bigger and more diverse audience than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their look – which appeared to connect them more to the expanding acid house scene – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a world of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible truth that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way completely different from anything else in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the melody of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the songs that graced the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music quite distinct from the standard indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great Motown-inspired and funk”.

The smoothness of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s Mani who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his jumping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

At times the sauce wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, or even the drum sample taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, relentless bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that comes to thought is the low-end melody.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s underwhelming successor One Love was underwhelming, he suggested, because it “could have swung, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a strong defender of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its weaknesses could have been rectified by removing some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “returning to the rhythm”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks often coincide with the instances when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can sense him metaphorically willing the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is totally contrary to the lethargy of all other elements that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a bit of energy into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable folk-rock – not a genre one suspects listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were unsuccessful: 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 subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising effect on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, heavier and more fuzzy, but the groove that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – especially on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his bass work to the fore. His popping, hypnotic low-end pattern is very much the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an friendly, sociable presence – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was invariably broken if Mani “let his guard down” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and permanently smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reformation did not lead to anything beyond a lengthy succession of hugely profitable concerts – two new singles put out by the reformed quartet served only to prove that any spark had existed in 1989 had proved impossible to rediscover 18 years later – and Mani quietly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a great excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d done enough: he’d definitely left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of manners. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was shaped by a aim to transcend the standard market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious direct effect was a kind of rhythmic shift: following their early success, you abruptly couldn’t move for indie bands who wanted to make their audiences dance. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, aren’t they?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”