The Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield dead at 63
The Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield has died aged 63.
His death was announced by his brother, Greg, who wrote on Facebook, “It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to announce the sad passing of my brother Gary Mani Mounfield. RIP RKID.”
No cause of death has been revealed.
Only last week, Mounfield had announced details of an in-conversation tour that was set to take him around the UK in 2026.
While Mounfield was not a founding member of The Stone Roses, he joined the group in 1987 and played on all of their recorded work, including their seminal eponymous album in 1989, as well as the long-awaited Second Coming.
The British bass legend was born in Crumpsall in 1962, and attended college in Rusholme before leaving school at 16. However, it was almost a decade between him leaving school and joining The Stone Roses, who were already established in Manchester prior to him becoming the final piece of the puzzle.
He was friends with The Stone Roses guitarist John Squire, but went travelling around Europe when Squire formed the group, which also included Reni and frontman Ian Brown. He was friendly with all the bands before joining, bonding over their love of scooters, which was a vibrant subculture in the North West during the 1980s.
Once Mani was in the fold, there was no stopping The Stone Roses, and their 1989 debut put them on the map as one of the all-time British greats. He said of joining the band on the Rockonteurs podcast, “My days of working for a living were finished from that moment onwards.”
Famously, Liam Gallagher cites seeing The Stone Roses live as the life-changing moment that he believed music was for him.
The Stone Roses were the inadvertent product of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s, which caused unemployment to be rife, with Mani once saying, “We lived through Thatcher and it fed into the music without a doubt.” Their optimistic, escapist debut album struck a chord with millions who felt the same and connected with them on a deep, visceral level.
They then made music history with their huge show at Spike Island, Widnes, in 1990, which has since become one of the most mythologised concerts ever.
Their divisive second album, Second Coming, took five to create, and by the time it did finally arrive, The Stone Roses were no longer as popular as they once were, thanks to the rise of acts like Oasis. Additionally, they were forced to pull out of their Glastonbury headline set at the last minute in 1995 after Squire broke his collarbone. Instead, Pulp replaced them on the bill.
The Glastonbury-shaped woe came after drummer Reni quit just weeks before they were due to tour the album, and Squire followed him out the door in 1996. Mani stayed loyal to the group, fulfilling their touring commitments until the end of the calendar year with Brown, but it was clear that those dates would be the group’s final ones.
Despite their messy split, Mounfield was proud of what they achieved, telling Uncut in 2006, “I never can see it as a failed mission – fucking hell, I’m from north Manchester, not the best part of town, and I’ve been around the world two or three times playing music. I’m still comfortable, I’ve got a house. I could have ended up dealing crack or stealing cars or robbing houses, like a lot of my friends. Or dead.”
After 15 years away, The Stone Roses made their heroic comeback in 2012 with a series of hometown shows at Heaton Park in Manchester, which led to a full-blown international tour that saw the band headline Coachella in California.
They again took to the stage in 2016 for a series of shows at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, which coincided with their first new material in two decades. They released two singles, ‘All for One’, and ‘Beautiful Thing’, around this time, but their third album never materialised.
The following year, The Stone Roses kept the good times rolling for one last summer, performing at Wembley Stadium in London and Hampden Park in Glasgow, which proved to be their final performance before splitting again.
Mounfield largely kept a low profile following the demise of The Stone Roses, but still regularly performed DJ sets, including at the New Century Hall in Manchester this summer after Oasis played at Heaton Park.
Outside of his work in The Stone Roses, the bassist was a member of Primal Scream for many years, joining in 1996 and remaining with the band until The Stone Roses reunited in 2011. During his time with the Scottish rock band, he contributed to iconic albums, such as XTRMNTR and Riot City Blues.
In an interview, which was only released in October, Mounfield said on the legacy of The Stone Roses with the Rockonteurs podcast, “That first Stone Roses LP has now turned into Dark Side of the Moon, it’s a right of passage album, everyone has it.”
He also heartbreakingly said of his ambitions to make music again and return to performing, “I would love to, I’m so bored. It’s alright being Daddy day care, but watch this space. The people that always ask me to do stuff, like (Paul) Weller has always been asking me to do stuff for ages, and the timings haven’t been right. Either, I’ve not been good mentally or there’s stuff going on at home. Johnny Marr is always trying to get me to do stuff. Liam (Gallagher) was always trying to get me involved before the Oasis thing.”
Mani added, “I’m feeling now that I could pick it up again, y’know.”
Tragically, in 2023, Mounfield’s wife, Imelda, died following a lengthy battle with bowel cancer. Before her passing, the bassist said to ITV News, “Walking on stage at Wembley Stadium in front of 90 thousand people is a doddle compared to this. It’s made me so appreciative of the NHS for what they do and it’s made me re-evaluate everything. All these gigs, all these records, they don’t mean a thing.”
During the recent episode of the Rockonteurs podcast, Mounfield, who was in good spirits, said he was sober, and admitted it had been a dark period since Imelda’s death, sharing, “I’m back on song, I made a good fist of trying to kill myself via alcohol for a year when my head completely fell off, and I’m back in the game, mate. I’m feeling good.”
The couple had twins together who were born in 2013.
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