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Interview: Ian's still coming up roses
Conrad Astley25/11/2005
YOU only need a quick look at Ian Brown's schedule for the next
few months to realise his solo career is in rude health.
There's the current tour of the UK and Ireland - which comes hot on
the heels of dates in Spain - before his band flies over to
Australia.
He returns to the UK early in January, before starting work
recording his fifth album with classical musicians in Latvia -
"apparently the orchestras there play a semitone higher than ours
so it could be interesting" - followed by dates in south east
Asia.
With achievements like this in the bag, it's not surprising he gets
a bit miffed about being constantly referred to as "former Stone
Roses frontman" Ian Brown.
"My greatest hits album went in at number five," he said. "My third
album came in at number three, I've been in Japan 10 times
now.
"I've not thought about the Stone Roses since we quit.
"How many LPs do I have to make to stop people talking about
it?"
The unfortunate thing for Brown is that, for everyone who
remembered the Stone Roses' glory days, there's as many who
remembered the way they shuffled off this mortal coil.
When the band split up, they did so in style - days after a
sensationally poor performance in front of thousands of
disappointed fans headlining Reading Festival in 1996.
Guitarist John Squire had recently left following years of
infighting, and Brown's flat notes were accompanied by uninspiring
hired musicians.
Times have not always been easy for the singer since then, but the
release of a greatest hits album in the summer - now followed by a
DVD - went a long way to prove he had finally been accepted as a
solo artist in his own right.
"With the Stone Roses I always thought we'd be successful because
we had some great songs" he said.
"When I went solo I never had a clue which way I'd go, but I don't
know if it's a surprise.
"I keep hearing this thing about me being the least likely member
of the band to succeed. I don't get it. The Roses' LP still gets
voted as one of the best records ever made, and I wrote half of
that.
"When we did that show in 1996, very few headline acts ever blew it
like we did. But those songs I wrote 20 years ago are still getting
played every day somewhere."
If Brown wanted to lay the ghost of the Stone Roses, it seems
strange he has recently started playing the band's songs again in
his live sets, even recruiting a guitarist from a tribute band to
get the sound as authentic as possible.
But this, he explained, had more to do with rivalry than anything
else.
"It was mainly because I heard on TV that John Squire was doing
it," he said. "I'd wanted to stand on my own two feet, and I wanted
to tackle those songs on my own terms.
"By completing the fourth LP I thought I could embrace the past. I
heard a CD of John Squire doing it and thought he wasn't doing the
songs any justice. He wasn't showing us any respect."
With the hatchet clearly still not buried - Brown says he has not
talked to the guitarist since the split - the hotly-debated Stone
Roses reunion seems unlikely, despite the rumour mill being fed by
his recent performances of their classic tracks.
His show at the MEN Arena next week will be the first in Manchester
since his headline spot at the summer's Carling Live 24 festival,
when Stone Roses songs featured heavily in the set.
While the singer is happy to report he will be bringing with him
the biggest PA system the Arena has ever seen, he isn't giving much
away about what fans can expect.
"I'm playing the Roses songs less and less now" he said.
"And this new tour isn't going to be about the old stuff. I might
play 10 Roses tunes, but it just depends how I feel at the
time."
Ian Brown plays the MEN Arena on December 3.
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