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By every measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary thing. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were just a local source of buzz in Manchester, largely ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The music press had barely covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to fill 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 big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely conceivable state of affairs for the majority of indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In retrospect, you can find any number of causes why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, clearly drawing in a much larger and broader audience than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning acid house movement – their cockily belligerent attitude and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a scene of distorted 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 alternative music at the time. There’s an argument 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 behind it really didn’t: you could move to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the songs that featured on the decks 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 raised on music rather different to the usual alternative group set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good northern soul and groove music”.

The fluidity of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s Mani who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection transitions from Motown stomp into loose-limbed funk, his jumping lines that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the sauce was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, or even the breakbeat taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, relentless bass. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the bass line.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “returning to the rhythm”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks usually coincide with the moments when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can hear him metaphorically willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is completely at odds with the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to inject a some pep into what’s otherwise some nondescript country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, 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 galvanising effect on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, weightier and increasingly distorted, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – particularly on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his playing to the fore. His popping, hypnotic bass line is certainly the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an affable, sociable figure – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a customised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything more than a lengthy series of extremely lucrative gigs – two fresh tracks released by the reconstituted four-piece 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 retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on fly-fishing, which furthermore provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d done enough: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their confident approach, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was informed by a aim to break the usual market limitations of indie rock and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct effect was a sort of rhythmic shift: in the wake of their early success, you abruptly encountered many indie bands who aimed 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 averred. “That’s what they’re for.”