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By any metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary phenomenon. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local source of buzz in Manchester, largely overlooked by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel did not champion them. The rock journalism had barely covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill even a more modest London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were huge. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the main attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable state of affairs for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can identify numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly drawing in a far bigger and broader audience than usually displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a scene of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums grooved in a way completely different from anything else in British alternative music at the time. There’s an argument that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the songs that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds quite distinct from the usual alternative group set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s Mani who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into free-flowing funk, his octave-leaping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song isn’t really the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the drum sample borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, driving bass. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a strong defender of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its weaknesses could have been rectified by cutting some of the layers of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the groove”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks usually occur during the moments when Mounfield was really given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can sense him metaphorically urging the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is completely at odds with the lethargy of everything else that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to add a some pep into what’s otherwise some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire departed the band in the wake of Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a catastrophic headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising impact on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became dubbier, heavier and increasingly distorted, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a point of difference was still present – especially on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his playing to the fore. His percussive, mesmerising low-end pattern is certainly the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Consistently an affable, sociable presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the press was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and permanently smiling guitarist Dave Hill. Said reformation did not lead to anything more than a long series of hugely profitable concerts – two new tracks put out by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that whatever magic had existed in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover nearly two decades later – and Mani discreetly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of manners. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their swaggering attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was shaped by a aim to transcend the usual market limitations of indie rock and reach a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had achieved. But their clearest immediate effect was a sort of rhythmic change: in the wake of their early success, you suddenly encountered many indie bands who aimed to make their audiences move. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”