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By any measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable phenomenon. It took place over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the traditional outlets for indie music in Britain. John Peel did not champion them. The music press had barely mentioned their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to fill even a smaller London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their performance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely conceivable situation for the majority of alternative groups in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous causes why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously drawing in a far bigger and more diverse crowd than usually displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a world of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way entirely different from any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument that the tune of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were playing behind it certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the tracks that featured on the decks at the era’s indie discos. You somehow got the impression that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the standard alternative group set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and groove music”.

The fluidity of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s him who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into free-flowing funk, his octave-leaping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, relentless bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that comes to thought is the low-end melody.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its flaws might have been fixed by cutting some of the layers of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the rhythm”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks usually coincide with the moments when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically urging the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is completely contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly attempting to add a some energy into what’s otherwise just some nondescript country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire departed the band in the wake of Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a catastrophic headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising impact on a band in a decline after the cool response to 1994’s rock-y 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 point of difference was still present – especially on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his bass work to the fore. His percussive, hypnotic bass line is very much the star turn on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout 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’ aloofness towards the press was always broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. This reunion failed to translate into anything beyond a lengthy series of extremely profitable concerts – a couple of new singles put out by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that any magic had existed in 1989 had proved impossible to rediscover nearly two decades on – and Mani quietly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which furthermore provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a range of ways. Oasis undoubtedly observed their swaggering attitude, while Britpop as a whole was shaped by a desire to break the usual market limitations of indie rock and reach a more general public, as the Roses had done. But their clearest immediate influence was a sort of rhythmic shift: following their initial success, you abruptly couldn’t move for indie bands who wanted to make their fans move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, right?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”