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By any metric, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a sudden and remarkable thing. It unfolded over the course of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, largely overlooked by the traditional outlets for indie music in Britain. Influential DJs wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had barely mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a more modest London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable state of affairs for the majority of indie bands in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can find any number of reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously attracting a far bigger and broader crowd than usually showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music movement – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a scene of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way completely different from any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument that the melody of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to the majority of the songs that graced the decks at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music rather different to the standard indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “good northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s him who drives the point 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 wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the singing or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the breakbeat taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, driving bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that comes to thought is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “could have swung, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a strong supporter of their oft-dismissed follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses 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 valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of highlights often occur during the moments when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically willing the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is completely contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to inject a some energy into what’s otherwise just some nondescript folk-rock – not a style anyone would guess listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a catastrophic top-billed set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising effect on a band in a slump after the tepid response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, weightier and more fuzzy, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a point of difference was still in evidence – particularly on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his bass work to the fore. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is very much the star turn on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Always an affable, sociable presence – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was always punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a customised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and permanently smiling axeman Dave Hill. This reunion did not lead to anything beyond a long series of hugely profitable concerts – a couple of fresh singles released by the reconstituted quartet only demonstrated that any magic had been present in 1989 had proved impossible to rediscover nearly two decades on – and Mani quietly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a range of manners. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a movement was informed by a aim to transcend the standard commercial constraints of indie rock and reach a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious immediate influence was a sort of groove-based change: following their early success, you suddenly couldn’t move for indie bands who aimed to make their fans 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.”