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By any measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable thing. It took place during a span of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the traditional channels for indie music in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The music press had barely covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to fill even a more modest 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 appearance was the main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable situation 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 more diverse crowd than usually showed enthusiasm for alternative rock at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning acid house scene – their cockily belligerent demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a scene of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way entirely different from anything else 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 early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were playing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the songs that graced the decks 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 music rather different to the usual alternative group set texts, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great northern soul and funk”.

The smoothness of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s him who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his jumping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the drum sample borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, driving bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its flaws could have been rectified by removing some of the layers of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “returning to the rhythm”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights often occur during the moments when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically urging the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is completely at odds with the listlessness of all other elements that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly attempting to add a bit of pep into what’s otherwise just some nondescript country-rock – not a style anyone would guess listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed 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 next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising effect on a band in a decline after the tepid reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, heavier and more distorted, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his playing to the front. His percussive, hypnotic low-end pattern is certainly the star turn on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, clubbable presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was invariably broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and constantly grinning guitarist Dave Hill. Said reunion did not lead to anything more than a lengthy succession of hugely profitable concerts – two fresh singles released by the reformed quartet served only to prove that any spark had existed in 1989 had proved unattainable to recapture 18 years on – and Mani discreetly announced his departure from music in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with angling, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a whole was informed by a aim to break the standard market limitations of alternative music and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their clearest direct effect was a kind of rhythmic change: following their initial success, you abruptly couldn’t move for indie bands who aimed to make their audiences dance. 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.”