Ian Brown has spoken of the antics of The Stone Roses in their early years, revealing they used to bribe police to stop them breaking up their huge parties.
Speaking to channelbee.com, Brown said: “When we started in 1986 very few people lived in the city centre, so we used to have massive warehouse parties in Fairfield St. When the police came along and tried to stop us, we used to give them a crate of ale to keep it going. They would sit outside in their vans supping on ale. When they ran out we would give them another crate, there was nothing they could do with 2000 of us inside. Fancy getting away with that now!”
Brown is set to release his sixth studio album, ‘My Way’, in September and recently told nme.com it had been inspired by Michael Jackson’s classic album ‘Thriller’. “‘Thriller’ was our blueprint,” he said. “Every time we wrote a song we didn’t think was strong enough, we scrapped it. We mastered it on the day that Michael Jackson died too, so I’m taking that as a good omen.”
The album was recorded in Brown’s home city, Manchester, at Battery Studios. It was produced by his regular producer Dave McCraken.
Here’s a clip of the infamous power cut on the Late Show BBC TV program very early on in the career of The Stone Roses. Ian lets the host know what he thinks of the scrapped performance during this funny live incidence: