Looks Like Bloom Is Probably Off Stone Roses

The British band’s apparent breakup will likely leave unfulfilled the promise it showed in 1989.

Just as the Oasis-led British-rock resurgence has finally broken through in the U.S., the Stone Roses, the band that started the ball rolling, is apparently breaking up.

John Squire--the Manchester group’s primary spokesman and the architect of its influential sound--says that he is quitting the band.

That will probably bring to a close one of recent rock history’s most dramatic stories of unfulfilled promise--not to mention the unfulfilled expectations of Geffen Records, which signed the group to a huge deal, including a $4-million advance, in 1991. Rather than breakthrough hits and massive tours, the Stone Roses’ history is marked by lengthy absences and perceived arrogance.

“They had the power in recording and live performance to have been as big and successful a rock band as they chose to be,” says Gary Gersh, who signed the band at Geffen and is now the president of Capitol Records. “But they chose not to be.”

When the Roses released their debut album, “The Stone Roses,” in 1989, it was a case of being the right band at the right time. The rave movement associated with its home city of Manchester was sweeping Britain, and such anthemic Roses songs as “I Wanna Be Adored” and “Fool’s Gold” combined shuffling dance beats, euphoric sentiments and memorable melodies that beguiled fans who were drawn to the scene but who still favored guitars over the standard rave electronics.

Even after a protracted legal battle that voided the band’s contract with the Silvertone label in 1991, the Stone Roses still seemed to be the band of the moment as they signed the Geffen deal. But amid rumors of drug use and internal strife, the Roses took two full years to record their second album. When it finally appeared in the U.S. early last year--audaciously titled “Second Coming”--the moment and momentum had passed, with such Roses-influenced bands as Oasis drawing the British-rock spotlight.

And the band acted as if it couldn’t care less, initially doing only one interview in England and few in the U.S., and delivering an amateurish video for the single “Love Spreads” that several British TV stations deemed beneath their broadcast standards.

Founding drummer Reni left the group last April, and the band’s first U.S. tour last spring got negative reviews for what seemed like an indifferent stage attitude. The band then canceled concerts in Japan and England after Squire was injured while mountain-biking in June. Little has been heard from the Roses since.

Nonetheless, a wave of calls from anxious fans to the British rock press followed word of the apparent breakup being broadcast last week on BBC Radio 1. In Los Angeles, Susanne Filkins, Geffen’s A&R; representative for the band, says that such reactions prove that the deal with the band was still a worthwhile risk.

“They will always have the status of the artist that broke through and created a new genre that was inspiring,” she says.