England's a small nation, and the pop music industry is built on fashion.
— Ian Brown
I've got six solo albums. I've been round the world three times. I don't even think about the Roses.
If I was in the gutter, and my kids lived on the kerb, I'd go and get a job in B&Q before I'd reform the Roses. I gave everything I had to the Stone Roses and ended up hitting a brick wall. I'm never going to give anyone a foothold on that wall again.
We believe that anyone can do anything, and everyone's a star. And that's evident from the shows we do. It just feels like a whole bunch of people in a room celebrating something - maybe just being alive.
We feel we're the only British group worth exporting since the Sex Pistols, definitely.
We're the most important group in the world.
I actually was able to give up shopping in February '99.
I've not thought about the Stone Roses since we quit. How many LPs do I have to make to stop people talking about it?
I love harmonicas - old blues players like Sonny Boy Williamson.
Every time I do interviews, they ask me about the same things - poverty, war, and the power of the church.
I'd never been paid for the first Roses LP - it was 2002 before we received any royalties.
It is a fact that everyone's got a limited run in music - but who's to say how long that run lasts? I used to think that there would be no way I'd still be in music when I was 40. I used to think anyone who was 40 was an old man, and they probably shouldn't be doing it anymore.
Everything I've ever achieved, I've done on my terms.
I'm only really good at making music. I wasn't convinced when I started out, but then I heard the first Stone Roses' LP.
We need to ban all air-freighted food. Carrots from Holland. Potatoes from Egypt. It's got to stop.
I gave it up three weeks before my black belt, foolishly. I got to my third brown belt and must have trained for 18 months but never went for it. I was nearly 18 and got this thing in my head about, ' Who are they to grade me?' Trying to be a rebel when I should have done it. It's my only regret, not going for a black belt.
I don't like to play anywhere with a banner for Carlsberg or vodka or whatever. I'm not a drinker myself, and I don't like feeling like I'm working for the liquor companies.
'Psychedelic' means mind-expanding.
I feel like the Roses were a great group, but I never wanted to try to do it again. I knew I couldn't get a band that would compare to the Roses, that would have an impact like the Roses.
I wrote a lot of lyrics in prison, but they'd all be like, 'Crawls upon the shoulders, hatred in the eyes.' I wrote about 50 songs in there that were all about jail. I've come out and thought, 'I've only served eight weeks; I can't really write a concept album about jail.'
I like the fact that a group can become successful, and by way of what you are, you can show up all the other people who are around you.
We're against hypocrisy, lies, bigotry, show business, insincerity, phonies, and fakers.
By 1993, the Stone Roses had become this huge, beautiful cruise ship just floating about in the middle of nowhere with no captain.
I always loved Oasis because when they came out, they did express that they loved us, and they saw that we did it, and they thought they could do it, too.
We wrote 'Stellify' for Rihanna, but as we got to the end of writing it, I thought, 'You know what? I'm gonna keep this for myself. We'll give her another one.' She'd have probably sung it better, but it is too good for me not to do it.
Northern soul was huge in Manchester in the '70s and '80s; I went to a lot of all-nighters.
If you want to call me a Karaoke King, I'll take it.
Maybe if you see me begging on the streets, you might find me doing The Stone Roses the next day.
You're never going to improve on a Michael Jackson song if you cover it.
I give thanks for everything that's ever happened to me and for everything I've got.
People have to realise you don't help African children singing along to 60-year-old men playing their tunes from 40 years ago.
We should be growing carrots up the side of the Empire State Building or Big Ben.
I started doing karate when I was 11.
I'm lucky enough to be one of them music makers who can do a dance festie or a rock festie.
I went into jail with absolutely no respect whatsoever for authority, and I came out with even less.
Since we were kids, we grow up believing that astronauts are heroes - that to go up in a rocket is a heroic thing. These guys are bigger than movie stars. To me, it's... all a well-dressed-up lie, basically. There's billions spent on rockets up there, and there's millions starving down here. It don't make sense to me.
With the Roses, I knew we were great; I felt that we would achieve something. On my own, I had no idea.
I never wanted to be a pop singer, but I always watched pop programs and knew I could do better than the people I was seeing.
Even on songs we've got that are about a girl, there's always something there that's a call to insurrection.
One thing I've always loved and rated me dad for is that, because of him, I've never seen the Queen's Christmas speech.
With the Stone Roses, I always thought we'd be successful because we had some great songs.
One person might perceive me as godlike, and the next might think I'm a northern thug. I don't think I've done myself any favours... but I swear I've not had a proper fight since I was 14.
When I was 9, I was into T. Rex, Gary Glitter, and Alice Cooper. I knew The Beatles because my nan introduced me to them, but T. Rex was the first band I got into myself. I got 'Metal Guru' a few months after hearing 'Children of the Revolution' in Pwllheli in North Wales at a market.
My wife is Mexican, and she's really influenced me: She's got an impressive collection of Mexican music.
I feel like I've established myself as a music maker in my own right.
Honestly, going solo is the second best thing that's ever happened to me after my kids.
I'd like to change the world. Eradicate poverty, racism, and sexism... all the usual things.
Permacultures - where you use the immediate environment to grow food - should be mandatory.
At primary school, I thought I was George Best. Then I got to secondary school, and it was more serious.
I liked him, that Jarvis Cocker. I like the fact he was androgynous, he could appeal to everybody. He wasn't just a lad pretending to be a thug.
