John Squire

As the guitarist and songwriter for the Stone Roses, John Squire shaped the sound of British indie rock by bridging the gap between the chime of 1960s guitar pop and the modern psychedelia of acid house. Squire’s post-modernist aesthetic, showcased on the Stone Roses’s eponymous 1989 debut, set the stage for the Brit-pop renaissance of the ’90s, yet the group didn’t survive the explosion of Cool Brittania: they split not long after belatedly delivering their sophomore album Second Coming in 1994. Squire rallied with the Seahorses, an unabashed trad rock outfit that carried him through the late ’90s, but he bowed out of a musical career after releasing a pair of solo albums in the 2000s. Devoting himself to fine art, Squire occasionally reconnected with the Stone Roses but he didn’t prioritize new music until he teamed with former Oasis singer Liam Gallagher on a collaborative album in 2024. Born in southwest Manchester, he grew up on the same street as Ian Brown, and the two became fast friends while attending Altrincham Grammar School. While Brown was outgoing and gregarious, Squire was introverted and in some ways painfully shy, and their polar-opposite personalities, along with a shared love of punk and ’60s rock (the Beatles, et al.), made them inseparable. Getting his first guitar at age 15, Squire would spend the proverbial hours in his bedroom practicing, as he also developed a love of modern art. After attending South Trafford College, Squire became a cartoon animator, working on such famed British cartoons as Dangermouse and The Wind in the Willows. But music remained another steadfast interest, and, in 1982, along with Andy Couzens, Mani, and a scooter-boy named Kaiser on vocals, Squire formed his first band, called the Waterfront. After persuading Ian Brown to join the group, replacing Mani with Pete Garner (Mani would re-join in 1987), sacking Kaiser, and then finding drummer Reni through an advertisement, they changed their name first to the Patrol and eventually to the Stone Roses in March 1984. Squire shaped the band’s sound through his co-songwriting with Ian Brown and unmistakable skill on the guitar, which was virtuosic yet always based around simple and memorable melodies, almost single-handedly resurrecting British rock in the late ’80s (and paving the way for the Brit-pop explosion in the ’90s). Squire’s Jackson Pollock-like paintings and designs famously adorned all the band’s artwork and, furthermore, his shy personality developed into a cool and detached persona, giving him an air of quietly supreme confidence that only added to the Stone Roses’ mystique and following. Unfortunately, by the early ’90s, just as the Stone Roses sat at the top of the ranks of British rock, Squire’s detachment and cocaine use began to isolate him from even his fellow bandmembers. Following the acrimonious recording of Second Coming, on which Squire wrested away much of the band’s creative control (taking them in a hard rock-ish, Led Zeppelin-like direction), Reni quit the Stone Roses in 1995 due in large part to Squire’s increasing difficulty to work with. Later that year, after breaking his collarbone in a bicycling accident and thus causing the band to cancel a headlining spot at the Glastonbury Festival, Squire took part in his last tour with the band as he secretly began planning a new musical project. After leaving the Stone Roses in April 1996, Squire announced he had formed a new band called the Seahorses, who released a generally mediocre debut in 1997, Do It Yourself, which nonetheless received strong sales in the U.K. Despite this, Squire disbanded the group the following year, citing artistic differences. Other than occasional sightings, interviews, and a brief involvement with what would become the Shining (which included ex-Verve members Peter Salisbury and Simon Tong), Squire continued his insular ways into the 2000s. Squire reemerged with a solo album in 2002 titled Time Changes Everything. After delivering Marshall's House, an album where each song was inspired by a painting by Edward Hopper, in 2024, Squire retreated from the spotlight, choosing to spend his time pursuing fine art. After nearly a decade away from music, he reunited with the Stone Roses for a reunion tour in 2012 that lasted into 2013. He then spent the next decade on hiatus, finally resurfacing in 2024 with Liam Gallagher & John Squire, a collaborative album with the former lead singer of Oasis. ~ Aaron Warshaw