{"id":287546,"date":"2025-11-28T08:30:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/287546\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T08:30:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:30:25","slug":"from-a-bass-playing-point-of-view-he-was-the-best-everybody-wanted-to-be-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/287546\/","title":{"rendered":"“From a bass-playing point of view, he was the best. Everybody wanted to be him\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Hook<\/a> has looked back at his friendship and admiration for Gary \u201cMani\u201d Mounfield, and explained how \u201cfrom a bass-playing point of view, he was the best\u201d.<\/p>\n

The iconic bassist, who became a household name for his role in The Stone Roses<\/a> and Primal Scream<\/a>, died last Thursday<\/a> (November 20), aged 63.<\/p>\n

The announcement was first made by his brother Greg, and tributes have since come in<\/a> from Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown<\/a>, Primal Scream\u2019s Simone Butler, Liam Gallagher<\/a>, Happy Mondays\u2019 Shaun Ryder<\/a> and many more.<\/p>\n

Now, former New Order<\/a>\u00a0 and Joy Division<\/a> bassist, soloist and former Freebass bandmate, Peter Hook has shared a touching tribute to Mani too, and written a piece for The Guardian<\/a> to share some of his favourite memories with the late musician.<\/p>\n

He began by sharing how he first met Mani when he was asked by The Stone Roses\u2019 manager to help them produce \u2018Elephant Stone\u2019, the band\u2019s third single released in 1988.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen as Manchester turned into Madchester I got to know them really well,\u201d he shared, adding that the legendary Manchester band worked on demos in his Suite 16 studio, before deciding to scrap it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThen after our various bands stopped playing live we started Freebass, with three bass players: myself, Mani and Andy Rourke, who\u2019d been in The Smiths<\/a>,\u201d Hook continued, sharing how the supergroup formed in 2005 and briefly led to tension between him and Mani.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe band was ill-fated \u2013 too many chefs \u2013 and eventually we fell out badly after a row over a gig. Mani slagged me off<\/a> but God bless him, the very next day he phoned me up and apologised<\/a>. That was Mani,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we were no longer working together, we became friends and after that every day spent with him was a total pleasure,\u201d Hook continued, going on to acknowledge how while Mani was known for his charismatic personality, he wasn\u2019t \u201ca clown or joker\u201d, but rather \u201ca man of the people [who was] very funny and very irreverent. But also had an intensity and didn\u2019t suffer fools gladly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saying how he admired the late bassist, Hook wrote: \u201cHe was very passionate about things he believed in\u2026 If he felt something was wrong, or there was some sort of injustice, he was very tenacious. Once you had Mani on your side, you were rocking. He was a fighter and never gave an inch but he was everybody\u2019s friend and nobody had a bad word about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he was on form, he was a wonderful soul,\u201d he added, going on to share that he respected how \u201che never let anything beat him\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a bass-playing point of view, he was the best. Everybody wanted to be him. Mani joining the Stone Roses made the difference. He was a groove artist and into groovy music,\u201d Hook went on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recently watched him playing [The Stone Roses\u2019] \u2018Fool\u2019s Gold\u2019 on Instagram and thought: \u2018How is he playing that?\u2019 Like Andy Rourke, Mani played very melodically \u2013 which I do, but Mani was much subtler. I always tried to compete with the guitar but Mani wove around it. That\u2019s a great skill, but I didn\u2019t care what he played. He could have banged the thing on the floor for all I care: he was Mani.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concluding, Hook shared how he also auditioned to be in Primal Scream, but lost the role to Mani \u2013 leading to the latter referring to himself as \u2018Number One\u2019 and Hook as \u2018Number Two\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Mani wanted to do was play and most of all he loved playing to people,\u201d the op-ed read, going on to mention the In Conversation tour that Mani announced just days before his death<\/a>. \u201cHe never stopped working and was so looking forward to the speaking tour he\u2019d just announced. It\u2019s heartbreaking that he\u2019s gone before it started.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outpouring of grief and sadness when Mani died has been really quite remarkable. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen anything like it, for a pop star, certainly not for a long time. At the moment every Manchester legend is asking themselves \u2018Will I get that when I die?\u2019 But I can safely say that Mani will never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hook also paid respect to Mani while on stage over the weekend. While on the road as part of his Peter Hook And The Light tour<\/a>, he made a nod to the nickname he was given by the fellow Mancunian bassist by writing \u201cMani No.1\u201d on his back.<\/p>\n

Following the news of Mani\u2019s death, fans have been re-sharing a brilliant clip of him at the NME Awards in 2008<\/a>, and both Oasis<\/a> and Richard Ashcroft<\/a> paid respects to him during a gig in Brazil.<\/p>\n

Opening for the Britpop giants on their \u2018Live \u201825\u2019 tour, Ashcroft dedicated The Verve<\/a>\u2019s hit song \u2018Bittersweet Symphony\u2019 to him<\/a>, while Liam and Noel Gallagher<\/a> took to the stage later in the night and honoured him on \u2018Live Forever\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other on-stage tributes have come from My Bloody Valentine<\/a> and Primal Scream<\/a>, and The Libertines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a tribute, NME described Mani as holding <\/a>\u201ca rare place in the world of bass heroes\u201d, and someone who \u201cdefined a scene with some of the most infectious and hypnotic basslines ever recorded.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peter Hook has looked back at his friendship and admiration for Gary \u201cMani\u201d Mounfield, and explained how \u201cfrom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3582,6491,96,3583,3584,47,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-287546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-britpop","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-indie","12":"tag-rock","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}