Music

John Squire: 'I don’t think I’m a very good guitar player – or painter'


I’m in an enormous, concrete, box-shaped space. Alone, but the noise of men working nearby – drilling, talking – reverberates around the room. Literally an echo chamber. On the walls rest huge, colourful paintings, ready to be hung. Figures that are lifelike but messed with, so that bits are in the wrong place, or the background appears within the boundaries of the figures, a jigsaw forced together the wrong way.

The artist, John Squire, comes in quietly (he does everything quietly, he used to be much louder) and explains how he did it. It starts with a photo – perhaps one he’s found on Tumblr, or taken himself (this one is his wife, at the basin in the bathroom at home near Macclesfield) – which he then manipulates.

Damien Hirst introduced him to the Snapchat collage tool and Squire became entranced with it, initially as an entertaining distraction, then as a way of creating art. These ones are done with photo editing software called Magic Eraser, but it’s the same kind of idea. Then, when he likes what he’s got on his smartphone, he paints it, in oil. Big. Hirst encouraged him to go big. The big space for Squire’s show is Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall, South London. The show is called Disinformation. “It struck me while I was doing the show and watching the news, I saw there was a parallel between confusing the message figuratively and with regards to information,” says Squire.

Strung along … One of Squire’s paintings at his Disinformation show.



Strung along … One of Squire’s paintings at his Disinformation show. Photograph: © John Squire

Now we’re standing in front of a distorted, fragmented monochrome guitarist whose face has been obscured by geometric wallpaper. Squire is not certain who the original picture is of. “I don’t know if it’s a famous person, I’m pretty sure not,” he says. “It reminded me of posing around with guitars or tennis rackets as a kid, imagining stardom.” Stardom which became a reality.

Squire used to play guitar in a band. Play guitar quite well, in quite a big band: the Stones Roses. You know how it went: friends since bonding over the Clash at school in Altrincham, Squire and Ian Brown spent much of the 80s messing with styles and lineups and everything else. They gained momentum and a following before bursting beyond Manchester with a debut that encapsulated 1989 in vinyl, which often tops lists of the greatest British albums and played a significant part in the youth of a generation. Then a big gap, fighting with record companies, with each other, babies, Second Coming, mixed reviews, more fighting, accusations and allegations, fallouts and walk-outs, the end, solo projects, art … until, after an even longer gap, the reformation in 2012, a tour, then another end.

Is that really it for the Roses? “Yeah,” he says.

How is it with Ian? They had a pact when they reformed not to talk about all that, he says. “And I’m going to honour that.”

Will he be coming to the opening of the show? “No.”

Is he invited? “No.”

Is anyone? “I invited Mani [bassist Gary Mounfield], I don’t know if he’s coming.”

Squire isn’t super eager to talk about the Roses. It’s always the same when he is interview for a show, he says. He gets asked “a couple of questions about the work, then they get down to the serious business of finding out what the scoop is on the band”.

Guilty as charged. But that’s because of their extraordinary enduring appeal, and the pivotal part they played in the coming-of-age for pretty much an entire generation. How does he see it now, looking back through the filter of time? “It was quite a brief period that gets a lot of attention still,” he says. “I was surprised at the level of support we got when we got back on stage.”

If it sounds awkward … well it is a bit. But it’s never unbearably uncomfortable. We sit down on chairs in the corner, he pours water politely. Later he apologises when he drinks straight from the bottle without thinking. Without thinking is out of character for John Squire, I think.

detail from The Way Things Aren’t (2018).



Detail from The Way Things Aren’t (2018) by John Squire. Photograph: © John Squire

“I don’t want to be difficult,” he says.

Fifty-six and still pretty lugubrious, he often pauses before saying something or answering a question. They can be quite long pauses, but they become less and less awkward. I’m not getting that Stone Roses scoop, that’s clear, but the subject isn’t totally off-limits – music and art have been there throughout the years after all.

The painting came first. His mum kept a few things he did with felt tips as a kid: a polar bear, Greek soldiers, shields and spears. “I didn’t really become aware that art could be something enjoyed second hand until punk rock.”

Record sleeves? “Yeah, and clothes. The paint drips, that was a stepping-stone to abstract expressionism, then ‘who is Jackson Pollock?’, and I can use this to make my own record sleeves.” Which he did, spattering Stone Roses covers with Pollock’s influence.

Squire did art A-level at college. He failed it, “because I wasn’t at all interested in the written work, the art history. This idea that museums were filled with dark religious paintings with a high-gloss finish, it made me feel depressed, reminded me of being forced to go to Sunday school.”

Mainly self-taught then, same as with the guitar, no? “I did go to some lessons with a piano teacher. I took him the only sheet music I could find, which was Rich Kids by the Rich Kids. He tried to play it on the piano and it sounded nothing like the record. I think I had one lesson and realised it wasn’t going to help me get anywhere. So yeah, I learnt from books.”

And became very good at it, particularly on the heavy extended riffs of Second Coming. “Yeah, it’s flattering, but I don’t think I’m a very good guitar player, or a very good painter. I listen to my guitar playing, my songs, I look at my paintings, I tend to focus on the faults, things that I could’ve done slightly better.” He points to a couple of fingers on the manipulated woman in the third panel of the triptych behind us that he’s not happy with. With more time he would have made those fingers better.

Squire beside one of his works.



Squire beside one of his works. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Whether it’s a song or a picture, the thrill for Squire is the initial impetus of an idea more than the finished result. With a record, “there’s so much repetition – because of the recording process, mixing, mastering – the material wears thin by the time it’s released.”

He doesn’t listen to any of the records he’s made – Stone Roses, Seahorses, his solo stuff – but he hasn’t given the music up. He takes breaks from the work in the studio at his farm in Cheshire and picks up his guitar, writes songs, records songs. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with it; only his wife has heard them.

Does he like working alone? “Yeah, I find it very therapeutic. You’re not part of a committee, there is purity to that. But sometimes sharing the workload can be a rewarding experience.”

As well as the rows, it must have been a laugh as well, being in the Stone Roses. “Yeah, I don’t spend much time laughing while I paint.”

His old band don’t just live on for nostalgic fiftysomethings. Their sons – and daughters – are discovering them too. Squire’s own 16-year-old daughter recently showed him a picture of her friend getting a tattoo of his own Stone Roses lemon motif. “My reaction wasn’t ‘yay!’,” he says. “I felt guilty in a way because I knew they were the same age as Martha.”

Squire has six children, between seven and 26, some of whom have followed similar paths to their dad. His eldest daughter went to art school and now makes feminist comics. His eldest son is in a band. He’s been to see them a few times. “I should go more often, but it’s too loud.”

  • Disinformation is at the Newport Street Gallery, London, until 10 November.



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