Mani was born on November 16, 1962, in Crumpsall, Manchester. Born Gary Mounfield, he became the bassist in The Stone Roses and later Primal Scream. On “I Wanna Be Adored,” which opens the Roses’ 1989 debut album, his repeating bass figure gives the song its footing before the vocal arrives. It’s an introduction that puts the bass right at the centre of the music.
He had started on rhythm guitar, switching to bass in The Waterfront, an early group that also featured John Squire and Ian Brown. His interest in Northern soul and funk made the instrument a natural fit. In a March 2000 interview with Bassist, later republished by Guitar World, Mani recalled learning by ear and still feeling inexperienced when he joined The Stone Roses in 1987. Playing with drummer Reni helped him develop quickly; their partnership also gave Squire room to move around the rhythm on guitar. Asked about the bass sound on “I Wanna Be Adored” during a 2009 Gearspace Q&A, producer John Leckie said, “It’s all down to Mani really.” He remembered recording both the direct signal and a miked amplifier, but stressed the player’s touch. The record gives that bass part time and space: Brown’s voice enters only after the instrumental introduction has established the song.
Mani was also willing to try a different route into a bass part. Recalling “Fools Gold” in the Bassist interview, he described experimenting on keyboards over a sampled drum loop from Reni. The track had initially been intended as the B-side to “What the World Is Waiting For.” That combination of a live musician’s instincts and recorded loops points toward the work he would later do with Primal Scream.
Mani played on the Roses’ second studio album, Second Coming, released in 1994, before the group split in 1996. Joining Primal Scream that year put him inside another band’s experiments with rhythm. Much of Vanishing Point, released in 1997, had already been recorded when he arrived. Bobby Gillespie told MusicRadar in 2026 that “Kowalski” still needed its bass part when mixing began, and Mani supplied it. Gillespie described a process in which percussion and atmosphere could come first, with a song taking shape as musicians added their parts. Mani had found another setting where the bass could determine how a track moved.
The working relationship with a drummer remained essential to him. During Primal Scream’s early period without a live drummer, Mani found performing more difficult. By December 2000, following the release of XTRMNTR, he was telling CLUAS how much Darrin Mooney had changed that experience, calling the drummer “like me right arm.” The music around him had changed, but the pleasure of responding to another player remained a connection between his two bands.
The Stone Roses announced their reunion in October 2011, bringing Mani back together with Brown, Squire and Reni. He finished his tenure with Primal Scream at the end of that year and returned to performing with the Roses, whose reunion continued through 2017. Mani died on November 20, 2025.
