Stone Roses by Kevin Cummins

NME

I’d wanted to photograph the band (Ian Brown, John Squire, Mani and Reni) as a John Squire painting for ages. We finally set it up - they...

NME

I’d wanted to photograph the band (Ian Brown, John Squire, Mani and Reni) as a John Squire painting for ages. We finally set it up - they could only do it on a Sunday - in Manchester. I spent the morning turning the studio into a polythene cube - I hadn’t told the owner our plan and I was worried about his studio looking like we’d played paintball for 24 hours in there. John brought the paint - we started with blue and white - for Manchester City - my team. Each time he added another colour he would paint himself then lie in the shot. After two hours without heating - lying in cold wet paint we’d got the shots. That’s when I broke the news to them that there were no showers in the studio. They all had to walk through Manchester City centre dripping in multi coloured paint and go back to Ian Brown’s flat to shower it off. The handprints are still down the stairwell of the building. In the NME 50th anniversary issue both Liam Gallagher and Richard Ashcroft said that this picture was the defining moment of the era and the greatest NME cover of all time.