Ian Brown
One thing I've always loved and rated me dad for is that, because of him, I've never seen the Queen's Christmas speech.Collection: Christmas
Getting a grey beard's not cool.Collection: Cool
It's a horrible name, Coldplay. It doesn't conjure up any positive thoughts.Collection: Positive
I give thanks for everything that's ever happened to me and for everything I've got.
I'd love to see the world without liquor for a week.
When you live in Manchester and it's raining every day, you've got to imagine the sun sometimes. When you're brought up in concrete, you aim for the green leaves. And when you get to the green leaves, you yearn again for concrete.
I've never chatted up a girl in me life. I've always let girls come to me. I've never approached a girl to chat her up.
The Beatles were great; we know that. But we were trying to do a new thing. Why do we need to recreate the Sixties?
'Psychedelic' means mind-expanding.
One person might perceive me as godlike, and the next might think I'm a northern thug. I don't think I've done myself any favours... but I swear I've not had a proper fight since I was 14.
Maybe if you see me begging on the streets, you might find me doing The Stone Roses the next day.
I always loved Oasis because when they came out, they did express that they loved us, and they saw that we did it, and they thought they could do it, too.
Belief outweighs talent. Self-belief's got me everything, self-belief.
With the Stone Roses, I always thought we'd be successful because we had some great songs.
I liked him, that Jarvis Cocker. I like the fact he was androgynous, he could appeal to everybody. He wasn't just a lad pretending to be a thug.
We're against hypocrisy, lies, bigotry, show business, insincerity, phonies, and fakers.
My biggest fault is that I give people too much credit. Then they let you down. I'm 99.9 per cent perfect - that's how I look at myself and, therefore, everybody else too.
If you want to call me a Karaoke King, I'll take it.
When the ravens leave the Tower, England shall fall, they say. We want to be there shooting the ravens.
I'd like to change the world. Eradicate poverty, racism, and sexism... all the usual things.
I've not thought about the Stone Roses since we quit. How many LPs do I have to make to stop people talking about it?
Hell is being stuck in a lift with Elton John and the Queen Mother.
Everything I've ever achieved, I've done on my terms.
We feel we're the only British group worth exporting since the Sex Pistols, definitely.
People tend to settle for the fiver rather than going for the pot of gold.
Everybody is a star. It's true. And if you've got a light, don't let it go out. 'Cos some people sink under.
I feel like the Ryan Giggs of music.
We're all anti-royalist, anti-patriarch. Cos it's 1989. Time to get real.
When The Stone Roses first came out, the early reviews called me 'simian.' I had to look that up at the time.
I am gentle. I think nearly everyone who makes music is sensitive - I don't care how hard they pretend they are.
I thought it would be more interesting to make a musical autobiography than an actual autobiography.
Just because I'm a successful singer who's loved and has been loved for years doesn't mean I'm sitting behind electric gates in my own fantasy land.
I'm solo, and I love being solo. I believe I went through the Roses so I could become a solo music-maker. That's what I believe.
I don't actually personally get off on guitar music.
I like a lot of that Chicago stuff, house music.
I love karaoke - I usually do Blondie's 'Heart Of Glass,' or 'Try A Little Tenderness.'
I went to a friend's 40th in Manchester, and there was a karaoke machine, and no one was having a go. My mate said, 'No one's singing because you're in the room.' I said, 'Who am I, Frank Sinatra?' They made me sing flipping 'My Star' to a backing track that sounded like '80s Roxy Music. It was pretty embarrassing, but I did it.
I'd like to write songs for other people, see things from a different perspective. I'd like to watch things from the dugout instead of the pitch.
Putting another human being above yourself isn't healthy. I think it's capitalistic.
Stardom's transitory. Nothing really changes except people's attitudes.
I love people, me, I believe in people. I love people too much.
I used to be one of those kids who couldn't keep my mouth shut.
Oasis are okay, but they're like The Sun: base.
I started managing myself in October 2004, and since then, it's gone up and up.
My sister bought me the Koran in 1990. I always thought the stories in it were magical.
I've always said prayers.
I see The Stone Roses in '89 as Technicolor: we were all about joy and possibilities of life.
They've had a hard life, the Oasis brothers. They've done really well to be semi-normal. It's always sad when your dirty linen is brought out in public.
You'll never find a Manchester band slagging off another Manchester band, but within each Manchester band, people will rip each other apart: Mondays, Smiths, New Order, Roses, Oasis.
I was skint, and I had to move back to my mum and dad's house, back into the room I shared with my brother when I was a kid. I kept getting people on the streets telling me that they loved me; it didn't mean anything to me because I was still borrowing tenners off my pensioner father to go and get some chicken.