John Squire: Heat, Light, Death and Industry, Gallery Oldham, 7 July – 5 September 2009

Jah Scouse claims to be one of the few people to have seen The Stone Roses at a gig in Cardiff when there were, as he put it “eight people there, and ten of them were staff”, and also to have been to a wedding where he met John’s wife. With minimal talk of the Roses still de rigueur, he did not mention the first fact, but did try to ask something about the wedding. There was something about a person called Andy Cole dying, which John, as a Man Utd supporter, naturally took to mean the Premier League football player. I think Scouse was in fact referring to the person at the wedding.

Anyway, I also asked a slightly Roses-related question. Having only seen the latest exhibition for ten minutes, I didn’t think of any immediate questions in relation to it. John was his usual quiet and polite self, paying genuine attention to what we said, it felt to us.

Well, that was about it for the opening really! We were leaving at just the same time as John’s mum and dad, and we couldn’t resist the opportunity of sharing a lift with the parents of a member of, as Scouse frequently referred to them, the biggest band on the planet. What a lovely, down-to-earth couple they seemed to be. Just regular, northern folk, it seemed (if that itself is not a cliché), just as you might expect. Scouse asked where John had got his artistic talent from, which neither of them could really answer. Scouse did speculate though that John had, at least in the case of the current exhibition, with its concentration on metalwork and boxlike structures, drawn inspiration from his dad, who was an engineer.

He also asked about his musical ability. Certainly in this case, despite his mum getting him his first guitar, John pretty much taught himself, it would appear. I asked why John was no longer speaking to Ian Brown, but was kind of hushed up. And with that, we reached the ground floor, and our brief interview with Mr and Mrs Squire was over. Scouse reckoned I should’ve got a picture of them, but I think I would’ve been a bit embarrassed asking.

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