I watched him play Fool’s Gold and thought: How does he play this game? Peter Hook from New Order on his friend Manny | music

I I first met Manny when the Stone Roses manager asked me to produce it. We did the elephant stone and they were beautiful. After Manchester turned into Madchester, I got to know them well. I went to a great gig they played in Blackpool. I went to Spike Island. It was a great time to be together and Hacienda was the glue. There was no VIP area in the club, so punters would walk around and say: “There’s Manny!”

I asked the Roses at my Suite 16 studio to make demos for what was going to be the second album, until they canceled it. I met Manny and his wife Imelda. We had a wild period. Then after our various bands stopped playing live, we started Freebass, with three bass players: myself, Manny, and Andy Rourke, who was in the Smiths. The band was unlucky – there were too many cooks – and we eventually fell out badly after a disagreement over the gig. Mane let me down but God bless him, the next day he called me and apologized. That was Manny. As soon as we stopped working together, we became friends and after that every day we spent with him was a complete joy.

When people say Manny can be a clown or a jester, that’s not the right word. Yes, it was very entertaining. He was a man of the people, very funny and very irreverent. But he also had strength and did not suffer fools gladly. He was very passionate about the things he believed in, whether it was Manchester United or defending his teammates. If he felt something was wrong, or there was some kind of injustice, he was very stubborn. As soon as Manny was by your side, you were reeling. He was a fighter and never gave an inch, but he was everyone’s friend and no one spoke a bad word about him.

When he was at his best, he had a wonderful spirit. He was too young to be a model, so he always had a thing for motorcycles. One day he came to my house wearing one of those “human cannonball” crash helmets and looked like a crazy frog. An hour later I heard this strange noise and Manny was kicking his flooded motorcycle, because it was a rainy day and moisture had gotten into the engine. He must have kicked that scooter for an hour and a half, but then, incredibly, it started. That’s the magic of the man: he never let anything defeat him.

From a bass playing standpoint, he was the best. Everyone wanted to be him. Mane joining Stone Roses made the difference. He was an amazing artist and loved great music. I recently saw him playing Fool’s Gold on Instagram and thought: “How does he play this game?” Like Andy Rourke, Manny played in a very melodic style, which is what I do, but Manny was more precise. I always tried to compete with the guitar but Manny was weaving around it. It’s a great skill, but I didn’t care what he played. He could have hit the thing on the ground for all I cared: it was Manny.

He was a member of two of the greatest bands of all time: The Stone Roses and Primal Scream. I actually auditioned for Primals and they said I looked a lot like New Order, so when Manny got the job, he called me directly on the phone. “Hey No. 2” — he always called me No. 2 — “he’s No. 1 here.” Rourke was “No. 3”: the level of banter between the three of us was amazing.

All Mane wanted to do was play, and most of all he loved playing in front of people. When the Roses reformed, he was desperate for things to go back to how they were in the beginning, and was heartbroken when they weren’t. But it was nice, after everything they’d been through, financially and otherwise, to have one last payday that allowed him and Imelda to have a beautiful life. Once they had their boys, they were completely complete. They were a wonderful little family.

When he stopped playing, he started DJing and the music he played mirrored his bass playing: funk and soul. He never stops working and was very much looking forward to the speaking tour he just announced. It’s heartbreaking that he was gone before it even began, and my heart breaks for these two boys, who lost their parents so soon after.

The outpouring of grief and grief when Manny died was truly amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before, for a pop star, and certainly not for a long time. Right now, all the Manchester legends are asking themselves ‘Will I get this when I die?’ But I can say with confidence that Mane will never be forgotten.