Damian Morgan
You took the photos that are used on the back of the album, and as a montage on the inner sleeve.

Ian Tilton
Yes, they look young, and 'up for it'. Unfazed as they perform on their first TV appearance. Of course, that album has become a classic, and those shots sum up the feel of the time, the lack of pretension, very cool without even trying.

D.M.
How did you first come across the Stone Roses?

Ian T.
The ex-manager of The Hacienda, Howard Jones asked me to take some pictures of them. They had some really awful pictures taken previously, where they looked like a Goth band. He wanted them to look cool. Around the same time I was given a copy of 'Sally Cinnamon', and I loved it. It was one of those singles you want to play over and over again. John Robb wanted to do a piece on them for Sounds (their first national feature), so we got the band in to do the photographs. They wanted something a bit different, they were really cool guys.

D.M.
You were the first person to get Ian Brown to do his 'monkey face'

Ian T.
That's true. He was messing around, because I asked him to, and he pulled this face and I told him to hold it. It was that..erm..'monkey face' as you call it! They band didn't want to be portrayed in a clichéd way, and were always on the look out for a new way of being shot.

D.M.
Hence the paint-splattered glass?

Ian T.
John (Squire) was well into Jackson Pollock, and had painted his guitar in that paint-splattered fashion. We were on a farm and decided to get a piece of glass and have them photographed through it. John painted the sheet of glass under my instruction, until we were both happy. That was a first for them too. The paint splattering was used a lot in later shoots by other photographers, but this session was the first. I still have shots of the roadies carrying the glass and John painting it. It was good fun.

D.M.
What do the Stone Roses mean to you?

Ian T.
They were creative, had brilliant melodies, they were a gang, very Northern, they could never have come from the South. they demanded and enjoyed artistic control. A brilliant band.