in 1980 and recorded a demo tape, but towards the end of that year decided on a change of direction. Brown had got a taste of being a frontman during the last Patrol show, singing Sweet's "Block Buster!" to close the set. The band's friend/roadie Pete Garner stood in on bass, while Couzens was wanting to concentrate on guitar. The band members lost enthusiasm in 1981, Brown selling his bass guitar to buy a scooter, and Wolstencroft joined Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke's pre-Smiths band Freak Party. Squire continued to practise guitar while working as an animator for Cosgrove Hall during the day, while Brown ran a Northern soul night in a Salford club. Squire and Couzens started a new band, the Fireside Chaps, with bassist Gary "Mani" Mounfield, later recruiting a singer named David "Kaiser" Carty and drummer Chris Goodwin. They changed their name to the Waterfront (after the film On the Waterfront), their sound influenced by 1960s groups and contemporary bands such as Orange Juice. Goodwin left before the band recorded their first demo and, shortly after it, Squire asked Brown to join as singer. A meeting with Geno Washington at a party at Brown's flat in Hulme, in which Washington told Brown that he would be a star and should be a singer, convinced Brown to take Squire up on his offer. Brown joined the Waterfront in late 1983, for a time sharing vocals with Kaiser (Dave Carty). Like the earlier attempts at bands, the Waterfront fizzled out. But in late 1983 Couzens decided to try again starting a band and approached Brown. They decided on Wolstencroft (who had turned down the job of drummer in The Smiths) as drummer and Pete Garner as bassist (despite his admission that he could not play anything but "Block Buster!"). They also decided that they needed Squire in the band, and when he agreed the band's line-up was cemented. Leaving their previous bands behind, they worked solely on new material. Brown's vocal limitations prompted him to take singing lessons for three weeks. After rehearsing for some time without a band name, Squire came up with "The Stone Roses". Several stories later emerged suggesting that the band had initially been called "English Rose" or that the name was somehow linked to the Rolling Stones. These stories were untrue, Brown explaining: "No, I don't know where that English Rose story came from.