John Squire on the injury that threatened his ability to play guitar: “It did panic me”

John Squire has revealed that a past injury threatened his ability to play guitar, recalling how the setback had concerned him.

The former Stone Roses guitarist tripped and broke his wrist while playing basketball with his son in 2020. Recalling the accident during a recent interview with The Guardian, Squire said: “It did panic me.”

He continued: “There was a question mark over whether I would get full use of it back.”

However, the musician was able to get back to his best form thanks to physiotherapy and a rigorous guitar-playing regime.

The publication noted how sustaining the injury “didn’t just force him to play again; it reignited his desire to do so”.

When asked if he regretted not releasing more music over the years, however, Squire responded: “There’d be a trade-off. I might not be married. I might not have as many children, and I might not have seen as much of them.

“I don’t feel like I’ve massively fucked up.”

Squire was talking to The Guardian alongside Liam Gallagher, with whom he recently launched a collaborative side-project. The pair released their debut track together, ‘Just Another Rainbow’, earlier this month.

Elsewhere in the interview, Squire hinted that he’d begun writing a second collaborative album with Gallagher and teased some live tour dates for later this year.

Gallagher previously described the duo’s upcoming first album as “the best record since [The Beatles’] ‘Revolver’”. The soloist and former Oasis frontman has since confirmed that the project will contain 10 songs.

“We demoed eight of them in John’s studio and then John [has] done another two songs and we recorded them for the first time,” he explained. “[I] sang them for the first time out in America in LA.”

Additionally, Gallagher claimed that the LP “hasn’t got a title as such” yet: “It’s just Liam and John, like Liam Gallagher and John Squire, really.”

Ex-Oasis guitarist Bonehead – who plays in Gallagher’s solo band – revealed over Christmas that he’d heard LG and Squire’s joint album. “It’s very good,” the musician commented.

In other news, Liam Gallagher is due to perform Oasis’ ‘Definitely Maybe’ in full when he headlines Reading & Leeds 2024 this August. The performances will follow a UK and Ireland tour celebrating the classic record’s 30th anniversary.

You can find any remaining tickets here.