Simon Wolstencroft is a musician from Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, England, best known for playing drums with The Fall between June 1986 and August 1997.

Wolstencroft was a member of an early incarnation of The Stone Roses

The Stone Roses

The Stone Roses are an English alternative rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. They were one of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement that was active during the late 1980s and early 1990s...

; having previously been a member of The Weeds

The Weeds (UK band)

The Weeds were a short-lived indie pop band formed in Manchester, England in 1986 who were "fronted by Andrew Berry...'China Doll' was their debut single and they had split up before it had even been released"....

 and The Colourfield

The Colourfield

The Colourfield were a British band formed in 1984 in Manchester, when former Specials and Fun Boy Three frontman, Terry Hall, joined up with ex-Swinging Cats members Toby Lyons and Karl Shale...

. He was also drummer for Freak Party

Freak Party

Freak Party was the short-lived Manchester funk band that consisted of future members of The Smiths. Its members were schoolmates, Johnny Maher on guitar, Andy Rourke on bass, and Simon Wolstencroft, later of The Fall , on drums. The band broke-up because they could not find a decent singer...

 which featured Johnny Marr

Johnny Marr

Johnny Marr is an English musician and songwriter. Marr rose to fame in the 1980s as the guitarist in The Smiths, with whom he formed a prolific songwriting partnership with Morrissey. Marr has been a member of Electronic, The The, and Modest Mouse...

 and Andy Rourke

Andy Rourke

Andy Rourke is a bass guitarist best known for being a former member of The Smiths.-Career:...

. In Songs That Saved Your Life

Songs That Saved Your Life

The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life is a book on British rock band The Smiths, written by UK music journalist Simon Goddard. The title refers to a lyric from their 1985 B-side "Rubber Ring"....

, Marr states that Wolstencroft declined to join what became The Smiths

The Smiths

The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...

 as he didn't like Morrissey

Morrissey

Steven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...

's voice.

Wolstencroft joined The Fall in time to play on most of the group's Bend Sinister

Bend Sinister (album)

Bend Sinister is a 1986 album by The Fall, released on Beggars Banquet Records. It reached number 36 in the UK charts. Its title is taken from Vladimir Nabokov's novel Bend Sinister . The US version of the album was titled The "Domesday Pay-Off" Triad Plus!.It was the third and last Fall album to...

 album (on which he was credited as John' S. Woolstencroft), and remained in the band for over a decade, occasionally adding keyboards and programming to his role as well as co-writing the group's only self-penned Top 40 single, "Free Range", taken from their Code: Selfish

Code: Selfish

Code: Selfish is a 1992 LP by British rock band The Fall which entered the chart at number 21. It is characterised by its harsher sound, in relation to the previous year's Shift-Work, and draws influence from techno music. This was probably due to the addition of techno fan Dave Bush to the line-up...

 album. He left the band following a dispute over the recording of the Levitate album (as related by Steve Hanley

Steve Hanley (musician)

Steve Hanley is an Irish-born English musician, based in Manchester. He is best known for playing bass guitar in The Fall from 1979 to 1998, and afterwards in The Lovers....

 in "Hip Priest" by Simon Ford, Quartet Books 2003). In 1996, Wolstencroft had a daughter, Emily Wolstencroft. After, he went on to reunite with Stone Roses singer Ian Brown

Ian Brown

Ian George Brown is an English musician, best known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Stone Roses, which broke up in 1996 but are confirmed to reunite in 2012. Since the break-up of the Stone Roses he has pursued a solo career...

, performing and co-writing on his Golden Greats

Golden Greats (Ian Brown Album)

Golden Greats is the second solo album released by Ian Brown, the ex-frontman of The Stone Roses. Despite the title, the album is not a compilation album, but rather, a studio album...

 album in 2000.

He is now working with a band under the name of Carpe Diem. In addition, Wolstencroft's new project is with A Certain Ratio's Jez Kerr.

External links

• Intermittent Signal Web Page