The Stone Roses allegedly turned down Slash's offer to replace John Squire on guitar because of his leather pants.

Slash

Slash

Aziz Ibrahim - who briefly played guitar for the legendary Manchester group after Squire's departure in 1996 - claims that the Guns N' Roses legend auditioned to be in the group and after several blazing rows they agreed not to accept his offer because of his choice in trousers.

And the Simply Red strummer also thinks the band - also comprised of singer Ian Brown, bassist Gary 'Mani' Mounfield and drummer Alan 'Reni' Wren - wanted to get the "greatest rock icon of all time" to step in for Squire, who eventually returned in 2011, so they could "p***" him off.

Ibrahim told the StageLeft podcast: "There had been auditions. Slash had offered to play. There was a lot of bitterness and anger and so forth, maybe they wanted to p*** [Squire] off, so they thought, 'Let's get the greatest rock icon of all time'.

"Slash was in England and his manager wanted to manage the [Stone] Roses.

"They thought, 'Yeah yeah, we'll get this big rock icon, that would really annoy John.' Then they said something to the affect of, 'We're not going to work with a guy with leather pants, are we?' So Slash wasn't in."

However, back in 2010, Slash - who is also lead guitarist in supergroup Velvet Revolver - said he had never met the 'I Wanna Be Adored' hitmakers, but admitted that if the rumour was true it might have been "a good idea" for him to step in.

Of the rumours, he previously said: "I'd heard of The Stone Roses, but I'd never met them. I think I was probably too busy in Guns N' Roses at the time. Maybe it might have been a good idea. Someone told me we tried to recruit the lead singer into Velvet Revolver. That's not true either."

Tagged in