The Stone Roses are to play a free show in London tonight [August 6].

Tickets for the gig, which is set to take place at a secret location, will be given away to fans who email in via an address they were provided with when they booked tickets for the band’s recent Heaton Park shows.

Once fans email, they will find out details of the show within one hour if they have been successful in securing tickets. Full details of the gig can be found on the band’s Facebook page Facebook.com/Thestoneroses.

Late last week, the band’s biographer John Robb spoke about the reports that the band are planning a 2013 release for their new studio album and revealed that the reason drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren actually agreed to rejoin the group was down to the strength of their new material.

It had been reported earlier this week that the band were planning to release a new album next summer and Robb has confirmed that Ian Brown has told him they have a clutch of new songs.

He told BBC 6Music: “I have bumped into Ian Brown a couple of times and he said they have new songs. And they’ve signed a two album record deal so you’d kind of figure that they do have new stuff. Ian Brown described them to me as psychedelic pop songs. And people I’ve spoken to who have been in the rehearsal room say that the new stuff does sound really good.”

Robb then opened up about Wren’s reasons for agreeing to rejoin the band and said that it came after he heard new songs that singer Ian Brown and John Squire have been writing.

He said of this: “At the press conference I spoke to Reni who said he had new songs but he wasn’t sure if they’d make it onto the album. When Ian and John first met for the first time after the funeral [the funeral of bassist Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield’s mother] they started writing songs and those songs were given to Reni and that is what persuaded Reni that he wanted to go back with the Stone Roses because the new songs sounded so good.”

The Stone Roses will headline next month’s V Festival in Chelmsford and Stafforshire as well as Northern Ireland’s Tennent’s Vital Festival.

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