Manchester rockers The Stone Roses, who rose to fame in the late 1980s before fading almost as fast less than a decade later, have reunited for a world tour kicking off in their home town next June.

The quartet's eponymous debut album, released in 1989, is considered one of the greatest records to come out of British rock.

They produced just one more studio album, Second Coming, in 1994, although lead singer Ian Brown hinted that there could be a third in the works.

We hope so, but we said that before didn't we? he told a London press conference on Tuesday.

Asked why the band had reformed 15 years after splitting, Brown replied: Because I think we're great and I think we've still got it and I think we've still got something to give to people, and I think that in times like this we can uplift people.

The tour starts on June 29, 2012, with the first of two gigs at Manchester's Heaton Park. Further details of the tour have yet to be released.

The reformed group will feature what most people consider to be the core quartet -- vocalist Brown, guitarist John Squire, bass player Gary Mani Mounfield and drummer Alan Reni Wren.

All four were at the briefing, ending months of speculation that they would reform.

Earlier this year, however, Squire poured cold water on the idea and was quoted by NME music magazine as saying: When it's just a get-together for a big payday and everyone gets their old clothes out, that seems tragic to me.

Seeking to explain his change of heart, he told reporters: Everything changed when me and Ian started seeing each other again. It was surreal. We went from crying and laughing about the old days to writing songs in a heartbeat.

I think it's in some ways a friendship that defines us both and it needed fixing and two phone calls later the band was no longer dead.

The catalyst for their reunion was Mani's mother's funeral, he said.

Mani, who will have to give up playing with Primal Scream for the foreseeable future, added: Beautiful things come out of a really sad situation.

Brown denied the reunion was about money, saying the group had had many invitations in the past to get back together.

Asked to comment on fellow Mancunian musician Shaun Ryder's comment recently that he was doing it to fund his divorce, Brown joked: There's always truth in Shaun Ryder's comments.

The Stone Roses join a long list of British bands who have reformed in recent years, from ex-boy band Take That to indie rockers Pulp and from Blur to Spandau Ballet.

Some fans are skeptical about their motives, putting musicians' urge to bury hatchets down to cynical commercialism at a time when top acts can still earn a small fortune from a single live tour.

But tickets tend to sell out fast, underlining ongoing demand for disbanded acts to reform.

The Stone Roses formed in Manchester in 1983, and were among the pioneers of a musical movement known as Madchester in the late 1980s and 1990s that also included New Order and the Happy Mondays.

The second, and final, studio album hit stores in 1994, but never matched the acclaim of their debut.

Reni left the group in 1995, when The Stone Roses played a sellout tour of Britain. Guitarist and songwriter Squire quit in 1996, prompting the band's swift demise.

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