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Freebass, the Mancunian bass supergroup comprising Peter Hook, Mani and Andy Rourke, are finally releasing their debut EP, five years after forming.

The four-track EP features the vocals of The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess, The Mighty Wah’s Pete Wylie and Howard Marks.

The group almost roped in Liam Gallagher, Ian Brown and Billy Corgan to sing – but the artists’ schedules were too hectic, Hook told 6 Music’s Shaun Keaveny.

Asked about Brown and Corgan, Hook said: “We asked them but we’re all jobbing musicians so it’s impossible to fit it in.

“I get asked, and Mani gets asked, to do a lot of sessions and stuff. Literally you have the best intentions of doing it. We had Liam at one point but you really just can’t fit it in.”

Between them, the bass trio have been in the greatest Manchester bands of the last 35 years – Hook was in Joy Division and New Order, Rourke was in The Smiths and Mani was in The Stone Roses, and is currently in Primal Scream.

"We had a sort of indie Pop Idol."

Peter Hook

Hook jokingly described the band’s long gestation as a “living hell”.

“The problem with it was that when it started, we had a lot of time on our hands – Mani, Rourkey and I. And then as soon as we started it, our respective band leaders, in their wisdom, decided to work. So it’s had a lot of false starts.”

As well as using guest vocalists, the group have also recruited a full-time singer, Gary Briggs, formerly of the band Haven.

He was enlisted after an audition and he appears on the first Freebass album, which is out next month.

“We had a sort of indie Pop Idol,” Hook explained. “It took us about a year and a half to find a singer and we came up with Gary Briggs.

“In the mean time we’d asked a few friends of ours – Tim Burgess, Howard Marks, Pete Wylie – to help us out and we submitted some vocals. So we ended up with four guest vocalists and a proper vocalist.

“We thought we’d split it in two. So the EP with the guest vocalists is coming out first, and the LP will be coming out in four weeks with Gary.”