Entertainment

Happy Mondays Shaun Ryder recalls Madchester 30 years on from debut album

Thirty years after the release of their debut album, Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder reckons the band sound better than ever, though he himself is no longer the wild man of the Madchester scene, writes Joe Nerssessian

Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays and Black Grape
Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays and Black Grape Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays and Black Grape

IT'S difficult to know what to expect when arriving to interview Shaun Ryder. If you listen to the stories, he's pulled a gun on a journalist, sold ecstasy and narrowly avoided being shot after visiting a crack den in Harlem. These tales, and there are plenty more, have given him a cartoon-like reputation. But it isn't this headline-grabbing character who turns up to a four-star golf resort in Salford.

Because the Ryder who once stripped Eddy Grant's studio bare to fuel his drugs habit has left the stage, to be replaced by a man in his mid-50s more likely to be seen on breakfast television, or in predicted Strictly Come Dancing contestant line-ups (he says he's not up for it, by the way).

He strolls into the hotel's lobby, a few miles from where he was born, clutching a jangling set of keys attached to a Tesco clubcard. The Mancunian drawl is full of self-interruptions and stammers and, more than once, he wipes his palm across his face, in an attempt to recall details from the heavier days. They are in the past, he says: "Everyone is compos mentis now."

When he says everyone, Ryder is of course, referring to his band of merry men, Happy Mondays. It is 30 years ago this month that the Madchester band released their debut album, Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out), which they'll tour later this year. Ryder's also just finished a Black Grape record with Paul 'Kermit' Leveridge as he continues to entertain with his witty wordplay.

"It was all making people laugh with words, taking the p*** out of everybody and everything and being clever. I ended up writing and being a singer because, out of our bunch of pals, I was the best singer and I was the best writer," he says.

"I write cartoon, short mad stories and a line might be relevant to me, but they're stories."

The method, he reveals, really may be in the madness of these ideas. When hit with a line or two, he will scribble it down on the nearest paper and stick it in a teapot.

"Then when it comes to writing time I get all the lines of paper and I take 'em to wherever I've got to work. I pull 'em all out and make stories. It's like the Black Grape album, the record label are 'What's this about?' It's stories."

And they used stories on the press too, cackles Ryder. Recognising their working class appeal to the tabloids, they took advantage of it, full throttle.

"Back then, bands didn't go anywhere near Piers Morgan (then editor of The Sun's Bizarre show business column). Band's didn't wanna be in Bizarre and we thought, 'f*** that', and were straight in there with Piers. We understood the power of headlines and rather than getting a little piece in NME or Melody Maker, we'd get it in the tabloids.

"Instead of talking about amps or do you use a DX7, it became about the partying. We used to tell [journalists] all sorts of s*** and the headlines in the press got bigger and we used it."

Ryder remains a great storyteller, but for 12 years the man who wrote "you're twistin' my melon man", lost all his income in order to protect the royalties from those very lyrics. After a fractious break-up with the Black Grape management, he refused to hand over £150,000 awarded to them. Ryder avoided bankruptcy as it would strip him of song rights and instead ended up in receivership.

The receivership ended in 2010, the year he finished second on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here and believes marked his transformation as a musician into an entertainment personality.

"Listen," he drawls, leaning forward. "Going back to 2004, I was approached to do Big Brother. And it was like, 'Woah, we don't do that, we're in a band'. And Bez did it, and he won it. That's when I realised the game was changing and you've got to do stuff like that now. Then I did I'm A Celebrity and it was f****** great, I loved it."

But ultimately, he could do as much reality television as he likes, it would still need to be backed up with good music, agrees Ryder, who promises that is what fans should expect, both from the Mondays and Black Grape.

:: Happy Mondays play Vicar Street in Dublin on December 15.