, 61, is a singer, musician and frontman with ‘Madchester’ band the Happy Mondays and Black Grape (a collaboration with Kermit, aka Paul Leveridge).
He’s appeared twice in and is a regular on Celebrity with his best friend and .
In this weekend’s , with, he talks about , life on drugs and then getting clean.
Orange Head is the first Black Grape album since 2017. What made you feel now was the right time for a new one?
It’s Alan McGee (the Happy Mondays’ and Black Grape’s manager) who calls the shots.
Alan said it was time for a Black Grape album now, which is great, because I wanted to put the Mondays to bed for a bit, so I can concentrate on Mantra Of The Cosmos and Black Grape.
Did you expect to still be making music in your 60s?
Yes. If the Rolling Stones and all those 60s bands can keep going, so can I.
Can you imagine still performing when you’re 80, like Mick Jagger?
I f**king hope so.
You don’t retire in my game – you just drop dead.
Your new song Dirt is about you and Kermit’s memories of growing up. What do you remember most about childhood?
I was in Salford and Kermit was in Manchester. There are lines on the new album about bits of our childhood.
One thing that always sticks out in my mind was the park near our school: Stone Park. It was a concrete park.
As a kid, I’d run up and down the big slide. Someone had stuck a razor blade on the slide with chewing gum. I nearly cut my hands on it.
What sort of area did you grow up in?
Our part of Salford felt normal to me. But there was a lot of sh*t.
I remember around 1969, when I was seven or eight years old, the police came to our school and gave us the big talk about heroin.
Heroin was going on around our park in Salford. When the police gave that talk, I thought it sounded horrible. But not many years later, I’d picked up heroin myself.
The Happy Mondays’ stories of debauchery are legendary, including a recording session/drugs binge in Barbados that helped bankrupt Factory records. Was it as crazy as it sounds?
In the early days, when we were teenagers and we were all a gang of pals, it was fun. By the time just before we split, it was the old clich̩ of rock and roll: everyone hated each other. Apart from me and Bez Рwe were still pals.
The Mondays have had a good run. We’ve been all over the place, doing festivals, and we’re better than ever. The band is sounding shit hot, but it’s time for a rest.
We’re doing the Happy Mondays’ UK tour. When that’s finished, it’s going to bed for three years.
So there will be no new Happy Mondays album for a while?
Alan wants us to do a Mondays album after we come back from the three-year break.
2027?
Yes. That’s what Alan would like and he usually gets what he wants.
Do you still enjoy playing live?
Touring is better and easier than ever now. I was 18 when we started the Mondays.
Going through my late teens, my 20s and 30s, it was all sex, drugs and rock’n’roll – and fun.
When I hit 40, as my kids were getting older, around 2002, I decided to knock it all on the head. It took me a couple of years but I did it.
My 14 and 16 years old have no idea… Well, they do know about dad’s drug exploits in rock and roll, but they’ve never seen me like that.
They’ve grown up coming to festivals and coming to shows, but they’ve never seen the monster nutcase that the NME wrote about.
Was it difficult to get clean?
With cleaning up, you don’t get clean until you want to get clean. Once you want to sack it and you’ve made up your mind you’re going to do it, you’ll do it.
That’s it. You’ve got to want to.
What’s on Shaun Ryder’s rider these days?
I’ll have a couple of cans of Guinness, maybe some of that French vodka Grey Goose. There are more crisps and sweets these days than booze and drugs.
How does that compare to the past?
Oh, f***ing hell. The old rider could’ve fed the 5000 on drugs, or drunk the Bismarck to death. There was all sorts on that.
Do you miss the rock’n’roll lifestyle?
Not a bit, mate. I’m a 61-year-old who’s dead happy. I’ve had my time. I had a good 20 years doing sex, drugs and rock and roll, and, as a 61-year-old, I don’t miss it. I’ve got nothing to miss it for.
Do you enjoy doing Gogglebox?
Yes. I get paid to sit with my best mate, get pissed and watch telly.
If I could’ve got a job straight out of school where I got paid to get pissed and watch telly with my best mate, I’d have done that.
Black Grape’s new album Orange Head is out now on DGAFF Recordings. Black Grape play on July 12 with Richard Ashcroft. are touring the UK from March 14 to April 14.
