Black Grape by Paul Husband
Shaun Ryder talks us through Black Grape, Happy Mondays, Mantra Of The Cosmos and much more besides.
Contains swearing, obviously.
Ostensibly this piece is an interview with Shaun Ryder but in truth, it was a one-way conversation.
The iconic frontman (or indeed, National Treasure) is blessedly unrestrained and unfiltered, and as such is a wonderful interviewee. Tip for any future interviewers, however: if you’re lucky enough to ask a question that he engages with, just sit back and let him talk.
Live4ever meets the man himself over Zoom to discuss the new Black Grape album Orange Head, the second album since their reformation in 2015 and fourth in total. Ordinarily, an interview is designed to cover some information about the album’s tracks, the backstory, etc. Unfortunately there’s one problem, as Ryder explains: “Here’s the mad thing about it though; I haven’t heard the album for about 10 months!”
Ah. “I got sent the album loads of times but I’m not very good on the technology front,” he explains, “so the stuff that I got sent disappeared. You know how it fucks off and goes, whatever format you get it in? So, I haven’t got a copy of the album! I’m out tomorrow, we’ve got a gig to promote the new album and we’ve stuck three new songs in: Milk…” Shaun then tries to wrack his brains, unsuccessfully, before giving up. “Terrible this fookin’ memory! Milk’s one of them and I can’t remember the name of the other two. I’ll know when I see the autocue!”
“We finished it…it must be about a year ago…when I came out of that South African jungle thing (I’m A Celebrity South Africa), I pretty much flew straight to Spain to start making the album. It must have been about a year ago and it’s still not out yet! But it’s coming out soon, I believe.” (January, in fact).
When Ryder’s first band – Happy Mondays, as you know – split in 1993, few would have expected him to bounce back instantly, so public were his problems with addiction.
But as time has proven, betting against Shaun Ryder is a fool’s errand and when Black Grape was formed with sidekick Bez, ex-Ruthless Rap Assassins star Paul ‘Kermit’ Leveridge and guitarist Wags, the resulting album was an instant success in 1995. While the band fell apart in 1998, the legacy of their debut lived on, resulting in Ryder being made an offer in 2015.
“I got a phone call from the States telling me that it was 20 years since It’s Great When You’re Straight… and was I doing anything for the anniversary? I said I hadn’t really thought about it, but I found out Kermit was in a good place so we just got back together. We did a couple of shows, to see how it went – one in London and one in Manchester – and it went really well. Then we left it up to Alan McGee (Ryder’s manager – more on him later) to get us an album deal and he sorted that out.”
The reunion culminated in belated third album Pop Voodoo, released in 2017. “The way we done this last one and Pop Voodoo is basically, it’s me, Youth (producer, formerly of Killing Joke) and Kermit,” explains Ryder. “We get in the studio with the engineers and blast around with a few beats and start writing. Basically, Youth is taking Danny Saber’s part.”
“Don’t forget, the first Black Grape formation wasn’t really a band, it was session guys brought in, apart from Wags, really – everyone else was session guys to play the first and second albums on the road. Danny Saber basically did the bass lines and the beats and what guitar Wags didn’t do, Danny did. This time around, it’s Youth replacing Danny Saber.”
“Alan had Danny Saber on another project – some stuff with one of Alan’s other bands,” he continues. “And it was Alan who wanted Youth to do the album. I’d never met Youth and neither had Kermit. Kermit bonded with him straight away but it took me a little bit longer. He’s a good guy, a hippyish sort of dude, you know what I mean? But it worked (on Pop Voodoo) so we decided to do it again.”
As Ryder alludes, Youth (who can count The Verve, The Orb, Beth Orton and James among many of his credits) is a regular collaborator with Alan McGee. Ryder explains their relationship from his perspective, tongue firmly planted in cheek: “Youth and McGee are really close. They do a lot of work together. They go on Q&As together, they go for candle-lit dinners together…they hold each other’s hand on the beach!” Cue trademark throaty laugh.
Speaking of icons, one track on Orange Head (Panda) includes a reference to The Rolling Stones, and their perennially commented-upon age. Given that the octogenarians have just released another album, does the topicality surprise Ryder?
“The thing is, when we did that a year ago the Stones were playing Hyde Park,” he answers, fairly, to a silly question. “And we are getting old like The Rolling Stones, but Jagger’s got 20 years on me. Jagger’s not got a fuckin’ false hip, the other on the way out and a crack in his spine, has he? And a thyroid problem, and alopecia? And smelly feet!”
As for aping Mick Jagger’s stage performance? “I stopped that running around the stage because I’m on me second false hip now. I get asked to do Dancing On Ice. Fuckin’ right, with two false hips?”
Another track, In The Ground, features dual commentary with messages to those no longer with us, although with two very different approaches: “I’m having a go at my dead brother (Paul, also of Happy Mondays, who passed away in 2022) and Kermit’s talking about his father who died. Kermit’s all very nice, and mine’s all very, ‘fuck you, our kid’. It is what it is innit? Our kid hated my fuckin guts, y’know?”
You may already be familiar with lead single Pimp Wars, and it’s somewhat striking line, ‘I just can’t get to grips with this, bad driver, muff diver’. “I bet you’ve never heard that in a fucking song before,” Ryder correctly points out. “I’m a poet darling, I’m a poet!” (As Tony Wilson once dubbed him.) “If a poet can’t use ‘muff diver’ in a song, who the fuck can? I mean, come on!”
Surely the line is problematic? Not so, he insists, using some faultless logic: “If my two teenage girls can laugh about it and think it’s funny then no. I can sit there with Youth and Kermit, there’s a lot of stuff you can question, but ‘muff diver’ is just fucking funny. I could have gone, ‘Vagina Diver’ as the correct word, but it doesn’t sound as good, does it? That’s fucking more naughty!”
Now warmed up, Ryder takes the opportunity to elaborate on his argument, in his own surreal way. “I grew up in the 1970s. It’s funny, while I’m doing these interviews, I’ve got the telly on ITV3. Now, you’ve got classic Coronation Street and classic Emmerdale, both from 23 years ago,” he begins, as Live4Ever wonders where on earth this is going.
“You’ve got Martin, a 38-year-old man, who’s seeing a 16-year-old. And then you’ve got a vicar on the other one who’s about 30, also seeing a 16-year-old girl. Now, the storyline is that they’re both paedophiles, and that’s 20 years ago! Sometimes my head is still stuck 20 or 30 years ago. There’s people worse than me. I have to say to McGee: the stuff I come out with, pull me up on it!”
The mind boggles as to what Alan McGee has had to pull Shaun Ryder back on, yet his deference to the Glaswegian is understandable. Having been in the music industry for over 40 years, McGee is no stranger to working with strong-willed characters having worked with (deep breath) Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Oasis and The Libertines to name but a few (and that really is only a slither). For the last 9 years (“Where’s the time gone?”) he’s been representing Shaun Ryder, who is effervescent in his praise and respect.
He’s brilliant, a top bloke. I love him. He’s not just a manager, he’s a friend. He’s the best dude I’ve ever worked with. I’ve known him since 1987 and then started working with him. Not as I know him now, the Hacienda and all that. He’s a pal, I speak to him most nights. He’s an honest dude, but a hard businessman!
Indeed he is, for in 2024 Shaun Ryder is going to be ubiquitous. As well as Black Grape commitments (album and tour), Happy Mondays will also be touring in the spring while elsewhere, Ryder is undertaking a massive Q&A tour around the country. Furthermore, there is another band (Mantra Of The Cosmos) with all the accompanying bells and whistles on the agenda, to say nothing of Ryder’s media career. Something must give, surely?
“I’ve got TV stuff and then I’ve got the 3 bands, but the Mondays are going to bed,” he confirms. “When we’ve done that tour in April they’re going to bed for 2/3 years. We’ve constantly banged the Mondays since 2010. I came out of that jungle and we got the band together and it’s 12/13 years we’ve been hammering. They’ve become really iconic, but Black Grape was actually a bigger band than the Mondays. The Mondays were indie and all that lot, but we’ve been hammering it. Even though we got the original lineup back together, they’ve been going since 1999. Touring all over the place!”
“Now I’ve got Mantra Of The Cosmos and I also want to do a lot more Black Grape. You get a lot of agents and promoters moaning but they’re pretty much different fans. A lot of people who are into Black Grape didn’t like the Mondays, so the Mondays are going to bed for a couple of years so I can concentrate on doing something more with Black Grape and Mantra Of The Cosmos. And all these Q&As! The bad thing about that is that the Mondays are better than ever at the moment. We really are a fuckin’ great band, but it’s got to go to bed for a couple of years.”
Mantra Of The Cosmos is the brainchild of former Oasis and The Who drummer Zak Starkey. Known to the uninitiated as Ringo Starr’s son, Starkey unites with Ryder, his comrade Bez and Ride’s Andy Bell for the ultimate indie supergroup.
At the time of writing, only two songs and a handful of gigs have been unveiled to the public but Ryder explains there is much more to come, with his excitement apparent even over the Internet: “It’s like Pink Floyd, Barbie House dance-rock. Some of the tracks are as long as Pink Floyd, 17 minutes long. Fuckin’ hell! Zak’s a genius, he’s so talented and it’s just great. Different than Black Grape and the Mondays.”
“We’ve almost got an album. We must have 10/11 tracks. Not all are finished. The aim is for an album. It’s really quick, I can just nip down to his studio. We don’t all have to be there at the same time. It’s great if you can get me, Andy and Zak all there at the same time, but it’s not really necessary. I really wanna do some live shows with it, jump on somebody’s tour or something. They’re great people as well.”
If that roll call of musicians wasn’t stellar enough, in an exclusive for Live4ever one forthcoming track features an appearance from a certain Noel Gallagher, who himself has long been teasing a collaboration with Ryder: “I’ll tell you what happened with that. I gave that to Noel, and then he sent that to Zak. So that’s gonna be a Mantra Of The Cosmos thing. Zak’s mixed it totally different, it’s now more like an 80’s electro-beat sort of thing. It’s totally different. Noel’s singing on it, me and him.”
Meanwhile, the Q&A list is intimidating, stretching well into 2025, a fact not lost on the Mancunian. “Fuck me, yeah. I think I’ve got about 3700 all in! But I do like doing them, you’ve finished work by 10pm. It’s not like DJing, going on until 2 o’clock in the morning and getting involved in that mad world again. You go on at 8pm and you’re just chatting. I enjoy them.”
At the time of our interview, it’s just been announced that ‘politician’ Nigel Farage will be joining this year’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!.
As one of the show’s most famous participants, does Shaun have any insight into what Farage can expect? “You know what, you can go on there and even if you be yourself, you can do anything you want with the edit. I’d be interested to see how he is. I’ve met some of these dudes before and…hmm.”
Politicians as well though. That’s why we should have Andy Burnham as Prime Minister, he’s the only straight-talking cunt out there, but he won’t go for it and he should! Maybe he’s just waiting until he gets a bit older. I’m on at him all the time, texting him and that. He’s doing a good job, but Keir Starmer? Nah. Better than the alternative though, absolutely!
In the modern era, younger musicians second guess every interview question, afraid of their perception, or of being ‘cancelled.’ Shaun Ryder cares not one jot and is everything you would want him to be. Unfiltered, unrestrained, but amiable, pleasant and, obviously, incredibly funny. A true one-off who admits his faults and has made his peace with them.
Especially when it comes to technology: the last words your interviewer hears, as Shaun has to disconnect from Zoom, is a disgruntled mutter to himself: “Right, how do I do this fucking thing now..?”
We’re lucky to have him.
