Shaun Ryder: I’ve lived a wild life but life really begins at 60
He’s the wild man of rock, a guy who makes Mick and Keith look like wannabes, a star whose appetite for sex’n’drugs’n’rock’n’roll is as fulsome as an alcoholic’s desire for whisky.
Shaun Ryder, frontman of The Happy Mondays and Black Grape, redefined the sex’n’drugs’n’rock’n’roll lifestyle during the halcyon age of Madchester.
And now he’s spilling the beans, and the secrets, and the celebrity juice.
He has a hilarious new book out (Happy Mondays, and Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays) and his tour supporting it comes to Peterborough’s Key Theatre on October 13.
Shaun is on good form: “Life begins at 60. It used to be 40, but not anymore.”
So tell us, Shaun: what’s it all about: “I’ve got the attention span of a goldfish, an inability to plan too far ahead, but an opinion I’m prepared to share on pretty much everything. And thankfully we still have free speech in this country of ours, don’t we?
“My new book and tour is an epic journey from Madchester to Mastermind, Brazil to Barbados, Spanish sunburn to the sewers of Salford. I’ll tell you some truths which are so improbable you’ll know they can’t possibly have been made up.”
So who exactly is Shaun Ryder?
“There used to be a time when I was just the mad rocker who went onto TV shows off my head on heroin. I’m still having great fun in the spotlight, whether that’s with the Happy Mondays, Black Grape, or as a solo performer, but these days you’re just as likely to find me blowing off the cobwebs on a bike ride, watching telly with my best mate Bez, or catching up on Corrie in my slippers.”
All night parties?
“They’re in the past. If I’m not out working, I’m tucked up in bed by 11pm these days. Well, we all have to grow up a bit sometimes, don’t we? Do I miss the old days? They were brilliant times that I certainly wouldn’t have missed for the world, but no I don’t. That was then, but this is now. I’ve been off the drugs for more than 10 years now, and I’ve never been happier.
“A lot of my pals who refused to change are either dead, or locked up in prison.
“I’ve met and worked with some fabulous and fascinating people; many of who have become good friends, but some of who we’ve now sadly lost.
“I was so sorry and sad, for example, to hear about the death of the brilliant Steve Wright. He was a Happy Mondays favourite from the 80s, making us all laugh while we drove around Manchester on the dole.
“Yet another reminder of how time is ticking on. I tell it how it is; I’ve been around far too long to bother wasting time and energy beating round the bush. It’s an approach which has got me banned from TV shows and provoked hundreds of complaints to Ofcom for talking honestly about drugs.
“Let me tell you one thing right from the outset. My new book isn’t one to read soothingly to your grandkids at bedtime. It’s a boys’ own adventure which is about as far removed from Enid Blyton as you can get.”
Tickets for Shaun’s Happy Mondays, and Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays are available online from www.keytheatre-peterborough.com