Music: Black Grape

From the ashes of the Happy Mondays came Black Grape, still going strong with Shaun Ryder

Sounding in fine fettle, Shaun Ryder is currently touring Black Grape’s brilliant number album of 1995, ‘It’s Great When You’re Straight…’
Following the demise of the Happy Mondays shortly after the unhappy and drug-fuelled sessions for their final album, ‘Yes, Please’, Shaun Ryder continued his friendship, musically and otherwise, with Kermit, and those two formed Black Grape. “Kermit was pulling around with me, we were smack buddies, and I got him in to do some of the stuff on the ‘Yes, Please’ album. So, when the Mondays finished, me and him just got together. We had some ideas from when we were doing ‘Yes, Please’ – they should have been included on that album.”

Black Grape upset many people’s predictions by roaring in at number one in the album charts, containing a number of classic songs that remain some of the very best Ryder has written, including ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ and ‘In The Name Of The Father’. “There were people in the music business – even my good friend Tony (Wilson, Factory Records founder, with whom the Mondays were signed to) – all knocking on the door, going: ‘you should be doing this, and you should be grateful for that’, all telling me how much I had blown it, not really knowing what the complete story with the Mondays was. I just thought the best thing is to keep your mouth shut, let everyone carry on saying what they were saying, and just come out with the goods. And that is what I did. It was a good ‘**** off’ to everyone when the album came out and went to number one…”

Live, back in their mid-90s incarnation, they were a brilliant and super-tight live proposition. “We are really tight and fluid now, better than we was then. We are compos mentis now.” With everyone seemingly healthy and up for it, Ryder seems very excited by the tour and how everything is going in general. “I was bumping into Kermit at various gigs like Snoop Dogg, and every time I saw him he was looking better and better and better. He’s just had a baby, a good partner. So, I thought, ‘you know what? I’m going to do it with him’.”
And the future? “The plan is for me and Kermit to do another Black Grape album. It’s likely that, we’ll do that before another Mondays album.”
Concorde 2, Sat 27 June, 7pm, £24