Shaun Ryder has told the NME in an exclusive interview that it was his massive tax bill that prompted the reunion of the Happy Mondays. He had the choice between that or dope dealing.
“I got a tax bill the size of fucking Canada,” he told NME‘s Ted Kessler. “Some cunt suggested we get the Mondays together again and I said ‘No chance’. But the bill cleaned me out. I’m in and out of court with that snidey bitch called my ex-wife and so…I’d heard about these people who sell hashish resin, but that didn’t sound like the job for me, too many rough sorts. What can I do? I said ‘Go on, then’.”
As well as his messy divorce from Oriel Leich and how much he hates her father, legendary ’60s folky Donovan (“anyone who writes that amount of happy music has got to be evil”), Ryder and the other Happy Mondays also talk about the good times, the bad times and the demented times, such as the recording of ‘…Yes Please’ in Barbados (“It was shit. Rocks for breakfast, rocks for lunch, rocks for tea.”) just before the band fell apart.
The Happy Mondays tour has already sold out, with most tickets going in a few hours after tickets went on sale on Friday morning. According to his Daily Sport collum, they are currently rehearsing a reworked version of Thin Lizzy‘s ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ which will be the first single from the reformed band tio be released in April.
The full interview appears in NME dated February 20, on sale tomorrow in London and across the UK on Wednesday.