Andy Richardson: Party man Shaun is back to his Bez-t

Back in the day, it was a different kettle of skunk. The band broke through with their second album, Bummed, which hit the decks in 1988. A mix of acid house, funk and psychedelia, it was marked the genesis of the Madchester sound. Not that Shaun can remember much of it. He was too stoned to know what was going on. There were windows into his world for those of us who were perched on the sidelines.

On one occasion, the Happy Mondays joined fellow drug-taking, squall-making Mancunians James for a riotous UK tour. At Birmingham’s Irish Centre, in Digbeth, their dressing room resembled a war zone. Bodies lay across the floor, as though an incapacitating gas had been filtered through the aircon.

Shaun, Bez and co were so smashed after the show that they were barely able to move, let alone stand or talk. And any prospect of an impromptu interview was shelved as their livers took the strain. A pile of bodies lay on the floor, like discarded mannequins from a closed-down department store, or like limbs thrown together during a game of pile-on in a sixth form common room.

The drugs had already kicked in. They’d started a decade-long party that involved the longest, hardest good time this side of Keith Richards.

By the time of Black Grape, Shaun had become addicted to heroin, crack and any other narcotic he could get his hands on. It was his way of taking his mind off things; the tedious interviews, the lack of control, the missing millions, the pressure to write hits, the need to go on TV and not swear. Just as some people squeeze a stress ball, play Tetris or have a flutter on the races, Shaun injected smack. Aaah. That’s better.

I caught up with him a couple of times during that era. Britpop was in full swing and Shaun had made an unlikely comeback by teaming up with the rapper, Paul ‘Kermit’ Leveridge.

At T In The Park, in Scotland, he was invited into an autograph tent to meet hundreds of fans and sign copies of a CD. I showed him to a table and chair so that he could sit down and meet his public. His eyes were wider than saucers and redder than Mars. And though his lungs were breathing and his heart was beating, there wasn’t much else in the way of normal life. While the rest of his band messed around, Shaun took the first CD from the pile and wrote a message, presumably to himself: ‘Get Well Soon Shaun, Shaun’.

He looked like he needed a week off, or a month, a year or, more accurately, a decade. Things had spiralled out of control. Actually, no, that’s wrong. Things had spiralled out of control years and years earlier, and Shaun was, almost literally, on another planet. The band lasted a few more years before Shaun’s volatility came to a head. He fired every member of the band. While they were still on tour. Apparently, Human Resources were on sabbatical.

Shaun’s wilderness years didn’t truly end until he flew to the Australian outback to star on I’m A Celebrity Get Me The Cheque. Or something like that. He’d cycled his way clean by riding a pushbike for 13 hours a day. The man who sang with Rowetta on TV chart shows had pedalled around the grey streets of Manchester to shake off his past. The excess baggage took years to shift – five, in all.

But on Celebrity, for the first time in a decade-and-a-half, Shaun seemed normal. He’d got off the drugs and was as authentic and rambunctious as any contestant who’s ever appeared. He didn’t have to put on an act or come up with a strategy: he was entertainer as himself, as 24-hour-party-people habitually are. It was a watershed moment and marked the start of a renaissance.

Since then, he’s barely been home – other than to take his beloved daughters to school and watch the news with his missus. If he’s not touring with the Mondays, he’s on the road with Black Grape. If he’s not on the road with Black Grape, he’s in the studio recording a new record. Or writing a best-selling book. Or going on the road with Bez to do a riotous Q&A.

Shaun’s cogent and lucid, rather than comatose and lugubrious. He laughs about the things he’s been through and the way he survived. And though he’s still not taking life too seriously – ‘these days, I’m sort of a grown up’ – he’s finally having the time of his life.