Pneumonia made me miss Mani’s funeral, Ryder says

Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder said he was unable to attend Stone Roses legend Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield’s funeral after he caught pneumonia and collapsed.

Ryder said he was on tour with his other band Black Grape – which he formed after Happy Mondays split – when he fell ill.

He said he “got back to go to Mani’s funeral and collapsed”, adding: “I couldn’t get out of bed… then I got hold of some antibiotics, so it was like a nuclear explosion going off and one feels a lot better now.”

Hundreds of Mani’s family and friends, including some of the biggest names of British 1980s and 90s music, gathered at Manchester Cathedral for his funeral on 22 December.

Ryder and long-time friend and bandmate Mark ‘Bez’ Berry were speaking to BBC Radio Manchester ahead of their upcoming Happy Mondays tour in March and April to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the release of their landmark album, Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches.

Released in November 1990, the album was the band’s third and saw them break into the big time, eventually rising to number four in the UK album charts.

It spawned some of the band’s best-loved songs, including Kinky Afro, Loose Fit and Step On, their era-defining version of John Kongos’s 1971 hit He’s Gonna Step on You Again.

The tour, which opens in Newcastle and closes in Belfast, includes a homecoming show at Trafford’s Victoria Warehouse Manchester on 11 April.

Asked about his memories of the album, he said the fact they made it at the famous Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, where the likes of Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Beach Boys and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention had recorded, remained a treasured memory.

“Walking into Capitol Studios was just mind-blowing,” he said.

“There were Frank Sinatra photographs all over the place and all the huge bands that had worked there.”

However, he added that the band’s time there had been brief.

“From what I can remember, we made it really quick,” he said.

“The band had about three basslines, three guitar licks and then the rest.

“Oakie [producer Paul Oakenfold] put on some beats, our Paul [Ryder] put some bass to it, Mark [Day] put guitar in and I wrote the songs just one after the other.

“So I remember doing it really, really quickly.”

Bez, who has served as dancer and percussionist in both Happy Mondays and Black Grape, said he was looking forward to being back on the road in 2026.

“It’s my natural habitat, that place, you know what I mean?” he said.

“I can’t wait to get back on the stage again and do my thing.”

Despite his reputation as both bands’ ringmaster, he said he had only just become truly comfortable with his role.

“It’s took me years to own up to being a dancer, because [of how] it sounds.

“But I’ve made it sound really hard now.”

However, while Bez added that when he heard songs like Step On, he would go “into auto-pilot and just start dancing”, Ryder said he “never” listened back to his work.

“It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just… if we walk into a pub somewhere and I hear one of our songs playing, I’ll do one out the door.”