Shaun Ryder has no plans to retire.
Like his peers in The Rolling Stones and former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, who turns 80 in June, the Happy Mondays and Black Grape frontman plans to continue touring for as long as is physically possible.
He said: “You don’t retire – unless your false hips go.
“Look at Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] and Paul McCartney and all this lot that I grew up with. Talk to Tom Jones! As long as you enjoy doing it, and you can do it, then you keep going.”
The 59-year-old star – who has battled multiple health issues over the years, including having an underactive thyroid, and previously experimented with cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, as well as being a big drinker in his partying days – insisted it’s normal for all bands to bicker “over ridiculous trivial things”, but they’ll always make up because they need to make a living at the end of the day.
Shaun told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “There’s a lot of bull*** that goes on in bands, it’s just over ridiculous trivial things and jealousy. But mostly people get back together because they realise, look, there’s financial things.
“If I can get on stage with my brother (bassist, Paul) and the Mondays and we still enjoy ourselves, out of all the differences we had, and then anyone can do it.”
Meanwhile, the ‘Step On’ hitmaker previously admitted he does reality TV to introduce his music to a whole new audience.
Shaun came second to Stacey Solomon on ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!’ in 2010 and is a regular on the celebrity series of ‘Gogglebox’.
In an interview with BANG Showbiz in 2021, Shaun said: “The jungle re-started my career as a 50 year old. It was a different part of my career.
“If that reality stuff existed when I was 21 ot 25 I don’t even think I would have done it, it would have been like, ‘We’re a band, we don’t do that sort of stuff.’ By the time I did it … I was 48 or 49 when I went in the jungle, it was a different point in my career. I would have been mad not to have done it, really.
“Doing that sort of stuff, it’s a way of bringing in fans, young fans, they all watch that sort of thing and while they’re watching it they find out you’re in a band and by the time the programme is finished they’ve downloaded all your albums and then they turn up at the festivals with granny and granddad and their 10-year-old kids.
“Me and Bez started doing those shows and brought a whole new fan base to the music.”
Likewise, Shaun’s bandmate Bez, 57, has recently competed on ‘Dancing on Ice’ and won ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ in 2005.