Shaun Ryder felt vindicated by the success of Black Grape’s debut album It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah.
The Madchester legend, who formed the band with Happy Mondays bandmate Bez and rapper Paul ‘Kermit’ Leveridge, felt that he proved his critics wrong when their debut record topped the charts in 1995 following the breakup of the Step On band.
Shaun told Classic Pop magazine: “It was the best feeling in the world. We knew we had something special.
“We were signed by Gary Kerr first. He was American and so he was going through the US market. See, at the time, we’d have done a bit more hip-hop, but in America, there weren’t many white kids doing hip-hop with Black kids.
“So we would hand songs in, and he wanted everything a bit more guitar-oriented, so he could sell it to an American audience.”
Ryder explained that his experiences with Black Grape contrasted hugely from his time with the Happy Mondays as he was working with “professional musicians”.
The 63-year-old singer said: “It was a totally new thing for me, because I’d never worked with professional musicians before. You know, all of the Mondays were self-taught.
“Black Grape really was me and Kermit and then the rest were session guys, apart from Wags (the late guitarist Paul Wagstaff).”
Shaun added: “When you take an album out on the road, you gotta put a band together to play it. So there were all these session guys, and that was the first time I’d ever played with proper musicians, who could keep time and knew what they were doing.
“It was a piece of p*** on stage for me, so it was great and we became like a family and a proper band.”
Black Grape are marking the 30th anniversary of the album with an 11-date UK tour in November and December but Shaun admits that he has trouble remembering some of his lyrics.
He said: “Imagine this, like you wrote a book or a novel, and you go onto the stage without that book and you have to recite every f****** word of it!
“I am ADHD and I don’t retain information. Learning’s all about remembering, and if you’re not going to remember s***, what the teachers are telling you, you’re not going to get a f****** A-level.
“Might be good for the pub quiz, but it’s not going to pass any exams. I was easily distracted. If there are teachers in a class, I’m over there looking at pigeons.”