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Has to be a loose fitManchester’s Happy Mondays
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“Living here in Canada has really calmed me down. I love the pace of life here,” says drummer Gaz Whelan, who moved from Manchester to Toronto with his wife and two sons just over a year ago, partly to get his kids away from the culture of hedonism and violence in the U.K. “I was glad to see the back of that. The irony, eh?” In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Happy Mondays embodied new school hedonism, indulging in massive quantities of the club drugs introduced by rave culture. Their indie/dance music was made by and for altered minds, inviting audiences to bust moves in comfortable clothing and absorb Shaun Ryder’s brilliant/nonsense lyrics along with their E. The Hacienda nightclub was their HQ, owned and run by Tony Wilson (manager and co-founder of Factory Records) and their labelmates New Order. The story of the band’s formation, the novel incorporation of dancer/percussionist Mark “Bez” Berry, their rise to the summit of the “Madchester” scene and spiral into clichéd rock ’n’ roll drug abuse is told in the second half of Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, named after a Mondays song. It took Whelan and Ryder seven years to see the film, and, with a story orchestrated by the admittedly myth-prone Wilson, it contained as much poetic licence as expected. “It’s a movie, don’t take it too seriously,” says Whelan. “The pigeon story is not true, but Barbados was a crazy time. Quite a lot of work got done, though. It wasn’t as bad as people say. “Actually, it was worse than people say.” Whelan refers to the crack-fuelled recording of the Mondays’ 1992 album Yes Please!, their last record until 2007, when the band reformed to tour. Whelan had been working on music with their tour programmer (and currently plays in a “psychedelic hip hop band” called the Hippy Mafia), but once Ryder caught wind of it, he decided to offer up vocals. Uncle Dysfunktional was the result, and although the record was widely panned, the band’s shows are reportedly better than ever. “When we get on stage, all the usual kind of chaos happens, but musically, it’s a lot tighter,” says Whelan. “We don’t really have bad shows anymore, and we shouldn’t have, we’ve been doing it this long.” The Mondays are nothing if not experienced, but they’re also more professional than they used to be, and sober. “Bez isn’t, he’s worse than he ever was. He’s out partying all the time, being a celeb,” says Whelan, explaining that Bez is now a TV personality in the U.K. “But Shaun is [clean]. Alcohol was my poison, but I’ll still have a couple of beers at the weekend.” Looking back at their infamous bad behaviour, Whelan agrees with Ryder’s recent likening of their band to those mock-doc icons of rock absurdity, Spinal Tap. “I think all bands have got aspects of Spinal Tap, and if they don’t, they’re not a band,” states Whelan, comparing your average pro musicians to “a group of grown-up babies.” “When we were young, we were just in it for the ride, travelling around the world having a bit of fun. We didn’t take anything seriously, which was our downfall. But we’re older now, and if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re a complete idiot, aren’t ya?” WITH THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS AT |
