by Shaun Ryder
Like I’ve said earlier, I’ve never really been a digger, and never really understood people who thought it was hard and macho to stick a needle in themselves. If you inject heroin it gets into your system quicker, but smoking is the second quickest way to get a drug into you, and you can’t really overdose by smoking heroin, because you’ll mong out before you take that fatal dose. I have injected at times, when I’ve absolutely had to, but only when there’s been no smokable gear. Even then it wasn’t something I made a big ritual about – I would just want to get it over and done with. A lot of diggers love all that ritual with their works, but it’s never appealed to me. If you only have a little bit of heroin, a tiny deal, and you want to make sure you get the hit you need, you would be more tempted to have a dig. But I didn’t need to do that. From the time the Mondays started to became successful, I could usually lay my hands on large amounts of heroin at a reasonable price, so I could afford to smoke it.
‘Kelly’s Heroes’ then came out as the third single from the album and we had to shoot two videos for it. The first one we shot in a club in London, with Bez dressed as Batman and me in a blond wig. Patsy Kensit is in that one, and we filmed it just before she got together with Liam Gallagher. The Americans didn’t like it, so we had to shoot a different one for them, which was like an armed bank-robbery scenario. By the time we came to film the second video, Kermit was ill, so we brought in Psycho as his replacement. Psycho’s real name was Carl McCarthy, and he was a mate of Kermit’s from Moss Side who had come down and done some additional vocals on ‘In the Name of the Father’ when we were recording the album. He was still at college and a DJ, and he had the right attitude and looked great.
Because we couldn’t get into America, we decided to do a press trip for the Americans to Cuba. The idea was to invite all the American press to Cuba and we could do the interviews there. Me and Oriole decided to have a little break in Mexico the week before, and went to Cancún and then on to San José. I know I was on gear at that time, because I remember going to score. I clocked someone who I knew was selling something and followed him, and then had a word with him. ‘Cheeba’, they call their gear out there, and it’s smokable tar heroin. When you get powdered brown heroin over here, you put a light to it and it turns to black shiny tar. The cheeba is already turned into black tar, and comes as a lump that looks like hash. It’s smokable gear – you can’t inject it – and it’s popular with American college kids, who don’t think smoking heroin is as addictive as digging, but they all end up with habits.
We were only in Cuba for a few days, and I can’t remember too much about the trip, because I wasn’t too well. I did worry for a second a few years later when a mate of mine asked me if we met Castro when we were in Cuba, but I’m assured that we didn’t. I don’t mind only having a hazy memory of Cuba, but I would hate it if I’d met Castro and not remembered it. I do remember we stayed in a nice hotel and I enjoyed hanging about the old town, and getting my hair cut in an old-school Cuban hairdresser’s.
After Kermit came back, he wasn’t 100 per cent, so we decided to keep Carl. He had a good voice, and he had a lot of energy when we performed live, so he added another dimension to the band.
But then not long after Kermit came back, Bez decided he was quitting Black Grape because he thought he wasn’t getting paid what he was due. Bez wanted his E bought for him, and his expensive energy drinks and this and that, and in the end we were paying about £300–400 a day, just on Bez’s extras. Because we also had Kermit and Psycho in Black Grape, who were both pretty energetic on stage, I didn’t think it was quite as critical when Bez left. I thought those two between them could make up for Bez’s absence.
What I didn’t realize is that those two would soon want out as well.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘I’ve got to be sick to be ill, I’ve got to take my smiley pill, I’ve got to dress smart to kill, and it’s only ever done for the thrill’
AT THE START of 1996, I went down to London for the Brat Awards, which was the NME’s equivalent of the Brit Awards. Black Grape won Best New Band, but unfortunately I ended up getting nicked right afterwards. In between the awards ceremony and the after-party I decided to go and score some gear with some Scousers I’d met. Unfortunately, the house we went to score at was under surveillance, so as soon as I walked out of there I was nicked. Thankfully I’d done my gear in there, so they took me down the station but found nothing on me, and I ended up back at the party afterwards. At some stage in the proceedings I lost my mobile phone and my award. I did a phone-in with Chris Evans on the Radio One breakfast show in the morning where I was supposed to be talking about the awards ceremony, but we just ended up talking about what had happened to me.
A couple of weeks later, Chris had us back on TFI Friday, where the idea was it was a kind of parody of Stars In Your Eyes and we did the Sex Pistols’ song ‘Pretty Vacant’. Never mind pretty vacant, I was pretty drunk; and even though we’d assured them I wouldn’t swear because it was a live broadcast, I said ‘fuck’ quite a few times during the performance. Chris Evans’ production company ended up being fined by the TV regulators and the programme was no longer allowed to go out live. I was banned from appearing live on any programme on Channel 4. In fact, I was the only person to be named in the Channel 4 transmission guidebook. The ban was only lifted recently, when I came out of the jungle. They kept asking me to go on Channel 4 and I had to say, ‘I can’t – check your rule book,’ so in the end they lifted the ban.
In the spring, we managed to get into the States after Kurfirst had sorted out my visa situation. I don’t know for sure how he did it, and we’ll never know now, because he died a couple of years ago.
Basically, he knew someone in the American embassy and we had to pay this person $100,000. They then somehow altered my details on the system, so my previous convictions and my ban from the States didn’t show up and I could get in the country. That’s how much influence Kurfirst had. He managed to get round the ban for a couple of years, but after Black Grape, when I was no longer working with Kurfirst or the Nicholls, I couldn’t get into the States again. The first time I got back in the States after Black Grape was when we played Coachella with the Mondays in 2006. After that I spent a couple of years on probation with the embassy, and even if I go to the States now I will be sat in immigration for three hours while all the paperwork is gone through.
The only time I tried to get in while I was banned was when Jael had an accident, just after the Mondays got back together in 1999. By that time Trish had moved out there and started a new life and I got a call from her saying, ‘Jael’s had an accident and she needs plastic surgery on her face.’ I was still on the gear at the time, but the first thing I thought was, ‘My daughter’s ill, I’ve got to get over there.’ So I plugged about seven or eight grams of smack up my arse and jumped on a fucking plane. But as soon as I arrived in the States they pulled me and realized I was banned. I was still trying to blag it, explaining my daughter was ill, but the immigration officer just said, ‘If you don’t turn round and get back on that plane now, I’m going to strip-search you, and you don’t want me to do that.’ I knew that if they did put me on the glass toilet I was going to be doing years in prison, so I just shut my beak, spun around and got back on the plane. I got another year stuck on my ban for trying to get in. Thankfully, Jael was fine. She’d just fallen over ice skating and slightly cut her face – it was just typical Americans overreacting.
When we finally got into America with Black Grape we headed to New York and did a big signing session at the Virgin Megastore on Times Square. There was an in-store DJ who kept calling us ‘gangsta rave’. Whatever that is. We played Irving Plaza and I did a big photo shoot for Q. They dressed me in a tuxedo, which I wouldn’t let them have back. The journalist started whingeing that it was only hired, but I said, ‘Look, you either give it to me, or we’ll take it off you – just tell the hire place your hotel room was robbed.’
The next ni
ght we played Boston and the head of Rizla came back stage. Mr Rizla was a businessman in a suit and I was just laughing with him, saying, ‘Come on, you know what your Rizla papers are used for. Especially the king-size ones – you know no one uses those to make cigarettes!’ I think I did actually get him to admit he knew what they were used for. I don’t smoke weed any more, but when I did I never really used the king-size papers. If I wasn’t in a rush, I’d always be a traditional red-papers and three-skins man. Kids today can’t make a three-skin joint – they just can’t. It’s a lost art. They all seem to use king-size skins. Our Jake – Our Paul’s oldest son, who now plays drums in my band – smokes weed like I used to, but he can’t skin up with three skins.
We then had to drive overnight to Toronto, but the bus broke down. Me and Muzzer couldn’t be arsed waiting, so we decided to hitch. If you’ve ever hitched, you’ll know that the people who stop to pick up hitchhikers are the weirdest mother fuckers you’ll ever meet. This guy stopped to pick me and Muzz up and he just started making all these strange grunting noises and heavy breathing. It was weird as fuck. We really thought he was going to pull out a gun or turn out to be some Hannibal Lecter type.
After the tour finished we went to Los Angeles and hired a rented house in the Hollywood Hills so we could start work writing the second album with Danny Saber. One of the first tracks we finished was ‘Fat Neck’, and we decided to put that out as a single to tide us over and bridge the gap between the first and second album, because we knew the follow-up was going to be a while. Johnny Marr played guitar on ‘Fat Neck’, so he did become a member of Black Grape for a little while, although I don’t really remember the recording; that’s one of my blurry periods. We had a mate called Fat Neck, whose real name was Karl Power, and he was the lad who pulled the prank at Manchester United’s match against Bayern Munich in 2001. He’d got by the side of the pitch with a fake pass, and had a full kit on underneath his clothes. When the players lined up for the team photo, he just went and stood alongside them in the line-up. After that he also walked out to bat at Headingley, when England were playing Australia, jumped on Centre Court at Wimbledon and had a little rally before a Tim Henman match, and various other stunts. Karl was called Fat Neck simply because he had a fat neck, but the song isn’t about him.
Although it was only a year or so since the contract with the Nicholls had been signed, after we’d recorded the first album they more or less turned round to Kurfirst and said, ‘Fuck you Gary, we’ve got a contract here that says we’re managers, you’ve got conflict of interest, and we’re not listening to you any more.’ They had tour-managed the likes of Blondie, Talking Heads and the Ramones for him, but after that they never worked again for him. That was the start of the legal issues that would dog me for years.
After we got back from the States, I decided I had to get rid of the Nicholls as my managers. I had never liked them; I’d only gone with them because of Kurfirst, who was really supposed to be in charge, and now they’d fallen out with him so that set-up had kind of collapsed. I’d also heard all sorts of strange stories about what they were up to. I just didn’t like them, and I certainly didn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. If only I had known then that it would take me over twelve years to finally get rid of them.
I’m actually loath to speak about them, but unfortunately, as I couldn’t get them out of my life for so long, I suppose I need to talk about it. Basically, after I sacked them they pursued me through the courts, and the court ruled that I had to pay them £150,000 damages for getting rid of them. I should have just bitten the bullet and paid it, but at the time I was off my nut on drugs and my mental state was not great, so my reaction was, ‘You cheeky fuckers! Why should I pay you a hundred and fifty thousand damages? I didn’t want you managing me in the first place and I’m pretty sure you’ve been ripping me off.’ So I just ignored the judgement, and the letters asking for payment. Before I knew what was happening, they got an injunction out on me that froze half my income. Then, a couple of years later, after Black Grape split but before the Mondays re-formed, they managed to get another injunction that froze all my income. This went on for years and years, and in fact it’s only recently been resolved.
The Nicholls used to tell me they were connected, and Gloria was always telling me she was the niece of Henry Hill, the character that Ray Liotta plays in Goodfellas, which I’m not sure I believed. But even if it was true, I’m not sure it’s something to boast about – let’s not forget that Henry Hill, at the end of the day, is just a fucking grass. If they had threatened to send someone after me I would have said, ‘Listen, you put any fucking gangsters you want on a plane from New York to Salford to come and find me, and I can promise you … they won’t get back on that fucking plane.’
I’ve had to go to court several times to try and resolve this situation. Before one case, Gloria threatened me outside the court as we were waiting to go in to have our case heard, issuing a veiled threat against my kids. But she was so stupid she hadn’t noticed the judge standing near us. I had, so I just kept my mouth shut and pretended to start crying and, when we got into court, one of the first things the judge did was reprimand her.
I can’t tell you the amount of offers I’ve had from people over the years to take care of them. But you have to say to yourself, ‘Get real. Is it really worth it?’
I only found out quite recently that at one time the amount that I owed them had gone down to only a couple of hundred quid or something, unbeknown to me. It was out of my hands, but there was a late payment, which was not of my doing and which incurs a fine, which incurs collection fees, more solicitors’ fees, which incurs interest, which incurs more solicitors’ and receivers’ letters and more handling fees, and so on, and before you know it I owe £20,000 again, and I’m being charged so much interest it’s soon £50,000, but I could never get a straight answer about how much I owed. This went on for years and years. It’s good business for the receivers when they are handling hundreds of thousands of pounds, so they don’t want it being resolved. It was in everyone’s best interest for the court case to drag on and on, year after year. Except mine. I’m the only fucker who was not allowed to receive and who was getting screwed. The receivers, accountants and solicitors did make more money than the Nicholls. These people have no scruples and they operate just inside the law, and even then they’re bending it as much as they can. To me, those slimey cunts are far worse human beings than any criminal from the streets of Salford. At least a bank robber has the decency to put a mask or balaclava on before they go to rob you blind.
That’s as far as I want to go into that really. But that’s the reason I was unable to keep any money legally for years. Actually, that’s not true. I was allowed to earn as much money as I wanted legally; I just wasn’t allowed to keep any of it. Suffice to say I found ways and means to survive, which I don’t necessarily need to go into. If there was a film voiceover at this stage of the book it would say, ‘A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.’ Most people would hang themselves in that situation, but I dealt with it. Most people in the country would probably go bankrupt and have their house possessed if they didn’t have any money coming in for two months. Try managing without any official income for twelve years.
But back to Black Grape. At the start of that summer we were asked to do a football song for Euro 96. I thought we were being asked to do the official song, but in the end they went for ‘Three Lions’, recorded by the Lightning Seeds with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, so we released our song ourselves and it went Top 10. We wanted to call it England’s something and I came up with ‘England’s Irie’. Keith Allen had heard we were doing it and volunteered himself to help out on it. I think he thought he was the patron saint of football songs or something after he had worked with New Order on ‘World In Motion’. The rap that he does on ‘England’s Irie’ he actually wrote for me, but he wrote it in what he thought was my voice. He’d tried to write it in a Mancunian accent, wh
ich sounded ridiculous, but quite funny when he did it, so I said, ‘Why don’t you just do it, Keith?’ Joe Strummer was also on ‘England’s Irie’, although I can’t really recall the recording at Real World – it’s all a bit of a blur. I do remember all wearing kilts when we shot the video in London, which was Keith’s idea. We also did Top of the Pops and wore the kilts again, then me and Keith went out on the town wearing them afterwards. I had a really nice Armani leather jacket on with mine and some nice Patrick Cox black patent-leather shoes, so I was looking really smart. Keith was dressed pretty similar, but we didn’t have anything underneath our kilts. I ended up later that night in King’s Cross, scoring some gear. We walked into this off-licence and this tiny old Asian woman said, ‘What have you got under kilt?’ so I just flashed her. She went, ‘Oooooooh, can I have another look?’ It made her day.
Danny was based in Los Angeles, so me and Kermit went back out there for a while to write more material. We rented a really nice house in the Hollywood Hills for our base, but it quickly turned into a bit of a den of iniquity. We didn’t really get a great amount of work done; we spent more time partying, smoking crack and drinking Guinness.
We met Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode while we were out there and me and Muzzer had a bit of a crazy night with him. We went back to his house and he had two boxes on his coffee table, one full of heroin and one full of cocaine. We ended up staying all night and for some reason Dave Gahan decided he had to go out and pick something up. I can’t remember what, but it wasn’t drugs, because there was no shortage of them. I was sat in his house waiting for him and he ended up getting arrested on Sunset Strip.