Happy Mondays have spoken to NME about the scrapped Shaun Ryder biopic and plans to get “back at it” with music in 2025. Watch our interview below.
Before their “hysterical” appearance with Rita Ora during the ceremony went viral, Ryder and Bez from the indie icons caught up with NME on the red carpet of the MTV EMAs on Sunday (November 10) – held at the Co-Op Live arena in the band’s native Manchester.
Asked about how 2024 had been for the Mondays, Ryder replied: “Quiet, because we kind of knocked it on the head in 2024. We went out doing Black Grape and Mantra Of The Cosmos, so in 2025 we’ll be back at it.”
Bez added: “We’re getting the band back together again…again!”
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It was recently announced that the band would be joining James on the Colchester date of their huge summer 2025 UK tour, and now fans are expecting news a full tour to come and perhaps the follow-up to 2007’s ‘Uncle Dysfunktional’. However, it seems that the long-mooted Shaun Ryder biopic is off the table – for now at least.
In 2013, ITV announced it was planning to serialise the Happy Mondays frontman’s autobiography Twisting My Melon. Eventually, Jack O’Connell (Skins) was announced as the lead actor in 2019. The film is written by Matt Greenhalgh, who also wrote the script for the Ian Curtis biopic Control, John Lennon‘s origin story Nowhere Boy, and Amy Winehouse‘s Back to Black.
Back in January, it was revealed that the film had been held up by a creative dispute. Asked about the latest on the film at the EMAs, Ryder told us: “That got put aside ages ago when we pulled out of the American money.”
Bez, Rita Ora and Shaun Ryder during the MTV EMAs 2024. CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
While revelling in the night, the pair admitted that they “don’t really go out anymore” in Manchester. “I just sit at home in my bedroom, tied up, watching telly,” Ryder told NME. “[Bez] is out in Wales with his farm animals. I believe it’s still really good.”
However, you’ll find Bez at Glastonbury every year – after he made some “really good” discoveries at the festival back in June.
“I saw a few really good bands at Glastonbury,” he said. “Fontaines [D.C.], this fucking brilliant punk band too who I can’t remember the name of. I saw Fat White Family as well and they were really good.”
And with the end of 2024 fast-approaching, do Ryder and Bez have any new year’s resolutions in mind?
“I always break mine when I get to new year, they’re a waste of time,” said Ryder. “I might learn to breakdance in the new year.”
“What, break your hip?” asked Bez.
Ryder replied: “Something like that, yeah.”
Filming for Twisting My Melon was originally scheduled to start in Manchester in 2020. Other actors speculated to participate include Jason Isaacs, who would play Ryder’s father, Maxine Peake, who would act as his mother Linda, and Holliday Grainger as Shaun’s girlfriend.
Christian Bale has previously spoken of his love for Ryder, even admitting he’s the musician he’d love to play the most in a movie.
“He was always such an interesting figure,” he told NME. “I grew up loving the Happy Mondays, so yeah, it’d be a lot of fun to play.”
In other news, Ryder confessed earlier this year that he’d be “dead” if he hadn’t “blown” his chance at Hollywood fame.
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