HAPPY MONDAYS

Happy Mondays were signed to Factory Records, and seen as drug-munching seers of the northern indie dance crossover in the late 1980s when their songs Wrote For Luck and Hallelujah were partly responsible for 'Madchester'.

Formed in Salford in 1980, the band's original line-up was singer, songwriter, television personality and author Shaun Ryder (born August 23, 1962) his brother, bassist Paul Ryder (born April 24, 1964), guitarist Mark Day, keyboardist Paul Davis, drummer Gary Whelan, dancer and percussionist Mark ‘Bez’ Berry (born April 18, 1964) and vocalist Rowetta who joined the band in 1990.

Happy Mondays were something of a bunch of loose cannons, and although they scored big with the 1990 album Pills Thrills and Bellyaches, the band ended up in disarray in 1993 after recording the follow-up Yes Please! in Barbados and getting caught up in drugs binges and car crashes. The whole episode ended up bankrupting Factory in the process.

Happy Mondays have since reformed on a number of occasions, with Shaun also enjoying further success with Black Grape.