Top 66 Shaun Ryder Quotes

I was a pretty straight kid when I was 15 – there was no drunk or drugs.

If I was working in Greggs I’d still be working until I was 65.

People always ask if I miss the drugs and the partying. I’m a 58-year-old man – no, I don’t!

My melons are twisted every bleeding morning at about half past five when I’m up with the little ones!

I wouldn’t want to be 20 again.

I love rap. I love hip-hop. But something is wrong when every song, no matter what, has got a rap.

The only thing I took to Glastonbury in 1990 was a ton of tin foil!

I know a lot of people in the music business who came from working-class backgrounds and they vote Tory.

Men don’t have to grow up like women do. Women are expected to grow up with every year that passes. Men can get away with being kids until they’re at least 40 – I did.

‘Tiger King.’ They are absolutely gone with the fairies, they’re all absolutely raving out of the box, the lot of them. All those people with animals like tigers, who’ve got their own zoos in America, and one guy’s got something like 2,000 tigers in his back garden. It’s absolutely mad.

I don’t drink at home. I don’t go to the pub or clubs.

When he was young and because he was off his nut, Bez would spit when he talked.

I didn’t DJ at Liverpool’s Ruby Sky nightclub but a couple of newspapers said how great my DJ set was, and how I’ve straightened up, which is true, and how I was drinking tea. But I wasn’t there!

When I was 15 and starting my first job as a messenger boy at the post office, delivering telegrams.

I always loved messing around with words.

I’m more of a sea lion than a lion.

I don’t have a problem with saying, ‘I love you.’ I probably said it to the whole of the red-light district in Amsterdam when I was about 21.

My muscles have caved in. I go to bed at night, and next day I’ve got this pot belly where all my muscles have collapsed; so I look fat, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I never thought I’d die young. Even at the worst moments, I’ve always thought I was gonna live till I was about 127.

I don’t do politics.

I didn’t think I’d ever follow Bez on to a reality TV show. But it was brilliant for him winning ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ and he’s still my best mate.

I don’t really regret anything about my youth.

My kids that are grown up, in their 20s, they all go to festivals. They have to behave, though. When it comes to things like that it’s do as I say, not do as I do.

The first time I voted I was 53-years-old. I never got involved in it before the 2015 general election. I voted Labour.

Kids now, they’re not willing to pay for music and movies. The only thing they seem to be willing to pay for is concert tickets.

There were some miles-better bands than us. We were conscious that we weren’t the best or the smartest, but we certainly knew how to work the press.

I’m proper schizophrenic – really, really, really shy, but also a bit of a loon.

Me and my dad have exactly the same head and nose.

Wives and girlfriends really shouldn’t be anywhere near the band. Not at all. Anyone who’s listening to their girlfriend, they shouldn’t be involved. All bands have Yoko Onos, and the Mondays were no exception.

I actually stop breathing, I think it’s 80 times a night, because I have sleep apnea. I’ve had it since I was a kid.

I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, where it was still acceptable to say, ‘Well, you’re not academic, so that’s fine, you’ll do it some other way.’

If I put anything negative in me then it seems to amplify the situation. I have to think positive.

My job is to go out partying and entertaining and it’s all in an excitable environment. Doing that after night – it gets boring, you know what I mean?

The Shaun Ryder in the Happy Mondays isn’t the real Shaun Ryder. It’s a caricature. Always has been.

I don’t get involved with the music scene any more. It’s just alien to me.

I wasn’t interested in anything at school apart from making sure I had the latest fashion on my body and making sure that I had a bit of dollar.

So I’m Labour, although I couldn’t vote for Corbyn – he’d have taken too much money off me!

Adidas have been my pals for years. I might have been skint these past few years but I might also have been naked if they’d not kept sending me the freebies.

There were some great tunes played between ’67 and ’73. The Beatles were everywhere in those days, the most famous people in the world. You couldn’t avoid them if you wanted. Not that I did.

My missus does all the cleaning. She loves it.

Education is about remembering stuff and I could never remember anything, so I didn’t get an education.

I didn’t learn the alphabet until I was 28 and could only learn that when someone told me to sing it.

I’ve had a few alien encounters.

Don’t trust anyone that doesn’t like any Bowie songs.

I’ve got six kids from three mums.

I’m from a close-knit Catholic family.

I’ve not stopped drinking, I’m not a born again one of them, we just don’t have booze in the house.

When Happy Mondays came out, that was different to all the music around then.

My mam collects everything to do with everything we’ve ever done. I don’t remember us doing Happy Mondays underpants but my old girl reckons she’s got a pair.

Good music always sticks around.

I’ve enjoyed all my times, teens, twenties, thirties, forties, and now I’m enjoying my fifties.

I think I’m a really good dad.

I bike ride and swim but I don’t exercise ‘cos I like it. I do it because I’ve got a thyroid problem that can balloon my weight up to 20 stone if I stand still for five minutes.

I never talk about me mates behind their backs, you know. I might have a laugh, but whatever I say about them I’ll certainly say it to their faces.

The rest of the band tend to notice things like the door getting opened for the lead singer. And the door shuts on the rest of the band. The lead singer doesn’t notice that, but the rest of the band does.

We really wanted to be rock ‘n’ roll, so we became rock ‘n’ roll, and really good at it, but you pick up loads of layers and you completely forget who you are and what you are.

There’s all sorts of stories about me. I’ve stopped listening to them. You’ve got to laugh at them, really.

I’ve got allergies. Really badly. I’m getting worse as I’m getting older.

I’ve never cared about being indie or cool. I wanted to be on ‘Top of the Pops.’

I’m not really good with hangovers.

I’ve been asked to write my autobiography, but I’ve not been interested.

It was cycling that got me off drugs. I’d get on my bike very early in the morning and keep cycling until very late at night, day after day, until it was out of the system.

When the Happy Mondays first got famous, I just thought, ‘I deserve this, I deserve to sell records.’

We’re not the only life in the universe. We’re just not. It’s ridiculously impossible.

Believe it or not, me and Bez choose the reality TV we do wisely.

I’m on Radio 2 all the time now. Feels a bit weird but there you go.