Gabriella Ferlita
Happy Mondays star Paul Ryder has suddenly died at age 58.
The bassist and brother of frontman Shaun Ryder passed away this morning, just hours before the band were scheduled to perform at Kubix Festival in Sunderland.
The band posted a statement on Facebook this afternoon which read: "The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning.
"A true pioneer and legend. He will be forever missed.
"We thank you for respecting the privacy of all concerned at this time.
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"Long live his funk," they concluded.
The circumstances around his death are not currently known.
More to follow...
The pair originally founded The Happy Mondays in 1980, and are the brains behind the hit songs Step On and Loose Fit.
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The Manchester musician previously announced that he was starting to write an autobiography.
He told Louder Than War in a 2019 interview: “I’ve never been interested or wanted to write one before, been asked a few times and always said no. But the time's right for me to do it.
“It’s hard work writing it, but I’m lovin’ it. It’s going great, I’m surprising myself.. it’s like a black comedy," he told the publication.
However, as of 2022, it sadly does not seem that the music legend was able to get his biography published prior to his death.
Elsewhere, his brother previously claimed in an autobiography that fans offer him drugs when he's out shopping.
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Shaun, 59, revealed the story in his 2021 autobiography Shaun Ryder: How to Be a Rock Star.
Shaun wrote: "I still get people coming up to me in Asda or TK Maxx offering me a line, for f***'s sake. 'I'm nearly 60, mate, and you really think I want to do a line in TK Maxx on a Tuesday afternoon?'."
'Still' suggests encounters with the offer of payment-free powder are not strange to Shaun, who was also lead singer of the band Black Grape.
He wrote: "Sometimes I'll just laugh, sometimes it winds me up - it depends what mood I'm in."