He’s the wild man of rock, a guy who makes Mick and Keith look like wannabes and a star whose appetite for excess defies his very existence. We catch up with the legend that is Shaun Ryder ahead of his one-man show, the release of his new book and hear how he’s embracing life in his sixties.

As the frontman of The Happy Mondays and Black Grape, he was the man who redefined the sex ’n’ drugs and rock ’n’ roll lifestyle during the halcyon age of Madchester.

And now on the eve of his new one man show across the country, Shaun Ryder is spilling the beans, the secrets and the celebrity juice on a life in the fast lane that nearly came crashing down on more than one occasion.

Ryder is touring in support of his new book: Happy Mondays – and Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays and fans can look forward to a carnival of excess, wild tales, and improbable truths, as they enjoy the talents of a unique rock ‘n’ roll star dubbed Britpop’s answer to WB Yeats.

As we catch up with Shaun it’s clear he’s on good form and the man who carved out a dangerous double act with his wayward sidekick Bez is embracing all that comes his way and is clearly grateful to be still pushing his melons 44 years after first breaking onto the music scene.

“Life begins at 60. It used to be 40, but not anymore,” he says, “I’m just grateful to be still here considering the life I’ve led and it’s fair to say I’ve grown up….a bit!

“There used to be a time when I was just the mad rocker who went onto TV shows off my head on heroin. I’m still having great fun in the spotlight, whether that’s with the Happy Mondays, Black Grape, or as a solo performer, but these days you’re just as likely to find me blowing off the cobwebs on a bike ride, watching telly with my best mate Bez, or catching up on Corrie in my slippers.

“My new book and tour is an epic journey from Madchester to Mastermind, Brazil to Barbados, Spanish sunburn to the sewers of Salford. I’ll tell you some truths which are so improbable you’ll know they can’t possibly have been made up.”

According to Wikipedia, Ryder is an English singer, songwriter and poet – a leading figure in the Manchester cultural scene of the late 1980s and 1990s but as anybody who followed the Manchester music scene during that time knows, there’s a lot more to his long and winding story than that.

Talking about his book he says: “Let me tell you one thing right from the outset, this book isn’t one to read soothingly to your grandkids at bedtime. It’s a boys’ own adventure which is about as far removed from Enid Blyton as you can get.

“So if you’re faint-hearted or easily offended, I’d suggest you jog on, make yourself a milky cup of cocoa, and binge the latest series of Antiques Roadshow instead.

“Because I’ll be visiting Caribbean crack dens, encountering extra-terrestrials, and leading you through my hedonistic, hectic and sometimes hell-raising life in the music and entertainment business.

“This is me at my most honest; nothing is off the table – so expect the unexpected.

“I might not have any hair, eyebrows or eyelashes these days. I might be on so many pills that I rattle when I walk. But I’m still brimming with energy and excitement for whatever’s coming next.

“This is my journey, my memories, my views… presented in my own unfiltered words.”

It sounds wild. And it is.

So does he miss those hedonistic old days?

“They were brilliant times that I certainly wouldn’t have missed for the world,” he says, “But no I don’t. That was then, and this is now. I’ve been off the drugs for more than 10 years now, and I’ve never been happier.

“A lot of my pals who refused to change are either dead or locked up in prison. Never mind twisting your melons, there are places I’ve been and things I’ve seen that will completely blow your mind.”

Happy Mondays… covers tomato seeds and slaves, growing up and ADHD, forming The Mondays and Zippy and Bungle. There’s stuff about egos and getting noticed, cycling and Christian Bale, WB Yates and Celebrity Mastermind.

Growing up on a Salford council estate in the 60s, Shaun was a one-off from the start and his tough upbringing shaped the man he became.

He recalled: “I aways got up to no good as a kid, and I lost count of the number of times the cops would come to our house.

“My dad was a proper old-school kind of a bloke, and I remember coming home from school one day to see the cops had knocked on the front door.

“I’m walking up towards the house, with my Adidas bag, and I see my dad on the front doorstep talking to them – wearing nothing but his acrylic purple Y-fronts with swirls on them.

“He saw me coming up the road and just legged it out of the house and chased after me down the road.

“He gave me a good leathering… then had to walk all the way back through the estate in nothing but those purple undies.”

Music was always around his family. His dad played banjo in the Irish clubs while Shaun immersed himself in the Rolling Stones and he says if it hadn’t of been for music he’d have likely ended up dead long before he’d reached his teens.

He said: “If I’m honest, I didn’t learn anything really after the fourth year of junior school and by the time I was 13 I wasn’t really going into school at all and was soon slipping into a world of drugs.

“Me being ADHD, and not knowing back then that I was, meant that taking heroin for the first time made me feel what I can only describe as normal.”

In 1980, aged 18, Shaun formed Happy Mondays and was a pivotal player as the Madchester scene swept the world.

Looking back he said: “We were a massive success. We’d headlined the Friday night at Glastonbury in 1990, and that same year Paul McCartney told NME that we reminded them of The Beatles in their ‘Strawberry Fields phase’.

“Things were great but the egos wanted it all and that’s why we split up. Everyone was doing drugs, everyone was doing mad things, so for anyone to blame me and Bez for what happened is in my opinion completely ridiculous.

“When you think about it, after the Mondays split up in early 1994, you didn’t hear anything from any other members of the band and none of them really did anything until we brought the original band back in 2010.

“They shafted themselves and when we reformed we hoped that lessons from the past might have been learned, but within a year the same stuff started happening again. They hadn’t learned a thing from first time round. If anything, this time it was even uglier.”

But behind it all, and the reason he says he is still here today, is a remarkably good woman: Joanne Ryder, Shaun’s wife.

He said: “My wife Joanne is an amazing woman. I’ve been with her since 2004, and she’s definitely saved my life.

“She recognised straight away when we got together that I’d got some sort of condition. Her background is working as a teaching assistant with special needs children, which probably helped. But I also like the fact that she is someone who takes no nonsense.

“I met her first at the Hacienda years and years earlier when she was a teenager – she binned me then though, because the band was just starting to take off and I think she thought I’d just be jetting off everywhere and sleeping around all over the place.

“She didn’t want to risk me taking it out of her, but we stayed in each other’s circles though and I always had feelings for her and when I hit 40, she reeled me back in.”

As for his show, there’s no doubting it’ll be a night of wild tales and a trip down memory lane that will be well worth taking.

Strap yourselves in and say Hallelujah for Shaun.

Shaun will be performing at Ilkley Kings Hall on 20th September and Leeds City Varieties on 13th November