Black Grape

With Black Grape, Shaun Ryder broadens the psychedelic dance-rock approach of his prior group the Happy Mondays, strengthening their melodic instincts while layering in a stronger hip-hop edge via rapper Kermit. These changes positioned the band’s 1995 debut It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah comfortably within the Brit-pop moment, yielding Top Ten singles “Reverend Black Grape,” “In the Name of the Father,” and “Fat Neck.” The group’s rapid disintegration aligned with Brit-pop’s commercial decline, as second album Stupid Stupid Stupid dropped down the charts in 1998 before the band dissolved shortly afterward. Ryder and Kermit reactivated Black Grape during the mid-2010s, issuing Pop Voodoo in 2017; the project proved lasting, with a tour marking the 25th anniversary of the debut album followed by the release of Orange Head in 2023.

After Yes Please! closed out the original run of the Happy Mondays, vocalist Shaun Ryder and dancer Bez established Black Grape in 1993. They brought in Paul “Kermit” Leveridge and drummer Ged Lynch from the Ruthless Rap Assassins along with ex-Paris Angels guitarist Wags, and the new members began cutting demos within weeks of the Happy Mondays’ collapse. During the sessions for It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah, Ryder added several players, notably producer and bassist Danny Saber, keyboardist and producer Stephen Lironi, and guitarist Gary Gannon, formerly of the Bluebells and the Smiths. The debut was tracked across seven weeks spanning late 1994 and early 1995; once finished, the band secured a deal with Radioactive Records. Lead single “Reverend Black Grape” reached the Top Ten immediately upon release, and the full album It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah arrived in August 1995, debuting at number one on the U.K. charts.

Subsequent singles “In the Name of the Father” and “Kelly’s Heroes” also landed inside the Top 20 before the year ended. Late in 1995 Kermit contracted severe septicemia from contaminated water consumed in Mexico; although the illness nearly proved fatal, with portions of his heart and liver deteriorating, he had recovered by spring 1996. Black Grape prepared to enter the United States early that year but were initially refused entry because of prior drug convictions; after several months the passports were cleared and the band was permitted to tour. Kermit’s health kept him off the road, so Psycho filled the role and remained with the group once the dates concluded. Before the U.S. trek began, Bez departed over financial disputes with the label.

Black Grape resurfaced in May 1996 with “Fat Neck,” which climbed into the Top Ten and featured former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr; a month later the football-themed “England’s Irie,” cut with Joe Strummer, also reached the Top Ten. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid appeared in 1997. The supporting tour unraveled in 1998 when Ryder dismissed Kermit and then disbanded the remaining lineup. Ryder rejoined a reconstituted Happy Mondays in 1999 and spent the following decade alternating between solo work and Mondays reunions. He, Kermit, and Danny Saber played one reunion show as Black Grape in April 2010, but a full return occurred only in 2015 with a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah, accompanied by a deluxe reissue of the album. The band gradually resumed activity, releasing the single “We Are England” in 2016 and following with Pop Voodoo in August 2017, preceded by “Everything You Know Is Wrong”; the album reached number 15 on the U.K. charts.

A 25th-anniversary tour for It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah took place in 2021, delayed a year by the COVID-19 pandemic. Once it concluded, Ryder and Kermit finished Orange Head, issued in 2023 and featuring the singles “Pimp Wars” and “Milk.”