Paul Ryder

Paul's brother Shaun Ryder, the group's lead singer, announced the bassist's death Friday on social media. No cause of death was provided. “The Ryder family and ...

“The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning,” the band wrote. “A true pioneer and legend. No cause of death was provided.

Paul Ryder, longtime bassist for the “Madchester” band Happy Mondays, has died at the age of 58, his brother confirmed on social media.

“The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning,” the band said in a statement. They reunited in 1999, scoring a minor comeback hit with their cover of Thin Lizzy’s ‘The Boys are Back in Town’, but Paul left the group in 2001. The Ryder brothers formed the Happy Mondays in 1980 along with Gary Whelan, Paul Davis, and Mark Day. Mark “Bez” Berry later joined the band on tambourine and percussion, and their father Derek became the band’s tour manager.

Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess has led tributes to Happy Mondays star Paul Ryder after his death aged 58. The Salford-raised bass player and Happy Mondays ...

I knew him through the Mondays @officials and later his talented sons went to my son’s school. Love to all his families and loved ones. And they needed him back so much, he gave them soul & passion. Love ya longtime Pabs,” he said on Twitter. When they got back together I remember seeing them play & he looked so happy. He wrote: “Sending much love to the Happy Mondays family – Paul Ryder was a pioneer and an inspiration to all of us that followed.

Legendary bassist and founding member of Salford's Happy Mondays, Paul Ryder, has passed away unexpectedly before a show in Sunderland.

You can change your mind at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email you receive from us. Paul Ryder was part of the iconic Manchester band through most of its existence. Mixmag will use the information you provide to send you the Mixmag newsletter using Mailchimp as our marketing platform.

The brother of frontman Shaun Ryder helped define the sound of “baggy” with the Salford group.

In a statement, the band said, “The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning. Ryder co-founded the Happy Mondays in 1980 with his brother Paul and Gary Whelan, Paul Davis, and Mark Day, with Mark “Bez” Berry later joining on tambourine and percussion. The famously hedonistic group peaked in the late ’80s, when its blend of dance and psychedelic rock—dubbed “baggy”—aligned with the rave movement and fed into the Madchester scene.

Ryder's propulsive, fluid low-end work was an integral part of the band's sound, and that of the hugely influential Madchester scene as a whole.

"I kind of liked it all," Ryder (then out of the band) said (opens in new tab) of his time with Happy Mondays in 2011. It’s the perfect job for me – or should I say a well-paid hobby, not actually work." "Long live his funk."

The band signed with local institution Factory Records and released their debut EP Forty Five in 1985. Velvet Underground legend John Cale produced their first ...

Over their various reunions, Happy Mondays’ lineup has shifted a number of times, but Paul Ryder and his brother Shaun remained fixtures. Both Ryder brothers were founding members of the Happy Mondays; Paul was a teenager when the band got started in 1983. He also played DJ sets and acted in a few movies. Paul Ryder and his older brother, Happy Mondays frontman Shaun, grew up in Manchester, sons of a postman and a nurse. In the UK, it went platinum and sent two singles, “Step On” and “Kinky Afro,” into the top five; Happy Mondays headlined one night of Glastonbury that year. Paul Ryder, bassist for Madchester greats Happy Mondays, has died.

The bass guitarist, who has died aged 58, anchored the Madchester band and gave the listener something to latch on to amid a swirl of psychedelia and rave.

In a outfit whose musicianship was occasionally called into question – Shaun claimed that former Smiths bassist Andy Rourke had attempted to form a band with the Mondays’ keyboard player Paul Davis, giving up when he realised “that lad can’t play a note” – Paul’s bass provided an anchor, something the listener could latch on to amid the confusion. One story has Paul Ryder so lackadaisical in his approach during the album sessions that he let Osbourne play bass instead of him, but his fingerprints were all over the album’s best known tracks. On their second and best album, 1988’s Bummed, Happy Mondays’ sound has been turned into an extraordinary, murky, echoing swirl by producer Martin Hannett. It seems to replicate the queasy sensation of having overindulged in everything to the point where you’re seeing double and minutes away from passing out. Over the top of it all, Ryder tunelessly bellowed lyrics that, on the rare occasions you could work what they meant, seemed to speak of a life on society’s margins, filled with drugs and petty crime: “Everyone on this stagecoach likes robbing and bashing … smoking miles and miles of hash, that’s sweet,” goes the song Olive Oil. The prevalent trends variously involved the earnest leftwing politicking exemplified by the Housemartins, or low-rent recreations of the Byrds or the Buzzcocks. Frontman Shaun Ryder memorably described their sound as “funkadelic being eaten by a giant sandwich … northern soul … punk rock … Hendrix … fuckin’ Captain Beefheart, and a load of drugs on top of that”. You might reasonably have added the krautrock of experimental rock band Can into that list of influences. Happy Mondays didn’t look the way an indie band was supposed to look in 1986, an era when a charity shop take on the mid-60s held sartorial sway over British alternative rock.