Watch Watership Down on Acid with Bez: Shawn Ryder Releases New Memoir 24 Hour Party Person | books

Happy Mondays and Black Grape frontman Shaun Ryder has published a new memoir and will personally sign each copy.

“I’ve written more books now, I think, that are kind of Shakespearean,” Ryder said, announcing the release of 24 Hour Party Person.

In the book, Ryder goes from the fun Monday era – where he recalls taking cocaine for the first time in New York while on tour – to appearing on Celebrity Gogglebox alongside bandmate Bez. “Dodging bullets in Jamaica, surviving a gunpoint ordeal in New York, and escaping kidnapping in Amsterdam” are among the stories that will appear in the memoir, according to publisher A Way With Media.

“I laughed a lot while writing my first book, and people loved it, so when the opportunity came up to write another one, I thought why not,” Ryder said. “I have more crazy stories to tell.”

In the book, Ryder writes about “the studio sessions, the feuds, the jokers, and the making of era-defining albums,” as well as the importance of family, according to the publisher.

Ryder’s previous books include How to Be a Rock Star and Twisting My Melon. One of the crazy tales told in the final book involves watching Watership Down with Bez in the 1970s while on acid. “I’m telling you, when you’re on an acid trip, this hallucinogenic story about rabbits trying to escape destruction from human bulldozers is definitely not the damn movie to watch.”

Ryder founded Black Grape in 1993, shortly after Happy Mondays disbanded (although they went on to reform several times). Black Grape’s most recent album, Orange Head, was released in 2024.

Ryder has been considered a national treasure since finishing second on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! He succeeded Stacey Solomon in 2010. In a 2021 interview with The Guardian, he said that being on TV meant young people would discover his music: “That’s how you attract fans now. A kid sees us on TV and the next moment they stub their thumb and download their whole back catalog and look at pictures of when you were 18.”

When Ryder was asked about the “National Treasure” title in a 2024 interview with The Guardian, he said: “I’ll take it. Better than being called crazy or crazy, right?”