The Happy Mondays have announced their plans to reform with the band’s original line-up, including backing vocalist and former X Factor finalist Rowetta.
The Manchester icons, fronted by Shaun Ryder, will be touring the UK this summer as well as playing festival shows. No dates have yet been announced but it is thought that an official statement will be released in the coming weeks.
Discovered at a Battle of the Bands at Manchester’s Hacidena in 1985, the band released the seminal albums ‘Squirrel And The G-Man’, ‘Bummed’, and ‘Thrills Pills And Bellyaches’ before disbanding in 1992. Happy Mondays have reunited twice before, most recently in 2004, but without founding members Mark Day, Paul Davis, Rowetta Satchell and Paul Ryder. Paul had sworn he wanted nothing to do with the band again when they split for a second time in 2000.
Late last year Shaun Ryder hinted that the band might reform. In an interview with The Sun, the singer confirmed he had been talking to other members of the band’s original line-up to discuss a comeback, but refused to reveal which specific people he had been sounding out.
Rumours of a Happy Mondays reunion first circulated in early December when a report claimed that they were set to reform for a full tour and documentary next year.
However, the band’s representative told NME that the group had no immediate plans to reform with their original line-up and insisted that although Ryder and his brother Paul were on better terms, it was a “bit of a leap” to suggest that the Happy Mondays had anything planned for 2012.
The band have released five albums, with their most recent effort ‘Uncle Dysfunktional’ coming out in 2007.