Paul Ryder with Gary “Gaz” Whelan. Still from “Happy Mondays - Talking Venues (Discover Live Interview),” via Youtube.
Paul Ryder, the Salford-born bassist who helped define the “baggy” sound of the 1980s Madchester scene with his band Happy Mondays, has died at 58. His passing was announced in a post to the beloved group’s Facebook page Friday morning. No cause of death has been given.
“The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning,” the statement reads. “A true pioneer and legend. He will be forever missed.”
Ryder co-founded Happy Mondays with his brother Shaun (the group’s frontman), drummer Gary “Gaz” Whelan, keyboardist Paul Davis, and guitarist Mark Day, in 1980. Mark “Bez” Berry would later join as a percussionist, dancer, and de facto hype man. Endlessly goofy and famously unruly, they helped ring in a distinctly British style that blended disco, funk, and Krautrock with house music. On hit singles such as “Step On,” “Kinky Afro,” and “24 Hour Party People,” Ryder’s bouncy bass groove sits near the front of the mix, driving the action.
Happy Mondays’ commercial peak came in the late ’80s and early ’90s with Bummed (’88), Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches (’90), and Yes Please! (the latter two of which featured Manchester R&B singer Rowetta on backing vocals). By the end of this run, however, the band was crumbling due to infighting and addiction issues. They disbanded for the first time in 1993, and Ryder called it quits again in 2001 after a brief reunion that produced a fully reimagined, X-rated 1999 cover of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town.”
“I had to walk away from the Mondays a second time,” he later told Salford Star Magazine, citing a feud with his brother. “Otherwise I would have ended up killing myself… or killing him.” Away from the group, he formed his own band (Big Arm) and DJed, at one point supporting Tom Tom Club on tour. He would rejoin Happy Mondays for its fourth (ongoing) iteration in 2012.
Read the band’s full statement on Ryder’s death and listen to a playlist of Happy Mondays essentials, courtesy of The FADER’s Anthony Holland, below.