The return of Shaun Ryder

The Police, Stooges, the Jesus And Mary Chain, Dinosaur Jr... comebacks may be all the rage this year, but even Jesus didn't try to pull it off more than once. With his 2003 solo album and multiple Happy Mondays resurrections, let alone his tenure with Black Grape (essentially a reunion under a different name), Shaun Ryder is pushing it.

His status as iconic Hacienda hedonist of the late Eighties and early Nineties is beyond doubt, having, as one wag had it, "put the 'Mad' into Madchester and E into everything". Yet, dogged by reported heroin and crack addictions for much of his career, it's over a decade since he was on prime creative form, with the past few years having been dominated by a music industry dispute.

So news that the Mondays have a new album in the pipeline will be greeted with a mixed reaction at best - and Ryder's appearance at the recent Great Escape festival, interviewed on stage by everyone's favourite drug smuggler, Howard Marks, doesn't do a lot to allay fears.

Famed for his expletive-ridden rants, Ryder barely utters a word during either the talk itself or the question-and-answer session that follows. Glancing repeatedly at his watch and sucking desperately on cigarette and pint, the singer answers questions with monosyllables, at times managing only to mutter a sheepish, "sorry, H".

Marks helps things along with his soft, charming chuckle but it's all pretty excruciating. It can't fail to cast doubt on recent reports that Ryder, the Keef or Iggy of the E-generation, has finally decided that it really is great to be straight.

My interview is scheduled for immediately after the talk. Not convinced by Ryder's ability to string a sentence together, or claims that he has found "a new high in the form of exercise", I quietly ask Marks to join us, reflecting that things have taken a strange turn when you're turning to Mr Nice to add respectability.

However, though the Welshman's charismatic presence is welcome, it turns out that such precautions are unnecessary. Relaxed, friendly and articulate, the Ryder I interview cuts a different figure from the pathetic persona on display just minutes previously.

While there would be less charitable explanations, perhaps involving his brief disappearance into Marks's hotel room, the impression in the flesh is more innocent: Shaun Ryder, the 24-hour party person who leaves in his wake tales of drug-fuelled debauchery, is shy.

"That's the first time I've ever done anything like that," he sighs, of the public discussion, "and having the microphone in my hand but sitting down in a chair just felt alien. If they'd given us wires - well, I'd just have strangled myself - but it would have been a lot better if they'd given us radio mics." It seems odd to think that Ryder, who performs to crowds of 20,000, is nervous in front of an audience of a few hundred. There's another explanation, however: if reports are to be believed, this is the first promo he's ever done without being off his head.

"One of the reasons we were good at that game as kids," he saysof the media circus, "is that you could be mashed up and talk bullshit. I'm cool with it now because I've had a few pints of Guinness, but when you're straight and have to answer all those questions..."

He trails off, shaking his head. So is he really straight? "He's frighteningly straight," affirms Marks, wise elder of substance abuse, who earlier in the day admitted to having once licked a toad for hallucinogenic effect.

"In myself, I feel great," shrugs Ryder, and he looks it too, colour in his cheeks, and flashing his famous new set of teeth. "I think I'm actually quite alright, a few pints of Guinness and a bit of weed, but then some people might think that's absolute madness."

It's a moderate intake compared to the old days, when, according to rock legend, he walked out of a vital record company meeting "to get a KFC" - and didn't come back. The band split shortly afterwards.

If public speaking is hard without the narcotic crutch, he admits that performing on stage in a state of at least relative lucidity can be harder still. The constant recycling of old hits can feel like "cabaret", he says. Which is why it feels "absolutely great" to be performing a substantial body of new material, a decade and a half since the last Mondays album, Yes Please, and a full decade since the last Black Grape album.

The new record, Uncle Dysfunktional, is due for release in July. No promo copies are yet available; in true Mondays style, they've only just given the thing a name. Yet, at least judging by the tracks that have made it into the live set, Uncle Dysfunktional is rather good. Oozing their trademark collision of psychedelic rock, punk, funk and gospel, it proves that, even clean, they still know how to party like few contemporary bands. What really stands out, though, is Ryder's ability as a lyricist.

Factory boss Tony Wilson's famous statement that Ryder was the greatest British poet since Yeats always seemed to be going a bit far, but he is not the only commentator to have seen something wonderful in the Salford singer's lyrics.

Ryder hates the subject. He says he feels embarrassed by the comparisons to poets and to songwriters like Bob Dylan. However, he takes a lot of pride in crafting his lyrics, when one might have expected that the live show was his thing.

"When I was 22 years old," he explains, "going on the stage was a great buzz, because you're a young kid and you've got a license to get off your nut. But what I'm about is going into the studio; writing and getting the music together. If it was up to me, we'd never have done a gig."

Given Ryder's energetic performances of yore, that's hard to believe. But the comment does provide an insight into the mind of a man whose madcap antics have filled pages of rock mythology, perhaps at the expense of full artistic recognition.

So Ryder's comeback isn't far short, as his PR claims, of the return of "a national treasure". I ask him how that feels.

"I'm happy with that," he replies. "But I've always been my own national treasure."

"What about international treasure?" asks Marks.

"Well," comes the reply, face completely straight, "I have always thought of myself as European."

Welcome back, Mr Ryder. Your country - and your continent - needs you.

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