Twisting My Melon (44 page)

You’ve got to have a tough skin in this game, when all sorts are written about you in the papers and everyone has made their own mind up about you, from what they’ve perceived from some caricature of who you really are. I’m in a much stronger, more secure place emotionally now. I’m with someone I’m absolutely in love with, my wife Joanne, who will be there no matter what. I live a different, more relaxed life now. I get up with my two little girls in the morning and throw them in the swimming pool and have a bit of a splash about with them. If I’m not working, I’m happy just staying in and chilling out with the family most nights. I watch a lot of films and documentaries on things like the Discovery Channel.

Hopefully me and Our Paul are moving in the right direction, too. He lives in Los Angeles now and I saw him recently at my Uncle Tom’s funeral and, though we didn’t sit down and chat, we nodded at each other and said, ‘Y’all right?’, which is progress for us.

I wish I could see more of Jael and Coco, but it’s difficult as one lives in New York and the other lives in Majorca.

I’m not ashamed of anything that’s happened in my past, but there are parts of it I’d rather not celebrate. I don’t have any real regrets, though. I wanted to be in a band, make good music, see the world and avoid getting a proper job. I did all four and had a fucking ball doing it. It was a rollercoaster ride, but that’s what life has always been like for me – a few years of pure double-good times, followed by a few years of pure hard times. A cycle of ecstasy and desperation. Hopefully I’ve broken that cycle now. I’m not my own worst enemy any more. I’m not running from anything or using heroin to mask any pain. I
know
who I am, and I’m still pretty much the same kid I was at fifteen; I’ve just chilled out and grown up. I don’t have a chip on my shoulder, and I don’t really bear grudges.

And remember that the Shaun Ryder in the public eye is a caricature. He always was. I just played up to that image for a long time. When it came to sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, the drugs came first a lot of the time. But the sex and rock ’n’ roll were right up there. I did take all those drugs, and had a lot of sex, but we also made some great records. I’ve never been shy of acting up, especially in my twenties and thirties. But once you get into your forties, you need to grow up. There’s nothing wrong with having a pint and getting off your shed now and again when you’re younger. But if you’re acting the same as you were when you were twenty when you’re reaching fifty, there’s something a bit sad about you. I still get people coming up to me in Asda or TK Maxx offering me a line. Sometimes I’ll just laugh, sometimes it winds me up – it just depends what mood I’m in. If people can’t see more to me than that caricature, then the joke’s on them. I might be poorly educated in an academic sense, but I’m sharper and more astute than most people I meet, and if I was half as thick as some journalists or
24 Hour Party People
made me appear, I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.

Like I said at the beginning of the book, people still come up to me and say, ‘Do you feel lucky that you’re still alive?’ No, I don’t. I’m glad I came out the other side, but I never saw it as life-threatening. If you think you’re going to die, you will, and if you think you’re going to live, you’ll live. I just realized that breaking out of that lifestyle and the cycle I was in was going to be the difference between having a shit life and a good life. I’ve had the best times of my life on drugs and I’ve had the worst times of my life on drugs. When the band was starting to take off, the Haçienda was at its peak and we were running it
from
our little corner, there was nowhere I would rather have been in the world. When I was living in an unfurnished house in Burnley, on my arse, doing smack, I would rather have been anywhere else in the world.

But I never thought I was going to die, and I certainly don’t now.

I’ve always lived for the moment, not the memories. I’m not sure exactly how I got out the other side. It took me a while, and I don’t remember half of it. But I knew I would get here eventually.

I feel pretty lucky. I feel all right. In fact, I feel better than I have for years.

I feel alive.