Back when Madchester was booming and Factory Records was the greatest independent record company in the world, the Happy Mondays embarked on their fourth record.

The sessions for Yes Please, which was recorded in the Bahamas, have since gone into the annals of rock debauchery. Shaun Ryder and his band partied hard and worked as little as possible, helping bring about the collapse of Tony Wilson's legendary label.

Now the Happy Mondays have returned to the studio for their first album of new songs in 14 years.

"We were mental kids back then,"

says Ryder. "There were six band members with six huge egos. This time was a lot more fun, actually.

"We really wanted to record back then but what was also important was partying and caning it, and the record just became far less important."

The Happy Mondays reformed in 2004 around the basic trio of Ryder, drummer Gaz Whelan and the freaky dancer himself, Bez.

This is the first time they have been able to get into the studio for any length of time, having spent many years fighting court battles with Ryder's brother Paul, who left the band after an abortive reunion in 1999.

"We have been trying to do this for years," says Ryder. "My brother kept shoving s*** into court, he kept putting injunctions on to stuff.

"I don't talk to him at all, you wouldn't talk to him if you had a brother who had done what he has done to me."

After a brief stint with the band Black Grape, Ryder is back with the two friends he has known since his teens.

Ryder says: "You don't choose your family and you don't pick your friends.

"Bez and Gaz are like family, we have had our ups and downs but we have stuck together."

He admits Bez has slowed down a little on stage but anyone fearing a more mature and grown-up Happy Mondays won't be disappointed with the results from the album sessions.

"I can't write love songs, I can't be serious, you get what you get," says Ryder. "It is how I write songs, it is my warped sense of humour. I write comic book songs, that's all I do. My songs have always been a bit Spinal Tap."

The show on the Palace Pier, which is launching T-Mobile's series of street gigs during The Great Escape Festival, is part of a series of warm-up gigs to launch the new album's songs on an unsuspecting audience.

And it is another chapter in the long and twisted saga of the Happy Mondays.

"I never thought the Mondays would last five minutes," says Shaun. "But at the same time, I thought we would go on for ever.

"It's just great to be playing the new songs now we have got the legal stuff out at the way."

  • Starts 10pm, Sold out.