(Credits: Far Out / Happy Mondays / Thiago Piccoli)
Wed 8 October 2025 8:00, UK
If there are two people in the world who represent the polar opposite personalities of one another, it might well be Donovan and Shaun Ryder.
One was the epitome of hippie spirit and flower power back in his heyday; the other was infused with any kind of substance he could find. Back in the 1980s, that made for a rather intoxicating mix of musical heroism and large bravado on account of both sides – but also a bizarre plot to kidnap Donovan, which ultimately unfurled before it even had the chance to begin.
Well, to be fair, ‘kidnap’ may be a slightly strong way of putting it. They just wanted to take Donovan on a night out in Manchester, but had a slightly suspicious way of doing it. Of course, the calm presence of the folkish god was not to be fooled by this slightly terrifying invite, which he politely declined and went on his ways, all while knowing that he could have narrowly missed being involved in the next crime plot of one of the Happy Mondays’ many escapades.
The man himself tells the story best. “My two daughters fell in love with Shaun and Paul Ryder of the Happy Mondays,” he recalled in a recent interview with Louder Sound. Subsequently, the call to join the band on one of their wild nights perhaps might have initially appealed to him for the family credit it would garner, before he stopped to think twice about the implications.
Recalling the time that the band attempted to intercept him at the end of one of his own shows, Donovan continued by remembering the fateful words that his step-son and roadie, Julien, told him. “After the show, he said, ‘There’s somebody from Manchester at the back door with a van.’ I said, ‘What do they want?’ Julian said, ‘They want to capture you and take you to the Hacienda’. This is the 80s. I said, ‘Why?’. ‘They’re not telling’. I said, ‘Some other day.’”
Clearly Donovan is a man with incredible prescience, as he could already envision the chaos that would ensue if he had been captured and taken to the very beating heart of the ‘Madchester’ scene. It certainly wouldn’t do his image any good as a serious and serene artist, let alone as a father to children. But in the typical mind of the Happy Mondays, they had a ploy for getting their own back.
Sometime later, the band came to visit – or more like ambush – Donovan in his hotel room one night, where Ryder announced that he had nicked the melody of the former’s song ‘Sunshine Superman’ and would refuse to pay him any royalties for it. Charming. Meanwhile, of course, Bez was for some reason attempting to unscrew the door handle and another member of the band thought he would get away with taking a picture from the wall.
Thankfully, Donovan managed to stop them in their tracks once again – like some sort of recurring guardian angel, swooping in just before everything went completely pear-shaped. They might’ve come from totally different walks of life, but there was clearly a solid bit of mutual respect there. One liked to stick to the rules, while the other lived to tear them up.
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