Shaun Ryder reckons the Covid pandemic will cure the soft snowflakes he fears are ruining the world.
The Happy Mondays star says it will do woke kids good to be hammered with lockdowns and social restrictions, which will harden them to the realities of life.
In a sweary rant, dad-of-six Shaun raged: “All this stuff about Covid traumatising kids – for f***’s sake!
“All right, they’ve been locked in their houses for two years but, do you know what? When they wake up in the morning, they’re still in a house that has a bedroom and a kitchen because no-f***ing-body’s dropped a bomb on it in the middle of the night.
“There’s kids who were 18 fighting in world wars and look how tough they had it. Kids just don’t get told ‘no’ enough these days – like, ‘No, you can’t do that’. And it will help them.”
Shaun, 58, also blasts Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who moaned about their privileged lives in a telly chat with Oprah Winfrey while the world dealt with a global pandemic.
The royal couple claimed their privacy had been invaded and said the Royal Family was racist.
But Shaun says: “They’re just d**k-heads, and they just really don’t have a clue.”
The singer, currently starring on Celebrity Gogglebox with fellow Happy Mondays band member Bez, is in “complete agreement” with his old pal Noel Gallagher, 54, when it comes to woke whiners.
Last month Noel branded the spotlight-dodging ginger bloke a “f***ing woke snowflake” who should “shut up” like his mouthy brother Liam.
Shaun also doesn’t hold back when it comes to “Tory d**kheads” and the recent scandal which saw Matt Hancock quit as Health Secretary after being caught cheating on his wife.
Speaking to the Daily Star from his Manchester home, he says: “Fing hell – he’s been stupid. These cs, it’s nothing new.
“At the end of the day, I’d expect nothing else from these Tory d**kheads.
“That’s just how they are. They print the rules and just do something different, and he just got caught.”
The music legend is going back on the road with his other band Black Grape from September.
He’ll also be promoting his first solo album in almost 20 years.
Shaun says he got the idea for it after spring cleaning during Covid and finding an unreleased solo album in his archives and “down the back of the sofa”.
Called Visits From Future Technology and out on August 20, Shaun reveals the record is inspired by everything from his growing health woes with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and his belief in aliens to an afterlife and his love of psychedelic tunes.
He says: “It’s my ADHD version of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
“It’s sort of robbed the playbook – it’s got some of The Clash and we’ve stolen a bit of Prefab Sprout on another one, so it’s a bit all over the place.
“The title also just sounds like something arty, like something Brian Eno would have done.”
Shaun reveals there is “definitely” a UFO theme running through the record as he’s been a believer in aliens for years.
And his belief in extra-terrestrials was strengthened last month when US officials released an intelligence report into sightings of flying saucers. Shaun adds: “There’s things flying about. The governments of the world who have known this s**t for years are coming out with this sort of information and sort of bringing it in to the public.”
Shaun also believes humanity was “designed” by a force impossible to comprehend – and that we live on after death as bursts of energy.
He says the laws of physics mean: “You can’t be created and you can’t be destroyed in the conventional way.
“As human beings, we’re like an explosion in a junkyard and then they’re expecting that explosion to stay together and be no bother.
“We have been designed. The new Einsteins are coming out and saying we are in a parallel universe.
“There’s all sorts of stuff going on – I think it’s probably bigger, more far out and unexplainable than we’re capable of thinking about. We are a happy accident really. We can’t be created or destroyed – that’s a fact. We’re just lucky enough not to be dead.”
The singer admits his mortality is constantly on his mind because since hitting 50, he has suffered a string of severe health issues.
Sean previously had a hip replacement and has been diagnosed with ADHD and an underactive thyroid – which he blames for making his hair fall out and his weight balloon.
But he insists his creaking body isn’t down to drug binges and believes he has had ADHD since childhood. The exact causes of the condition are not known.
Shaun adds: “People say: ‘Oh, it’s because you took drugs’.
“But ever since I was a little kid, I’ve felt as if my underpants were stuck up my arsehole and my underpants were twisting around my bell**d – that’s how uneasy I’ve always felt.
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“When I took heroin, it made me feel normal. I wouldn’t want anyone to go out there and take heroin.
“I luckily didn’t lose the use of my arms and legs, but it just made me feel normal.”
Black Grape tickets are on sale now and Shaun’s album Visions From Future Technology can be pre-ordered at shaunryder.tmstor.es.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk