Shaun Ryder loves visiting Glasgow – even though he got punched the first time he was here.

He’s performed in the city with the Happy Mondays, with Black Grape and at various other events, but an early show with the Mondays left him literally stunned.

“The first time we were there we got battered off the bouncers,” he chuckles.

“We were only kids and we’d stolen New Order’s beer out their dressing room, and a couple of bouncers saw us and didn’t know we were a band on tour or anything. The next thing we knew we were getting clobbered by them. It was our baptism at Barrowlands.”

Maybe it’s not surprising, given that Shaun is one of music’s most notorious hellraisers. These days he’s a more mellow man though, relaxing with his family and admitting he’s much more about walks in the country and playing on bouncy castles than the drinks and drugs of his youth.

However music is still a major passion. He’s just released a new album, Pop Voodoo, with Black Grape, the band he established in the mid 1990s after the Happy Mondays fell apart. They had two successful albums, including the chart-topping It’s Great When You’re Straight, before going the same way as the Mondays.

Now Shaun is back with both bands, playing the upcoming Govanhill Rock Against Racism event on August 28 and then appearing at the O2 Academy on December 23 for a greatest hits tour with the Mondays.

The Govanhill event, taking place at the Queen’s Park bandstand, will mark the 40th anniversary of the Rock Against Racism movement, that saw gigs held to protest against the rise of far right groups.

“Rock Against Racism should be brilliant,” says Shaun.

“We’ve played events like that before, although I didn’t always know it was a Rock Against Racism show until someone tells me! What it can do is put the spotlight on stuff and that helps people be aware.”

Shaun and his partner in crime Paul "Kermit" Leveridge will be dropping in tracks from Pop Voodoo, an album that saw them work with the renowned producer Youth. They fired out the songs that would become Pop Voodoo in the space of just a few weeks, delivering a sleazy album of pop debauchery, with some vintage Ryder lyrics and a mix of classic influences and new ideas inspired by their producer’s record collection.

“With the Black Grape stuff it’s always a natural progression” he says.

“Our ingredients and what we like were always there in the songs. Youth had never heard of Scar Face or Bushwick Bill or the Geto Boys, so we were playing them to him and you can hear that on something like Young and Dumb. He’s got a brilliant record collection too, so he was playing us spaghetti Western music and some of his African stuff, and we were taking that in.

“Youth is like an original hippy dude, just this relaxed calming fellow. Me and Kermit still get excited when we’re writing., it’s not like we’re old farts when we’re going about things so we sometimes need that calmness.”

Away from music though, and Shaun is taking life in the slow lane these days.

“I had a family in the 90s too but I was away building a career. Now I’m not on that treadmill and I do a lot more now than I did then. I was partying a lot then and it’s so easy now because I have all this time to do it in.

“The young ones know that Dad’s in a couple of bands, or even three bands because they’ve seen the Gorillaz stuff, but I’m still just Dad to them.”

Black Grape play Govanhill Against Racism on August 28. The event runs August 27-28, £35 for a day ticket or £50 for a weekend ticket.