Formed in 1985, this motley bunch of ravers were the unlikely progenitors of Britpop, having huge hits with 'Step On' and 'Kinky Afro' at the apex of the Madchester scene. They called it a day as far back as 1992, whereupon frontman and hardcore drug addict Shaun Ryder formed Black Grape, itself a similarly unlikely success story which also ended in drug-addled acrimony. Band members left, Bez went on to win Celebrity Big Brother while the film 24-Hour Party People spawned another, albeit nostalgic, hit for a band that had come to define a small moment in British history.

The moment when ecstasy took over a nation.

Looking out the window of an upstairs pub in Temple Bar, Shaun Ryder and Gary 'Gaz' Whelan are watching junkies score on the side of the street. "There are two kids circling over there and they keep going into the phone box, " says the newly abstinent Shaun, clearly excited at the everyday drama unfolding from the comfort of his chair. "There's a kid with a blue tracky on waiting for him. . . this is the c**t who's got the gear. . . ."

Now I'm looking out the window, trying to spot the junk dealer.

Trying to hang out with my new buddies. "We thought the guy in the blue tracksuit was you, actually, " says Gaz, looking at me.

They're twisting my melons, man.

Call the cops.

The boys order a Guinness each.

A half pint each, mind. It's just past noon and Gaz has to drive home from Manchester airport later this evening. Shaun slags him off for being old. Gaz pretends to try to remember how old he is. He reckons he's 40. Shaun says he's 41.

Oh yeah, probably 41.

The lads are in Dublin to promote Uncle Dysfunktional, the Mondays' first album since 1992. A long time. "It feels like 15 months, not 15 years, " says Shaun. "It's bizarre doing press but recording is great."

So why did you record an album then, after such a long time? "Shall we say it again, Gaz?" says Shaun reluctantly. Gaz nods in affirmation. The pair of them agree to explain the horrific morass of legal wrangles and torn up contracts that could have broken stronger characters than Shaun Ryder, Gaz Whelan and Mark 'Bez' Berry, the three surviving members of the original Happy Mondays lineup.

"We got back together to do some shows in 1999, " says Shaun, "and we had 16 court cases ongoing over the Mondays and it's taken till now for us to get all of them out of the way so we can make another album."

Gaz: "This time last year the album was finished."

It must be quite frustrating to have to sit on the new material.

"You get used to it after 15 years, " says Shaun. Gaz agrees.

But what were the court cases about? "Oh God, " says Shaun, as if I was about to show him an entire album of my holiday photographs.

"The internet happened, " says Gaz. "People were selling our tickets, setting up companies in our name, registering our name, trade-marking our name. Loads of stuff that we never bothered doing. Even his name is gone, " he says, pointing to Shaun, who's still looking out the window at the moochers and lowlifes.

His? Name? Is? Gone? "Yeah, " says Gaz, "even his name is gone.

He doesn't even own his own name."

What? So that prevented you from releasing anything until now?

"Me brother did that, " says Shaun.

What?

"Seriously."

Your brother, Paul, who used to play bass in the band, owns your name?

"Yeah. I know, " says Shaun, realising my incredulity. "Then he went and registered the Mondays' name so he owned that and trade-marked it so we couldn't do any gigs."

So where is your brother now?

"Ah, f**king hell, " lets out Shaun. "I don't know."

Gaz clarifies: "It's bizarre because he won the case and he would have 25 years of using the name but by the time it would take him to do that it would be easier to pay him off. It's almost like pleading guilty just to get it out of the way but that's life innit?"

Shaun: "There was one time we did this show, we had to pay our kid off because he went and registered the name. He put an injunction in and we had to pay him a few grand."

A similar thing happened, I say, with The Doors after Jim Morrison died. The rest of the band had to keep changing the name in order to tour. The lads seem interested.

"We got most of this sorted out but Shaun has still got his manager one which is the most ridiculous of all."

What's that one all about?

"I'm not allowed to earn a penny, " says Shaun. "Not a penny, " chuckles Gaz, but not without an undercurrent of gravitas. "A hundred pence in the pound he has to pay."

That's everything. To who?

"The managers of Black Grape.

Even if he signs on unemployment they get all his cheques."

So, Shaun, how do you earn money? "I don't."

So who buys your pints?

Shoulders are shrugged.

"It's illegal to give me anything and it's illegal to earn anything. It's been going on 10 years now. In the last three years now they've had something like �1.2 million off me."

Ryder adds that he has not received a penny from the hit single he made with Damon Albarn's Gorillaz in 2005.

"In fact, now that I think of it I'm not allowed talk about it. If I start going into detail I'll be back in front of a judge."

Although it might not look like it from across the bar, talking to Shaun and Gary is a breath of fresh air. Their band was always more of a conduit to party than a collective of serious musicians seeking to rewrite the pop idiom.

That's not to say it wasn't about the music but it was also about the drugs and the dancing. Above all it was about 'avin' it.

"It's okay having a record out, " says Shaun, "but what you call 'back' is weird. We have never left the music business. We're not 'back'."

Gaz agrees. The record buying public, or rather the not-recordbuying public, still know who the Mondays are. "We paid to make this album ourselves and took it to a record company so they couldn't f**k with it, " says Shaun of their new label Sanctuary, which recently closed down in America.

"You get a great view of chicks' tits from this window, " adds Shaun, apropos of absolutely nothing. Big laughs.

But wait a minute, here's the photographer. No, sorry you can't take a picture yet. We are in the middle of an interview.

"Photographers are all the same aren't they?" says Gaz, eyes raised to the heavens. "Why can't he just do it here?"

And so to the music. The BBC's recent Seven Ages of Rock, an excellent historical documentary, featured a section on the Mondays.

Had they seen it? "They said the Stone Roses were the first band to use hip hop and beats followed by the Inspiral Carpets and the Mondays, " says Gaz. "Now I didn't see it but is that how we were perceived on the programme?"

Yeah, pretty much. "That guy from Franz Ferdinand was on it wasn't he? Twat. Franz Ferdinand? Do me a favour." Laughs.

The whole scene was invented by the media, adds Shaun. "It was a pretty mad time; not because of the bands but because of the new drugs on the scene."

But the drugs are officially gone now, so what's normal life like for the clean and almost-sober Shaun Ryder? "It's boring, " he says of his life in the country.

"Eating vegetables, " says Gaz.

"Yeah mushrooms, " says Shaun.

Big laugh.

Away from temptation? "Yeah, I went to see my granny the other day and I said 'have you seen my tablets with LSD written on them?' And she said 'f**k your tablets, have you seen those bloody dragons in the kitchen?'" Extreme laughter.

Ryder says that since he knocked hard drugs on the head he can't do TV shows. "I'm too conscious about what I look like on telly. Years ago it was great.

We partied a lot. We didn't need a press officer. It's a bit of a chore now. It used to be, get off your taytos and talk shite."

Some critics suggest that without the drugs Ryder may have lost his edge. "I'm not going to go into any pretence about writing the tunes. It took me about an hour to write the f**king lot of them. Quite a lot of it is up there in my head. If I can't write a song in two hours I get pissed off."

'Uncle Dysfunktional' is out now on Sanctuary The Happy Mondays play Dublin's Olympia Theatre in September