Kermit The Dog

“Work with Shaun Ryder again? No fucking way, man! Of all the moany cunts I’ve met, he’s the worst.”

This is only a journalistic hunch, but I suspect that Paul “Kermit” Leveredge is none too keen on the idea of a Black Grape reunion.

“Every time he opened his mouth it was, ‘I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do that.’ You’d be well fucking happy ‘cause your record was in the top 10 and he’d put a downer on things. I was always saying to him, ‘Shaun mate, you’re not driving a bus or stacking shelves in Tesco’s. Have some fun with it.’”

The last time Kermit and I met was five years ago when Black Grape were supporting Blur at the RDS. While he was in rare old form, Ryder was barely able to keep his eyes open until he popped out for a “Kentucky Fried Chicken”. Not that there were any of Colonel Sanders’ fast food emporiums near to the hotel we were in.

“It was a different sort of Kentucky Fried Chicken to the one you’re used to,” his former bandmate observes wryly. “Nah, I just got fed up with Shaun being miserable all the time, and the rest of us not being able to depend on each other ‘cause there was too much funny business going on.”

Not exactly a member of the Pioneer Movement himself, Kermit left Black Grape with “a lot of bad habits that needed sorting out. To be honest, I was a bit of a mess.”

Four years on he’s cleaner than a nun’s wimple, engaged to a woman he’s obviously crazy about, and in charge of a bitchin’ new hip hop crew, Big Dog.

“If it wasn’t for me Missus, I don’t think I’d be doing this now,” her Kermie says sweetly. “She’s from Monmouth in Wales, which is where we recorded our album. We didn’t want dickheads coming round with their weed and their attitude, so we rented a shepherd’s cottage and put it all together there.

“You know what? We didn’t row once. Everybody in this band is pulling in the same direction, which is the way it should be.”

Kermit’s partners in rhyme are bassist Danny Williams, guitarist Mark Jones and Ged Lynch, a tubthumper-for-hire who’s sessioned recently with Tom Jones and Peter Gabriel.

“He’s a fucking drum whore, man! Nah, I know Ged from my first band, Ruthless Rap Assassins, and he’s fucking cool. So’s Mark and Danny who was with me in Black Grape.”

One of the first – and arguably best – Brit hop crews, the Rap Assassins exploded onto the scene in the late ‘80s, and fizzled out just as quickly when no fucker bought their record.

“That’s because we were 10 years ahead of our time,” Kermit proffers. “If we were around now we’d be fucking huge, but you can’t turn the clock back.”

As big as rap’s become in the UK, it’s still American acts who dominate.

“That’s because the English geezers are trying to emulate the Yanks too much. If you’re from the Bronx or South Central, fair enough, talk about the gangsta lifestyle, but don’t come the tough guy when you’re still shacking up with your parents in Surbiton.”

While there’s nary a ‘yo’, ‘ho’ or ‘bitch’ in sight, Big Dog’s debut single, ‘Raise The Alarm’, pulls no punches in the lyrical department.

“To the back door I crept/With a machete in my belt/Dreaming about the pain I’ve dealt/I’ll make a hat with ya pelt/Then eat you like a warm cheese melt”, Kermit barks over a backdrop that’s equal parts Sly Stone and Niggaz With Attitude.

“It’s funk, man. I listen to that record and think: ‘All the shit, all the crap…it was worth it!”

Big Dog’s ‘Raise The Alarm’ is out now on Jive, with their eponymous album to follow in June.