ROCK and TV star Bez has recorded a new track with a supergroup featuring Noel Gallagher and Andy Bell of Oasis, Happy Monday's bandmate Shaun Ryder and Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey.
The Dancing on Ice contestant and Celebrity Gogglebox regular, who lives on a smallholding near Pontrilas, became famous as the Mondays' maraca-shaking dancer, but is well known today as a reality TV celeb and DJ.
Bez plays percussion on new pyschedelic track Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous) written by Gallagher and Ryder, and recorded by Mantra of the Cosmos, named after Bez's first band.
And they are set to launch the track on Sunday, January 19, with two special gigs at Liverpool's legendary Cavern Club, only the second time Ringo's son Starkey will have visited his dad's home city.
Noel Gallagher, who is reforming Rockfield recording legends Oasis with frontman brother Liam for a giant world stadium tour later this year, adds vocals, and says: "Mantra Of The Cosmos is like Dylan, Dali and Ginsberg on a rocketship to the moon to have it with the Clangers.”
The band launched in 2023, with singles Gorilla Guerilla and X (Wot You Sayin?) and a Glastonbury Festival slot, and more singles are planned for 2025.
Band leader Starkey, who has played with the likes of The Who, said: "It’s not every day that the greatest songwriter of my generation – not to mention Shaun, the greatest beat poet of our times – sends a tune to me and I was in a daze for a bit 'cos it’s not something you want to f*** up."
Bez, whose real name is Mark Berry, married wife Firouzeh Razavi at Kentchurch Court on the Monmouthshire/Herefordshire border in 2022 after proposing to her on the top of the Skirrid.
He regularly appears with Ryder on Celebrity Gogglebox, and Starkey said: "I asked Shaun if his mate (Bez) was going to be in the band and he said ‘He doesn’t know yet – but he is!’"