After the Happy Mondays broke up, Bez became a member of Ryder's next group Black Grape, but he left them in 1997. That same year, he had a feature on the BBC Two television programme "The Sunday Show" called "Science with Bez". When both men faced large tax bills, Bez and Ryder reformed the Happy Mondays in 1998, but it was short-lived. A book about his experiences in both bands, "Freaky Dancin"' (), was published by Pan MacMillan in 1998. In the opening chapter, Bez detailed an incident during a Happy Mondays gig at Manchester's Haçienda nightclub in 1986. In the middle of the set, he fell off the stage and cut his forehead. In the book, he writes, "The doc tells me to take it easy and put my feet up. I thought, 'I'm not fucking havin' that.' I got some of guitarist Moose's acid, dripped it in the cut and ran back out with me shakers. Fuckin' raz!"