Happy Mondays have recorded their first song in 20 years with a rainforest tribe in Central America.

While on a trip to Panama to film reality TV series 'Singing In The Rainforest', the 'Step On' hitmakers - Shaun Ryder, Bez and former 'X Factor' star Rowetta - were asked if they'd record a new track by Watch and as they felt inspired by their jungle surroundings they decided to do it.

Now they have they have found their muse the group intend record a new album.

An insider told The Sun newspaper: ''Appearing on the reality show has helped bring Shaun, his brother Paul, Bez, Rowetta and the rest of the Happy Mondays closer together. This is the first new song they've recorded as a band in two decades so it wasn't easy but now they have a taste for more. They've started planning a full album partly inspired by the experience.''

The original band members - who reformed in 2012 and have toured ever since - put their differences aside to work on the new material, which was inspired by the culture and deep history of the indigenous Embera Drua people of the Upper Chagres River.

This is not the first time the band - who originally split up in 1993 -have explored a new culture to make music.

In their heyday in the 1990s, the band headed to Barbados to make the LP 'Yes Please!' but the sessions, which took place at Eddy Grant's home studio, descended into chaos with Shaun and his brother getting hooked on crack cocaine, Bez injuring himself in a car accident and no vocal parts being recorded because singer Shaun didn't write any lyrics.