It's a wake-up call.Quite possibly the single most controversial piece of electronic music ever produced. I like to hear my records on the radio, but it doesn't bother me."Īdded Flint: "It also feels like the finger you're sticking in the air when your song is played on the radio is coming through the speakers. "We don't have that baggage to be worried about whether it's correct for radio," said Howlett. The Prodigy achieved huge success with 1997's multi-platinum album The Fat Of The Land - causing uproar with the single Smack My Bitch Up along the way - and have sold some 25 million records worldwide, a figure unparallelled by a dance band.īut they agree they still make music to add firepower to their high-octane live show, which they unveil at Japan's Sonic Mania and Summer Sonic festivals this weekend. The unrehearsed, impromptu nature of it made it exciting." "I liked it when the needle got knocked off the record and it all fucking went quiet and everyone went 'Woooaaargh!' That was a buzz. "Now he turns up in a helicopter, no one sees him and he plugs in a USB stick. "When you were out, a DJ would make his way through the crowd with two record boxes and everyone would go: 'Wow, that's Hype!' Or whoever," he said. When we were in the DJ scene it was an art form, not just operating something that's synched up for you."įlint, less menacing without the black eyeliner and Johnny Rotten sneer of his stage persona, nods. It did it to hip hop, it's doing it to this now."įrom behind dark glasses, Maxim interjects: "The rave scene's been saturated. It just takes the cool stuff and washes all the credibility out of it with money. "People are just getting fed this shit," he added. There's no bands making the harder end of electronic music and we just think it's our job. The whole electronic music sound has been kind of hijacked really by the pop world. "I don't like Ibiza at all," snorted Howlett. The Prodigy can barely hide their contempt for the Spanish party island, although the three snigger conspiratorially about recently playing there, just to unleash that tune. It's pre-mixed, it's his set for the summer.' I just couldn't get my head round it - he's a DJ!" "Our lighting guy was working for somebody and had this CD and he says: 'Here's bla-bla-bla's set. "We don't really care that much but we'll slag it off when we can," smiled Howlett. The track Ibiza delivers a scathing attack on mainstream dance music. "There really needed to be an antidote to the DJ scene, which made it quite brutal." "There was a real determination for it to have zero compromise," said vocalist Keith Flint, he of the spiky hair, tattoos and nose piercings who frightened children with his appearance in the video for the 1996 smash Firestarter. But they have lost none of their belligerence, strafing contemporary DJ culture with an abrasive new record which draws on their rave roots and packs a punch with fierce cuts such as Nasty and Wall Of Death. Perched on armchairs in a hotel suite and sipping green tea, the middle-aged ravers look every inch rock-and-roll royalty. "We've always been for upholding the British sound and we should be looked upon as a national treasure."
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