LDM

Is this going to be your first time in Singapore?
Yes. No, wait, I don’t think it is, we’ve been there once before. We haven’t really travelled around South-East Asia that much, though.

Maxim far right

What was it like for you three to be on a record again – properly – since The Fat of the Land?
It was really good, you know, when we got back into the studio. Obviously this album is a kind of conclusion to the last five years – so many things have happened in the last five years and this album definitely sums up where we are now. When we first got into the studio we were three excited kids.

That’s awesome.
Obviously we had Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, then the singles record, then Their Law…that was all contractual to our record label, XL. We came to the end of our deal but we did the album and put all our effort into it, and made it into a really good package. Once we were out of that deal, we got back into the studio – we had so much freedom because we had no deal. For something like four or five months in London, we were three excited kids. We were like, ‘let’s write some music!’ and got excited and got our friends to play acoustic guitars and stuff.

Acoustic? That’s different…for you guys.
Exactly, we wanted to try different things. We tried to write songs. During that time we were partying in the studio, too, it wasn’t just work, you know what I mean? It was real exciting. About four months after that we had a festival coming up – Gatecrasher – and we needed a new track for this event. Keith came up with the idea. He said, forget about the album, let’s just write a track for this event, you know? [The event] was 20 Years Since Acid House, so we knew what we wanted to do, a real ‘back in the day’ kind of track. So we put it together really quickly, and it became a springboard for the rest of the album. We realised that all the things we were doing previously – that wasn’t what the Prodigy is about. We kind of realized we’re about the beat and the bass. Me and Keith got excited about those elements, and we put some lyrics and ideas on it after we realised where our direction was going. It was us going back to our roots.

Yeah, I had a listen to your single ‘Omen’ and it’s definitely got a really old-school ‘Out of Space’ vibe to it.
Definitely. It’s a little nod back to 1991 and 1992, all those riffs and elements and noises that Liam used back in the day. We wanted to use those noises and realised ‘wait a minute…we kind of own those noises!’ This was us using our own ideas. So we went back to the whole ’91 and ’92 thing with keyboard riffs and so on, and brought them over to today. At first we felt like we had to be apologetic about it before we realised that it’s our sound.

Do you still write poetry?
No. I used to write a lot of songs, lyrics and poetry when I was younger. It’s all part of the process of being creative, but now I do a lot of painting and write music. It’s all part of the process.

What do your kids think about the Prodigy?
They actually don’t know a great deal about the Prodigy. They know that dad’s in a band, and they see me on TV, and of course they know Uncle Keith and Uncle Liam. My kids were born in the band, so they know what I do – it’s not like I was in a band and then went off and had kids. Being in the band has been my life for 18 years, and my kids are ten, seven and three, so they don’t know any different.

What was it like working with Dave Grohl on your new album? Were you a big Nirvana fan?
It was cool. I wasn’t a Nirvana fan personally, back in the day – only liked a few tracks, but Dave’s a good friend of ours. This track wasn’t made for Dave though, it wasn’t just a collaboration, it happened quite naturally. Dave had just finished touring and contacted Liam about how he loved to play drums. So of course Liam told him we were doing an album and he was like, ‘I’d love to send you some drums.’ He’s got this warehouse where he has all his drumsets out and whatever. He did loads of drumming and sent four or five hours of drumming to Liam. Liam had a listen and was blown away. It was a good end to the album – there was a little gap in the album that was missing and this definitely filled the gap. The track’s called ‘Run With the Wolves’. It was actually a track Liam did ages ago but it didn’t sit well with the vocals. So the track sat on the backburner until Liam took the vocals and it sat perfectly with Dave’s drums.

The Prodigy has consistently been rated one of the top live acts from the UK – if not #1 live act. You’ve been doing this for a while now, how do you guys stay on top of your game?
By being original. By being honest with ourselves. When it comes to music and performance, we’re just three stubborn guys. If Liam writes a track that isn’t going well, I’ll tell him I’m not into it. If I’m performing and I’m not doing alright, like if I’ve put on two stone [laughs] I expect the guys to tell me, ‘look, you’re not cutting it anymore.’ We’re all brothers and we love each other. There’s a democracy but no complacency. We’re not pandering to anyone’s needs here.

Speaking of you guys being in close quarters, how do you deal with touring – have the other two got really annoying habits that drive you nuts?
Oh, we’ve all got annoying habits.

What do you do on tour?
Just don’t hang around them! [Laughs] It’s like living with your wife. We’re quite honest with each other. I’d never go shopping with Keith though, it’s a nightmare.

Ah, we’ve all got friends like that. Does he take ages?
Yeah he takes a long time, he’ll spend like, two hours in one shop. It’s like, can we go to the next shop now? There’s always little things that come out over the years, and we can annoy each other, but we understand each other.

If you and Keith faced off in a freestyle rap battle who would win?
Ah, Keith isn’t a rapper. No, I used to MC, that was my foundation. People used to call me MC Maxim, but I think ‘MC’ is too loosely thrown around. Back in the day when I was an MC, and people I knew were MCs, you had to earn that level. You couldn’t just call yourself an MC because you’d written two songs on a scrap of A4 paper. A real MC is someone who’s got lyrics, and they can rhyme about a topic for three or four minutes constantly, and they can keep on going for a couple of hours. ‘MC’ is just battered around these days, sort of like ‘DJ’ now.

Yeah, anyone can be a DJ these days.
Exactly. I think these are things you earn through respect.

Who do you consider your top three favourite MCs?
MC Papa San, that’s one. As for hip hop MCs, probably Nas…

I read that you quite like Guru.
Guru’s definitely in there, but not quite the top three, you know? Probably Rakim, would be my third.

Do you keep up with new music, do you download MP3s and stuff?
Yeah, I listen to everything. I like Kanye West, actually, because he’s doing different things.

Have you heard his latest album?
Yeah, I did. Not really keen on the vocoder though – way too much vocoder, but I respect what he’s doing. And I do like Pharrell as a producer, because he uses different beats. I wish hip hop was more creative like that, to be a bit more creative and push the boundaries, so it’s not just fitting into a stereotype.

What can we expect from the Prodigy when you hit town?
Expect a full-on show – loud. People are going to leave thinking, ‘what have we just witnessed?’

You mean pyrotechnics and all that kind of stuff?
No pyrotechnics. Those are just gimmicks. It’s going to be all loud music and energy. You can feel it in the air. We don’t need gimmicks.