Posted date: April 2006

Onbeat Contributor Thomas Cesa talks to Liam Howlett of The Prodigy about their recent best-of album release as well as their upcoming stateside tour, including a stop in Miami.

The Prodigy are electronic music’s great survivors. While being hailed as the new kings of the UK rave scene in 1991, they were also branded as the ones who destroyed it. After being the “face” (or at least the haircut) of the “electronica” movement in 1997, they were viewed as over-hyped “alt dance” rockers ready made for the mosh pit. They even took 7-years to finish their follow-up to the multi-platinum classic The Fat of the Land. Yet break up rumors and side projects aside, The Prodigy remain the unstoppable “Warriors” of electronic music. With the release of Their Law: The Singles, The Prodigy once again find themselves dance music darlings with chart-topping pull. Their razor sharp, sonic boom sound is matched only by their incendiary live show, a strobe light hurricane inside the Temple of Doom. Now, the man behind the curtain, Liam Howlett took some precious time out to discuss their live show, new wave guitars and The Prodigy’s headlining set at Ultra Music Festival 08.

Onbeat: How would you describe The Prodigy, “The Live Experience?”

Liam Howlett: It’s chaos, really, that’s what it’s all about. We don’t really consider ourselves “musical.” So we try to do something else, the best we can. That’s how we try and deliver our message. It’s just developed as the years went on, from the second album onward. That’s when we really started to get our shit together.

Onbeat: So you feel an evolution?

LH: Yeah, definitely.

Onbeat: You guys vary your playlist from show to show. Do you have any surprises planned for your headlining set at Ultra?

LH: We’ll always have a few things up our sleeve. We haven’t really played Miami—and even America—for quite awhile, apart from Coachella. We haven’t been to the East Coast in quite a long time. For us, if there’s one surprise in the whole set, [it’s that] we’ll twist up older records, instead of playing new, undeveloped stuff. We got a couple of new tracks we are working on, but basically we try and twist up some of the older tracks.

I’ll tell you that the set list might be the same for the last few gigs, but we definitely throw in bits. So for someone who listened to the set in Japan or who listened to the set in Taiwan, the sets were quite different, even though they were the same tracks. We run off of the Ableton program that let’s you chop on the fly. You can listen to the mix and try different shit out.

 

 

 

 

Onbeat: How do you like Ableton?

LH: Oh, I love it man. It’s great. It’s the perfect thing, but I hate laptops. I don’t want to be a laptop geek cause that’s the furthest thing from what I am. I wish I didn’t have to have laptops on stage, but there they are, right proud in the front. I’m not hiding them.

Onbeat: Let’s talk about Their Law: The Singles 90-05. Why was now the right time to release it?

LH: Initially, it was a record company thing: Clause #5 “Album number 5 shall be the Greatest Hits album” (laughs) and I’m like “Oh Fuck. I need to do a new record. We’re already in the studio messing around with stuff.” We got a couple of new tracks we are working on. But then basically, we have to do this record (Their Law). So initially, my thoughts were “Fuck, it’s a record company thing cashing in. It didn’t take any brain power from the band.” So until we figured out how we could put our stamp on it, apart from just the artwork and stuff, we weren’t particularly thrilled about doing it.

But after a while…it makes you kind of realize what we’ve done, and we are proud of what we have done. So we just thought to put some effort into this, make it a double CD and try to get things done to make it interesting. Like the second CD has a couple of new tracks, but nothing that indicates what’s going to come in the future. It’s more about a celebration of the last 15 years.

Onbeat: Over those 15 years, The Prodigy has seen the growth of electronic music, both in Europe and here in the States. Do you think that the music’s success will follow the trend it has in Europe?

LH: The trouble is that in England, there has been a bit of a backlash. Not a lot of really good electronic music came out for quite awhile, so the press started to flip towards this new wave guitar sound, which is everywhere in England at the moment. It’s just like re-hashed. There are some good bands around and they play well and they’ve got some good songs, but for me it’s not really pushing it forward enough. I don’t necessarily think electronic music should come back to do that, but the thing that interests me is when the two things connect, electronic and rock, or like guitar—whatever you want to call it.

That’s kind of the angle we are pushing for the new record. To be honest, it’s always about the songs. When I hear a song, whether it’s electronic or whatever…a street record…I just hear “Is it a good song? Does it rock?” I try not to think about “Why dancing or the electronic music scene has gone down;” it should be about the music. Like these new bands [that] are making electronic records, they are basically good for the scene. We try not to be spokesmen for anything. We just make the music and go with it.

 

 

 

 

Onbeat: Do you have a message to the electronic fans and industry people here in the States who are trying to keep the scene alive?

LH: Yeah, basically everyone’s got to be brave and take risks. If people want to live in the past and try and recreate what was happening 10 years ago, that’s cool; people will have a nice time. It’s not going to help everything out in the long run. It’s all about taking risks. To me, I think the promoters are taking a risk putting us on. I personally think we’re not everyone’s cup of tea. You got purists in dance music. We kind of push the boundaries a bit more. Maybe we’ve got too many guitars in our tracks for some people. It has to join somewhere. It can’t be so separated. It’s all music at the end of the day.

People should just kind of …listening to a DJ all night…I can bet on the mainstage [at Ultra], it will be a similar type of dance music all night. [There] won’t even be a breakbeat DJ…it will be like a trance and house, techno kind of vibe all night. I think it’s good to have a band like Primal Scream, or someone who’s half electronic and…you see what I’m saying.

Onbeat: With your live show, do you look for the audience to have a good time on the dance floor or are you looking to push their boundaries, social or otherwise?

LH: I think when we are on stage, it comes down to raw emotion. I don’t think people have that in them at that point in time. It’s like an attack. When we come onto the stage, people [are] up for having a good time and hopefully they can get a buzz off the music. I don’t think people will stand there and analyze it at that particular moment. People that might not be into the band, they might be thinking: ‘they are not dance music,’ or ‘they are not this or that.’ That’s a laugh anyways. I think that when we come on the stage, that’s where we will be judged.

Onbeat: You mentioned that you have been working on some new tracks. When can we expect the new The Prodigy record?

LH: We are writing at the moment. I’ve got this new studio in London. I’m out of my house now. We used to have a studio in my house and it was non-productive really—too relaxed at home, so I’ve basically got this studio. I usually take a year to write a record, but maybe this one might be quicker. We kind of write and record as we go along so that’s what we do. We are in February; nearly March .We got a couple of tracks. We are going to speed up and basically do what we do. We'll be in it for 6-8 months.

Onbeat: If you could describe The Prodigy in two sentences, what words would you use?

LH: Ah man, I don’t…I can’t. I never really see that as my job, to describe myself. I really don’t know. I mean I know what I’m into. I can’t suggest…when I’m in the studio, I don’t know what I’m doing. It comes out the way it comes out.

Interview by: Tom Cesa