The Prodigy Interview 1993-94

Who are the people behind The Prodigy and what do you play in the group?
Liam Howlett, writer/keyboards. Maxim Reality, lyrics extradinaire. Leroy Thornhill, dancer. Keith Flint, dancer.

Did you live in the same area? If not, how did you meet?
No we all lived in different areas, but me (Liam), Leroy and Keith met at the barn in Braintree, then we met Maxim at our first PA at Labyrinth and took it from there.

What do you think of the rave scene at the moment, do you think it’s going down hill?
We don’t think the rave scene has gone down hill, it’s just split up into different groups, a lot of the breakbeats have gone really dark of a sudden and we would like to go back to a more happier busy atmosphere. But it does need to slow down.

How do you think the garage scene has affected raving, do you think more people are switching over?
As we said, it’s just splitting up into different groups. The people are going over to garage because it’s slower and most of the hardcore is too fast. Most records are at a 160 BPM which is too fast, also a lot of the older crowd are moving over to garage but the younger people are coming into the rave scene, so in fact it’s probably getting bigger.

Do you prefer the rave scene the way it is now, or the way it was a couple of years ago?
We prefer it when it was all about the same spread and the DJ could drop a garage tune at the start of the night and by the end its harder, so we have got a mixture throughout the night.

Would you ever make a garage tune, or will you stay with the fast moving dance style?
No, we would not change the style of music, even though as we said, hardcore has to slow down we will not change to garage.

Have you got an EP that is going to be cut in the near future?
Yes we have a track coming out fairly soon which is called ONE LOVE and also features full frottle and rhythm of life.

Do you prefer playing at clubs or smaller indoor events, or do you prefer the larger outdoor events?
We have done quite a lot of different stuff lately because we are getting fed up with the rave scene at the moment especially in London because it is all the same. We have started going over to Europe because the rave scene is like it was a couple of years ago. We have even done a couple of rock festivals just to try different things, but really we enjoy any event.

I hear you have just done a world tour, or was it just a tour of Europe?
Because of the success of the album, we went to a lot of different places including Australia, USA, Japan and Europe etc.

Did you get a lot of respect in all of these countries, or did you get anyone that thought “who are “The Prodigy”?
No, the response from all of the countries was really good, and they all knew who we were.

Do you think that the rave scene abroad is better in England or not?
The rave scene is good where ever you go, it’s just at different stages.

In your world tour, what country did you enjoy most of all?
We enjoy playing everywhere, but Greece and Dallas were some of the best places we went to.

Do you think you are still as popular in this country as you were say two years ago?
We think so, or we hope so. We have not played in England for a while because of the world tour but we whop we are still as popular.

What do you say is the best place you’ve played at in this country?
We can’t really pick out one specific place because we have done so many different places, one place we have done so many different places, one place we have which was really good, was PERCEPTION.

Do you think you get respect like any other pop group does e.g. do people recognise you in street?
We get as lot of respect at raves and people come up to us, but not really recognised out on the street, apart from Leroy because he is so tall.

A lot of your tracks went in the charts, so do you think you’ve gone commercial?
We don’t think we are that commercial, the only thing that put us in the charts was so many people liked our records and we sold a lot of records, but we would not class ourselves as a commercial band.

Reproduced with the permission of Blaze