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courtesy of ASP records
THE PRODIGY ONCE WHEN WE WERE WILD... It’s the end of 1999 and three 20-something techno-anarchists from Braintree, Essex are being hailed as the ‘The Most Important Band of the Decade’ and ‘Greatest Live Act of Their Age.’ This in part due to the fact that live, no other act can top them when it comes to delivering full-on, sonic firepower, while offstage they are equally as colourful. Ten years later they look (and sound) much the same as they did back then. JON MONSOON checks the sell-by-date on postrave’s twisted firestarters. Rewind the record to the late 1990s and find music being made in bedrooms on PCs to be spun on turntables (because even God was a DJ), live music is a second stage sideshow to clubland’s pharmacopeia currency, and the culture of ‘aving it (rave-speak for ‘getting royally fucked-up’) prevails. Since rave music was never about meaning (no lyrics, no meaning), but more about feeling, The Prodigy went all out to put on a show. Where rock music told about an experience, rave music was the experience, and The Prodigy took that to heart, onstage and off. Their debut album (1992’s aptly titled Experience) would push the sonic levels of rave into the arena of the manic, fuelled by producer Liam Howlett’s techno-punk freakbeats and spine-bending bassline, and personified in the made-for-mayhem persona of the band’s photo-scary mascot: the side Mohawk-wearing, tattooed, multi-pierced dancer-slashemcee Keith Flint. I asked him in a rarely granted interview back in ’99 to sum up his persona in two parts, and he put it to me using the Zen model of Ying and Yang – where, if Ying is sitting quietly crossed-legged in mediation, he is Yang. But whilst tales of wild times in a rock band might sound contrived, The Prodg have always been at pains to point out that their lack of restraint stems from who they are: it’s in their genetic make-up. When asked to define the source of their natures, beats maestro Liam Howlett proclaimed, “It’s not like we think we’re dangerous or wild because Keith spikes his hair up and looks a bit scary, that’s bollocks! That’s not what it’s about.” He’s quick to add, “It’s more about the fact that we will take risks; we will do a song that goes against the grain of dance fans. It has to be dangerous within our band, just to keep the vibe.” The fact that they’re onstage expressing it means we notice it more than we would one small seed
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