21st January – Doncaster Dome
22nd January – Bridlington Spa
23rd January – Blackpool Empress Ballroom
25th January – Plymouth Pavilion
26th January – Southend Cliffs Pavilion
27th January – Bournemouth BIC

For those of you on The Prodigy’s mailing list, you will have also seen a special pre-sale link – valid today. Get these pre-sale tickets while you can here.

Tickets will go on general sale on 14th August 2009.

For all other tourdates by The Prodigy, also check out our gigs section!

The Prodigy are also releasing their next single ‘Take me to the Hospital’ on 31st August. The video to the single is available now, on the band’s official YouTube channel:

Quite incredibly, the song is actually already on #16 in the UK charts one week before its actual release. It’s assumed that this is due to it being bought as individual track digitally already.

The following formats and remixes will be available next week:

CD Single:
1. Warrior’s Dance (Edit)
2. Warrior’s Dance (South Central Remix)

12″ Single:
A. Warrior’s Dance (Benga Remix)
AA. Warrior’s Dance (South Central Remix)

Downloads:
1. Warrior’s Dance (Edit)
2. Warrior’s Dance (Album Version)
3. Warrior’s Dance (South Central Remix)
4. Warrior’s Dance (Benga Remix)
5. Warrior’s Dance (Kicks Like A Mule Remix)

You can preorder it now from the Prodigy’s store [HERE].

You can also watch the video on The Prodigy’s YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voBNpdXkLnU

I’ve been able to listen to a copy of the album and it definitely isn’t what I expected! It sounds very electronic, which comes as a surprise as all sounds on it have been created just with guitars. Have a listen yourself on Jim’s Myspace website: http://www.myspace.com/jimdaviesmusic

I’ve also been able to ask Jim a few questions about the album…

Nekosite: What inspired you to write this album?

Jim: I’ve always written instrumental music from as far back as i can remember, infact i still have dodgy demo tapes from when id been playing a month or 2 but had written these awful little tunes! but its a great way to start getting your head around the instrument.

I wanted to do an album like this for a while now, but i had to find the right angle for it. I didn’t want to do a run of the mill guitar instru album which normally involves you playing 4 minute solos as fast as possibleover dodgy backing tracks! The idea actually came from a Victory pill tune i wrote a s a b-side. Its called ‘Vital signs’ and was instrumental. When we mixed the track we realized ALL the sounds were guitar generated except the bass synth and drums, so it got me thinking maybe i could do a whole album of tunes like that using only the guitar for the ’sounds’ It was a bit of a mission but i actually didn’t need any synths for this album anyway, all the sounds i wanted i was able to get on the guitar. I had to use a bass synth for some tracks, just to get the low sub sound, but that kind of thing a side the rest of the album is all guitar generated sounds. I spent ages sniffing around guitar shops for weird pedals and effects, it became quite an obsession!

What was the writing progress like, did you come up with most of the tracks in the studio or did you have most of it in mind before the recording?

I approached writing this album the same as i would any other album, i tend to always write instrus first and then add vocals later. Its the way i wrote for Victory pill and the how we used to do it in Pitchshifter, infact Pitchshifter used to have an instrumental track on every album, the one on the ‘Deviant’ album called ‘PSI-ological’ had nothing but guitar sounds in it so i guess ive been heading this way for a while now!

Normally with this album id start with a loop and just jam over that until i found a cool little hook and melody and then build the track around that-the most important thing for me was that this album would appeal to people who don’t play guitar as much as people that do! when you dont have vocals you can lose people easily so i tried to make sure these tunes had a really strong melody and were quite anthemic so they’d stand up without any vocals.

I think i held back alot on the album, i do have that technical background so i could have ’shredded’ (‘to play stupidly fast’) over the whole album but that would have been criminal! theres some really nice slow dark tracks on the album like ‘Empire’ and ‘Requiem’ and to just ’show off’ for 4 mins over them would have been ridiculous!. Like i said before the tunes were not just backing tracks for me to show off over, they were equally as important to what i played on the guitar.
So all the tracks came together quite quickly once i was writing regularly and got on a roll. The good thing about writing this album was that i didn’t have to think about ‘is this ‘Pitchshifter’ or is this ‘Victory pill’ i could just go in whatever direction i wanted. i listen to alot of funk and rare groove so theres a bit of that in there but i also love 80’s electronic bands like ‘Depeche mode’ and ‘the cure’ so theres definitely an influence you can hear from that side of things. I really enjoy creating soundscapes and textures using the guitar so that side of things was as important as the lead on this album.

Can you tell me a bit more about some of the tracks? For example, ‘Rockers vs Ravers’, what is this about?

The name actually comes from a tee shirt i got ages back, it just said ‘rockers vs ravers’ on it, i got it in ireland actually when i was there with the prod on new years eve in 1996.
Anyway that phrase always stuck with me, as it was around that time that everything started crossing over musically, when i was at school it was ‘rockers vrs ravers’ today its hard to tell the difference sometimes! Rock kids are as in to bands like prodigy and pendulum as the are the heavy guitar stuff.
The actual tune came about when i hit abit of a writing block so i just challenged myself to write a tune in a completely different genre than i had before on the album, so i came up with quite a hard 4/4 industrial/hard house stomper!!! but again the mission to not use anything but guitar sounds made thattrack abit harder to write than the others, but i actually found i didn’t need any synths, i found a really horrible growling guitar sound that you hear in the intro so that riff really drove the whole track, which meant i could concentrate on just find a strong melody and adding extra layers or guitars like you would with a synth. I really like that track, one of my favs. with this album it was important that the guitars came first though, i had to remember that it wasn’t really a ‘Jim Davies solo album’ Victory pill kinda ticks that box, this album was about the guitars so i had to concerntate more on that than say for instance the beats, it was a nightmare mixing this album as i had sometimes 64 channels of guitars running at once!! so to mix it all in something had to give a bit!!

Any particular music that influenced you during the writing process?

Like i said before i love 80’s bands like Depeche mode and the cure, my guitar sound is quite 80’s sounding i have to admit, that heavily processed sound was big in the 80’s! Bands like ‘the cure’ used the guitar to create amazing textures and their melodies were always so strong so that something thats always stuck with me. But those 2 bands aside i just wrote the kind of stuff i like-i listen to alot of different styles of music, trip hop, hip hop, funk and are groove, even a bit of jazz! With this album i just had to put my blinkers on and write an instrumental guitar album the way i would without worrying about what other guitar instru albums were like, i didn’t want to get put off by listening to stuff like steve vai or those other big guitar instru names cause what im doing is very different!

You mentioned to me you were on a label for instrumental guitar music only. Did the label approach you in the first place or how did this come about? Is it different compared to other labels you have been involved with?

Well Mascot normally do rock/metal stuff, and mostly instrumental, they are the biggest label in the world that puts out instru guitar music. i wasn’t sure they would be into my album as its quite electronic and not just one solo after another, but i sent it to the top guy there and they came back straight away saying they thought it was a really fresh and new approach to the whole genre and that it had a good angle. I was really chugged as some of my teenage guitar heroes are on this label.i do feel like i stick out a bit surrounded by the other rock/metal players they have but i love the fact that my stuff sounds nothing like anyone else on the label! So i was really glad they saw the album for what it is which is quite a leftfield experimental album really. They have been really supportive and behind it.

Were you involved in any of the artwork?

yes i was but only from a ‘can you make it more like this..or that’ kinda way! the artwork was done by my mate ‘Odissi’ who ive been working with on the ‘Sex and Circuitry’ project.

What are your next plans? Do you have any plans to use or propose the music for soundtracks, etc?

id like to but its kind of up to the label if they want to go that route, i actually do quite alot of stuff in that field at the moment, the last victory pill album got used on a few computer games and tv shows and ive recently written a c.d of rocky/electronic music purely for use in films and games ect. Its something i want to do alot more of now im not touring anymore, its something i find quite easy, its just taken a while to build up all the contacts but im on it now.

Do you have any plans to play it live?

Id like to but theres sooooooo many guitar parts, i think the only way to do it would be to be honest and say ‘im gonna play as much as i psychically can, the bits i cant will be coming from the laptop!!’ id need a band of 8 guitarist to pull off the whole album live…and that would be a total nightmare, so yes im gonna try and do it live when i work out how!!

So there you go. I’d definitely go and listen to a track on Jim’s Myspace website and if you like what you hear you can get the album through Amazon, play, iTunes or other retailers worldwide.

We also hear that apart from the album Jim has also been doing toms work with Sub Focus and has ddone some vocals for a track on the new General Midi album that’ll be out in June. And he’s got a new album with his band Victory Pill in the making too, out later this year!

Discuss this on http://www.nekozine.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1240866228/

The Shows I went to

I have to say that, after I had been to 7 of the club shows in Europe earlier this year I was a bit sceptical of these huge arena shows! After the intimate venues of approximately 1k people in the audience, how would it work with 10k? But, as always, I was looking forward to it massively.

Manchester was my first one, but actually already 5 gigs into the tour for the band. And, like always when I haven’t seen them for a while (well, two weeks since Miami in this case), once more it all just blew me away. Even after having seen The Prodigy something like 150+ times live, it is still a huge event for me every time.
More about the set list later, but Manchester was unfortunately also the first night they replaced Thunder. Since they placed Thunder for the first time in New York (like Liam had promised in the interview) I managed to go to every show they did not play it. But instead we got Wind It Up! I went out with friends until something stupid like 5am in the morning afterwards so next day in Nottingham still had a huge hangover by the evening. I am so used to loud music but when you have a headache they are just so loud. Still, loved every minute of it too. And they played Jericho!

So Out of Space, Death of the Prodigy dancer, Wind it Up and Jericho makes four tracks of Experience on this tour. This makes me think back at the interview I did with Liam in 2004 where we first breached the subject of whether he would potentially ever play anything from Experience, months before they then started adding Out of Space to their set list! This is quite amusing to read now:

http://www.nekozine.co.uk/2004/10/14/liam-howlett-talks-to-nekosite/

Next for me was Brighton, headed down in the late afternoon with two friends and were hanging around seaside pubs until making our way to the venue around the time of Dizzee Rascal’s last song. The venue was Brighton Centre and a bit smaller than the others on this tour, but so so hot! I was still hoping at that point Prodigy would play Thunder again but again that didnt happen. Jericho again though made more than up for it.

Next was one day off and then two shows in Wembley followed by Brixton Academy. Prodigy playing Wembley initially just sounded so wrong to me! Wasn’t their spiritual ‘home’ in Brixton? (although I usually find North London much more pleasant than south of the river, but that’s a different story…) So I somehow had some doubts as it just wasn’t the same as Brixton. But then they played and it was huge. I don’t know what it was with the band, but there was certain energy that just gave them that extra bit that made both those Wembley shows just even better than the previous shows on the tour. They just seemed in top form.

The last gig on the tour then was a late show in Brixton. Oh my god. I don’t know, but truly think this was the best gig I have ever been to. By that point I was exhausted an tired from going out late after both of the Wembley shows, but the Brixton gig brought me back to life. On top of it being the greatest gig ever, they also added another track after Jericho: Rhythm of Life! I couldn’t believe it when i heard it but it was just so right and made this a very special show!

The Set List – Track by Track

The set list stayed pretty stable throughout the tour with a variation of tracks played right after Voodoo People. So here my thoughts about it, track by track!

The one most frequent criticism by Prodigy fans i hear about their live shows is always something about that their sets are too short. Well, look at this set list, how immense!! Also, there’s an argument that if you really really are into it and dance along, you will only last a certain amount of time! And for those who are still counting the minutes, it’s actually usually a good 90 minutes….

Each of the shows started with a brief intro that led directly into WORLDS ON FIRE. It’s a great track which I like as a live track too, but i find it somehow still a bit difficult as an opener. It takes me just that bit longer to get into the gig, unlike for example with when they had Wake the Fuck Up to open. So, while I like Worlds on Fire, it is in my view probably the least strong live track out of the new album.

Next on is THEIR LAW. I’ve always said this is my favorite track ever and it still is. It has always also been my favorite live track but I have to say that now, with all the new material I am actually not so sure anymore! The jury is still out, but some of these new tracks are definitely in the running for my own personal best of list of live tracks. Their Law is what wakes me up though and really gets me into things and I dont think this tune should ever get dropped from the Prodigy’s set list. It is still played in it’s same form as ever, which is just the right thing to do.

BREATHE is then next. I’m no longer hugely into Firestarter as a live track and Breathe was in danger of following the same path in my view, but the track has been saved by the addition of the BREATHE DUB STEP version. Downtempo and somewhat mellow this dub step remix just adds a fresh take on to Breathe, which I think it needed.

The first highlight of the set though for me had to be OMEN, the first single of the most recent album Invaders Must Die. At each gig this was the point where i got really really into it and started dancing along with no chance of ever stopping before the end of this gig. Already back on the European tour, and now here it’s been amazing watching the audience reaction to this fairly “new” tune and how each and every person in the room not only recognised the track but knew each and every word to it.

Those of you who follow the online world, would know that Prodigy had a vote for fans to vote for a track to be played on this tour (out of a selection). NO GOOD was the most voted track. I loved hearing No Good again in the set but, personally, i think some of the other tracks on the list would have worked better. It worked well in the arenas though where there are often more ‘casual’ fans as well who would all recognise a track like No Good (but potentially wouldn’t have known Rhythm of Life). I would have still voted for Rhythm of Life though!

POISON then next. Prodigy had briefly dropped both Poison and Their Law from the set and then quickly brought them back. Let’s hope they are here to stay, although I would probably miss Their Law even more than Poison. Poison is an all-time favorite of many hardcore fans so always get a huge reaction. It’s more downtempo than a lot of the rest of the set, but still there’s usually everyone jumping and dancing to this. I think it’s also a very unique track and there isn’t another one with a similar vibe to replace it.

WARRIORS DANCE is next. I am still thinking back just 11 months ago, at the club shows in May 08, they played this for the first time and gave us the first glimmer of hope that there was a new album on the way. Just look at how much has happened since then. Especially in ‘Prodigy time’ that is just amazing. Needless to say Warriors Dance is still a huge live favorite of mine. I love the album version a lot, but it cannot match what this tune does live. So old skool, yet so new!

The next track for me is usually where i have a little rest and a quick drink. FIRESTARTER. I feel bad saying this, but I honestly just cannot get into this track anymore as a live track. I know they have to play it as it is still somewhat their biggest most recogniseably track, but if you observe the audience after the first minute or so the huge reaction from the start of the track actually dies down a bit. It would actually be interesting to see what would happen if they reverted back to playing the original version again instead of the new remix of it and whether that would make a difference?

Firestarter then leads straight into the ACTION RADAR LINK. It’s just a very brief visit to the Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned era, with no other track from that album played anymore. I alwasy liked Action Radar as a live track, now the link is barely a few beats and Keith going “A little action is all I need…”.

This then leads into what is in my opinion one of the biggest live tracks ever: RUN WITH THE WOLVES. I am still debating with myself about it but i think this has to be my favorite live track now. I love it on the album too, but again live just it is huge, from the start and follows right through. That riff! Massive! Just observe the audience during this track and coparing it with Firestarter, I would claim that Run actually get the bigger response. I still remember when I heard them play it live for the first time (which was the first time they played it) in Barcelona last October, right there I knew this was amazing.

VOODOO PEOPLE I still love very much as well and another track that is a long time favorite with fans. Ever since a few years agao they added the ‘it’s in your eyes, baby’ vocals on to it, but other than that this track still works in its true original form. A classic.

In the next spot then they played a variety of tracks, depending which show(s) on the tour you went to:
- In Cardiff they played DEATH OF THE PRODIGY DANCER. I wasn’t there but wish I was, oh man, I would have given a lot to hear this track live again!
- Then at a few next shows they played THUNDER. As I said before, I am dying to hear this live (it’s my favorite studio track on the new album) but I’ve not yet heard it.
- In Manchester then they played WIND IT UP, which came third in the fan vote. While it was amazing hearing this again, I have to say it felt and looked a bit like they didn’t really know what to do with it on stage.
- From Nottingham onwards then it was JERICHO. This worked out amazing and much better than Wind it Up. The beginning was the original leading into a second half that had been mixed up with some new beats. So so cool hearing this again. Loved it!

And as I said above, in Brixton only they also played Rhythm of Life right after Jericho. That was probably the highlight of the entire tour for me as this track had been played just once or twice in the last 12 or so years! Such a great live track!

Before the encore then COMANCHE, the live version of ‘The Big Gun Down’ on the Lost Beats EP. This is another huge favorite of mine live and not one you could ever stand still to.

After this, the band leaves, then come back for their encore.

On this tour for the first time they came back to OMEN REPRISE. Adding this instrumental to the set at this spot is pure genius. Works so well! It has that similar vibe to it that Action Radar used to have but lasts just long enough (probably not even a minute) before then leading into the full powerfull beats of INVADERS MUST DIE. And that’s another live favorite of mine (anyone still counting?). So powerful and strong, I only started to really appreciate this as a track after hearing it live.
DIESEL POWER then is next. As you would know since this spring Liam has been mixing it with this track from Pain (see the interview) and this brought just the right amount of freshness to it that it needed.
Another TFOTL era track is next then, SMACK MY BITCH UP. Nevermind what I said about Firestarter and Breathe above, SMBU is still one of my favorite live tracks ever. If only one track from TFOTL can survive in the set it should be SMBU. It always captures the audience right from the start through to the end.
Can it get any better? Yes, TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL! I remember we heard this track live for the first time on the UK tour last December and immediatly knew it was immense. It’s a great studio track as well and would be perfect single material. I love it’s space at the end of the set as well, as by that point if you’ve been dancing along you truly feel the ‘welcome to the scene of the crash’ around you…
The show then ends with OUT OF SPACE. This has been the standard ending now for a few years and still works just perfectly.

Truly great tour …So, when is the next show??!

Read more on the nekosite forum UK tour thread: http://www.nekozine.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1238756772

As basis for the interviews a lot of the fan questions posted on the nekosite forum [HERE] were used, so a big thank you to everyone who posted.

MUNICH March 6th 2009 – Neko interviews Keith, Maxim, Liam

So, your album is at number 1, congratulations!

All: yeah, thanks!

Keith: It is easy to dismiss it but it is really respectful of all the guys still out there for us and are into it.

Liam: I am sure our fans are happy for us and we are happy for them that it is number 1. You know what I mean; it’s for everyone to be happy about… people who are into the band want [it to be number 1]. If no one bought the records then people wouldn’t be into us. It is kind of a hard thing to go “Yeah yeah we’re really excited we’re number one”. We are like feeling like we’re coming from the underdog angle. People totally wrote us off in the UK. Not fans but a fucking general negative vibe in the air.

Keith: It is never a goal [to be number 1] you just want to be heard and that is it!

Maxim: It is funny I was just saying to Liam at the airport “It is really weird I’ve never really thought about being number 1”. Yeah, it is respectful but never really analyzed it and really thought about it.

Keith: It is not about that. When you look back at having done Australia and then having done these gigs [European Tour] and the sort of progression, maybe since we did Gatecrasher and Warriors Dance and what that moment seemed to turn in to, how it gelled the album and the live show. I reflect on that and that feels awesome.
You must have seen it yourself that there is that kind of energy back. It is not just people coming to see their favourite band; it is people coming to fucking rock again! That just sets me alight!

So, it’s more the live show then, where you actually see the feedback, rather than an album being number 1 on the chart?

Keith: Correct!

Maxim: Australia was like, “fucking hell man!”

Liam: ‘Cause Australia was, it led into it as the album was released.

Keith: See that was pre-album. People were really getting the music as it happened.

Liam: I don’t think we we’ve ever been in a situation before, of starting the tour as the album is coming out. It has been a different experience.

Keith: Yeah, it’s been buzzing!

The album is called ‘Invaders Must Die’. Where did that come from?

Liam: It is definitely first of all a statement of intent, like most Prodigy records. On a ground level really abrasive and really sets the head thinking “What the fuck is that about?”. Which I think any good album title should do; but it is much deeper than that.
Its kinda biographical of the last 8 years , the rough period we went through, the pre “Baby’s got a temper” time. You know, we were reflecting back on that, talking about it 2 years ago one of the guys said ‘those Invaders Must Die’ referring to the infiltrators, and I was like that’s the album title right there.

Keith: The people that did more to help things disband than to bring things together. Negativity. They’re the invaders.

Maxim: All the negativity, it’s disbanding all the negativity. It is people who spread negativity and all the things which hold us back from where we are now.

Liam: It probably means something different to each one of us. It is definitely a bit of paranoia in there. Maybe times when you feel like in your head things aren’t quite going right.

Keith: Yeah, definitely! I was thinking about how the band has a really good subliminal way… when people ask you about causing controversy or how did you make this happen… We never think about anything in real literal kind of like “IT-list” kind of like…. “Abrasive – check! Controversy – check!” We never do that.

Liam: It is quite a positive album. We didn’t set up like, …. And it sounds really shit when you explain it and that’s why I don’t really like explaining it, sort of the songs, you can’t really pinpoint stuff.

But ‘Colours’ is kind of almost like a call to the troops. It has a positive message behind it. The whole album is more ‘up’ than we thought it would be. It took us by surprise ourselves. We weren’t trying to make an ‘up’ record. We think it feels quite ‘up’.

Maxim: It is the excitement of being in the studio and doing the shows and being together again. We are closer than ever. And I think that just comes through and shines through the tracks on the record.

You said that on the last album ‘Spitfire’ was the defining track of the record and before that ‘Firestarter’. Is there like a defining track on this album?

Liam: I don’t think we know yet. We didn’t know at the beginning when we did those records. But I like ‘Take Me To The Hospital’. Fuck knows!

Maxim: Yeah! That seems to be standing out more and more.

Liam: And ‘Warriors Dance’ obviously.

Keith: ‘Warriors Dance’ is a trigger track. I saw Liam really have a freedom in the studio and he was writing like Liam wrote, he was just writing and spilling out ideas.

Liam: It was a mixture of that and moving upstairs where all the baggage had been just dropped off.

Keith: And all the shit stayed at the bottom and all the good went out at the top and then we just had to condense it.

Liam: The studio is really small. It’s this big [shows in relation to the small room we’re in] It is like an old bedroom.

Maxim: But while we’re talking about standout tracks, on the previous albums there were some stand out tracks and some tracks that worked on different levels but I think on this album all the tracks are on the same level.

Your online presence is much more intense nowadays. Facebook and Myspace and you’ve done blogs and things like that.

Keith: I don’t. I’ve done a couple of blogs, I think.

Liam: I am on the blog. I think what it was, to summarize it, we’ve decided at the beginning, before Facebook and that fucking nonsense, that we would take Duggers, he’s our film guy, on the road with us more.
Because we really liked him as he is really fun to hang out with and he was a photographer and we thought we’d just take him along to take some snaps and all that. And then we started to make the little films. And that just came out of nowhere; we didn’t say “c’mon lets make some films” he was just our friend and he just started making some films. And we thought like “cool, we’ll put one online” so that kind of started the communication and we really got into that thing.

Keith: I personally thought it was good communication, because I don’t blog. And I wish I did – I got to make a statement that it is not disrespectful to the fans, it is just not what I do well. And I think if I got into it I’d probably fuck it up somehow so I must stay away.

Maxim: It is important, you know from our previous web sites and stuff, to stay in contact with our fans and kind of move on with times rather than just go “fuck it, website is over there” and leave it alone.

Liam: Yeah you got to make the effort!

Keith: I am certainly behind all the films and keeping the momentum of that going.

Maxim: Obviously there are fans out there who are into what we’re doing so it is just keeping them in touch, you know.

Liam: But I’m really really also on making sure that it doesn’t go too far the other way where it feels like too corporate. It doesn’t at the moment, but we got to keep it like [cool]… I just go on it when I can be arsed.

Keith: We always talk about things we could do for our fans but then we kind of back it up a bit and we’re not Radiohead or Coldplay, where you’re kind of giving your album away and free tickets and you could choose what clothes I wear. [laughter] That is just never gonna happen. I’ve got a spare room, fan of the week that lives in the spare room and really I am in touch [laughter].

Maxim: [joking] well, I would actually set that up, you know, for a couple of grand. I wouldn’t actually tell you about it. [laughs]

Liam: Yeah, it is finding the right balance isn’t it.

You did the radio show on Radio 1. I thought that was really good!

Maxim: That was alright.

Keith: We enjoyed it.

Liam: I fucking shit it…. It was scary. The first 15min I was like “oh no!”.

I remember you talking about it on the UK tour in December and what you were going to do on it…

Liam: Yeah…after about 20 minutes it was alright, wasn’t it!

Maxim: I loved it!

Liam: We did have a laugh! I must say, Pete Tong helped us out and he was really good.

Keith: Did you hear the Damon Albarn one?

Liam: No! Did you?

Keith: No, I was just wondering how it was.

Liam: He is probably pretty good at that sort of shit, he’s a librarian. I am not really good at public speaking, so it was funny.

Maxim: Nor am I!

So what happened to that competition that you guys promised? [When live on the radio 1 show]

Liam: Yeah, we were talking about that.

Maxim [laughs]

Keith: It is still running! The thing was, what happened there was…

Liam: I was drunk!

Keith: Liam was drunk, and then we bumped into some law about radio gaming and all that gaming stuff.

Liam: Competition!

Keith: Yeah, competition.

Liam: The producer was like “No, No! We can’t do competitions on Radio 1! We’re not allowed to do that”

Keith: We’re sourcing the information we need to pick a winner at the moment.

Liam: No, we haven’t even asked the question yet have we?! I thought we are still going to do that.

Keith: I thought it was name the tour!

Liam: If we give the 303 away, they have to take all my shit out away from my attic! It comes with all those boxes!

Keith: It is in a box… covered in shit! [laughter]

Liam: They have to take everything! Haha

Keith: Old toys, clothes, furniture and lamps and records and broken stereos!

So what do you guys listen to at the moment?

Liam: I listen to a lot of dance music. Just music in general.

Keith: I am a shuffle man. Ipod shuffle! I must admit, every ten tracks I go “what the fuck is this? I didn’t know I had that!” and I love that. Cause it makes it to your ipod for a reason and it is in the right bracket or genre or whatever. So that is what I do.

Maxim: Old school hip-hop man; that is where it is for me!

Keith: Whilst we were doing the album there was a little time, that I would ring Liam and tell him to check this track and he’d do the same. It was a sort of track sharing of stuff that was going on.

Liam: Maybe I am more in contact with the freshest shit on the dance side of things. When Deadmau5 first came out I was really into that. ‘The Spell’ that track is fucking wicked. And Noisia. You know, they did the remix of Omen.

Keith: Cool guys actually. We met them yesterday.

Liam: That kind of whole ‘noise’ shit happened. Like more dark electronic dance shit that is really good. And even drum’n’bass… I’ve never really been into drum’n’bass before. There have always been key tracks but… I just really like it again. It has really got up another level I reckon. It is more like a production thing. I am more listening to the production. Drums sounds and the way bass works. Cause we can all learn from each other still.

Before Christmas I saw you say in an interview that you’ve got to finish some tracks that didn’t make it on the album…

Liam: There is lots and lots of stuff left over from the record. Some people have heard it. The obvious one is ‘Mescaline’ and, what else, ‘AWOL’ which people haven’t heard. It is probably an album worth of stuff that hasn’t made it on the album, which some of it needs to be finished.

People probably still want to hear ‘Dead Ken’. None of these tracks are going be saved for a new record. They need to come out before we start on the new album because you have to start fresh, you know. Whatever the singles three and four are, that is going to be a good opportunity to stick on some of those tracks.

Do you know what the next singles will be?

Liam: ‘Warriors Dance’ is next! But people already know that, yeah?

Maxim: Is it? [Laughs]

Liam: But for single three we’re still thinking about that. We like ‘Take Me To The Hospital’. And I could remix that as well, so I am kind of looking forward to doing a good remix of that tune.

What about ‘Thunder’ …

Liam: Yeah ‘Thunder’ is a single track. The singles pick themselves for this record. As we were writing it, we knew that was fucking strong. We want to play ‘Thunder’ [live] at some point. We are doing ‘Colours’ tonight [Munich]. Doing a tour like this, it is a good opportunity to try out little bits and pieces. Like we’re really enjoying doing ‘Comanche’ at the moment.

Maxim: Tiring! [laughs]

I really love ‘Run With The Wolves’ as well. To me it has similar vibe that ‘Warning’ had. It is kind of taking it up to that next level.

Keith: Yeah yeah.

Liam: I’m glad you say that, because I think it is much stronger than ‘Warning’. Warning was one of those tracks that we were playing around with for a long time and it did actually get better didn’t it.

Keith: Yeah, it did! You need to believe in the track like… take the doubt out of it. I love doing ‘Run [with the wolves]’. Like I said to Liam earlier on, I can’t change, am I not growing up? Because I can’t not just buzz off that. I just want to just submerge myself into the people, and get stamped to death by them…and that’s my everything…

Liam: I think where ‘Warning’ was going originally it never quite got there. And we were still talking about how it could make it on the album but then it was like “naah…”

Keith: [about ‘Run with the Wolves’] I mean when that riff drops… It’s just insane!

Liam: I remember being in the studio when I wrote that tune [Run with the wolves] and it is like the whole tune was finally done but I was still looking for the bit… you know, Dave had done the drums and I got the drums sounding pretty good, but I still had that riff, that da da da da da….

Keith: You were doing some riffs. And then you kind of had a riff didn’t you. Then I left, and I went back to the flat.

Liam: I think I texted you “oh man, I’ve got the riff now”

Keith: Yeah yeah, then the next minute I am listening to it, down the phone.

Liam: I had two studios at that stage. I have the small studio, which is my main studio and then there was the old, bigger studio which was downstairs. I was like, I am going to pop upstairs and I was like “no the riff is still not fucking right, it doesn’t have the fucking energy”. And then I went up and wrote that and as soon as I finished it I was like “oh man that is fucking… yeah that is it!”

Keith: Yeah, it was just like “fucking hell, when this goes live – ferocious!”

Liam: That is what we always wanted ‘Warning’ to be. So I am happy about that.

Colours was the first track that you did for this album. To me when I first heard it was the one that reminded me the most of ‘Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned’…

Liam: Yeah, I agree!

Keith: Yeah!

Liam: ‘Colours’ was written in the time, the latter part of the last wave of the band. It was written when were sort of thinking more about songs. Right at the beginning, and it was the first track we’ve finished.

Keith: It was written on the guitar wasn’t it? We were searching for new ways of writing and it became a song but then we stripped it back. Fuck, we’re doing it tonight, I just remembered. [laughs]

On ‘Omen’ the vocals are quiet different to your previous vocals – they are more singing. How did that come about?

Liam: Maxim just pulled that out of the bag. It was like a completely new thing. I think Keith was happy but I was like “whatever happens on this record we should try and not lose what we had before”. It was really important that Keith is being Keith on the record and Maxim is being Maxim. But let’s try to up it a bit and see where it goes. Yeah, I think lots of people were surprised by it. It is much more melodic. You know, the new album has room for it, it can’t just be one thing can it?

Keith: Absolutely not.

Liam: We debated for a long time whether that should be the first single or not. Because we’ve done ‘Invaders’ and that to us was never a single. We just wanted to give that away as a download. That was not meant to be seen as like the first single. First single is ‘Omen’. That is the one we are launching our record off! But ‘Invaders’ got the name out there more than anything else you know. We debated for ages whether it should be ‘Take Me To The Hospital’ or ‘Omen’. Even up to the last stage I was still like “Hmm I don’t know”. But it seems to have set the pace alright.

You’ve done a live video for it, which I thought worked really well.

Keith: Yeah. Because we’ve been doing the films with Duggers it just felt like… for the fans it would sort of feel like the progression of that.

Liam: It captured it really well. The energy of Brixton. I am not a great fan of live videos personally. But we made the decision to do it and it rolled off from all the live things we did with Duggers. I think it was cool to do.

Keith: So little bits and little spin offs. It shows the band as the band is known. That is all the part of the album.

Liam: It is important to remind people that it is the three of us! So that did that job well.

And you said earlier something about two versions of Omen?

Liam: Yeah, basically, the way I was writing this album, it wasn’t like I did for Fat of The Land, where it was like, wrote a tune, finished it, next. With this record, I wrote something, got a bit bored of it, wrote something else. And, that was the way a lot of the tracks were recorded, I had these different ideas.
And originally, ‘Omen’ was on a completely different piece of music. It was on a – it would be interesting actually to put that old version up, because it is completely different. It’s got the same vocal in it, but it’s got a different key to the music. But we really liked the vocal. When we got towards the end, sort of three quarters through the record, I was like “I really like this vocal and I could see what the actual tune had to sound like”.

And then ‘Stand Up’ was a complete surprise. I remember when I first heard it I was like “what?”!

Liam: Yeah we wanted to…

Keith: On that note I am leaving! [laughter] I can just ‘stand up’ and go because that is what it was written for. [Keith has to leave to get ready for the gig]

Liam: When we used to go out in the rave scene the DJ would always play like… the music would always stop and people would go like “one more tune!” and he would always play something slower or totally different and kind of uplifting cause he wanted people to leave on a high. ‘Stand Up’ was originally written as instrumental for maybe a vocal collaboration for the record. Then we realized we weren’t going do any collaborations vocally. Because the album was a band album, you know what I mean?
And then I just saw this as a really different way to end the album. You know things like ‘Narcotic Suite’, there is always something on the album which maybe is different and people don’t expect. ‘Weather Experience’, ‘Narcotic Suite’ and I guess this is that one. We’ll probably never do it live – that is why we play it at the end. The DJ plays it as we walk off. I am expecting a lot of people not to like it – but that is half the fun of it!

MUNICH March 6th 2009 – Neko interviews Liam

You said in an Australian interview that you “probably wasted a lot of time at the beginning working with another producer” and that it was a “complete waste of time”.

Liam: And you want to know who that is?

Yeah!

Liam: Jagz! He is a good friend of mine so I am not disrespecting him but me and Jagz were talking about… I respected him from the Primal Scream stuff he’d done and I’ve known about his production for a long time. John [Fairs] was friends with him. And he was like “man, get Jagz in – he is really into what you’re doing”. And it was just one of those things where we were just like “Wow this is going to be fucking great”.
It looked good on paper, but it just didn’t work. It was pretty much a waste of time for about month and half, when we were just trying to make it work but it just didn’t came together. He is a good guy but it was just another one of those things that made me think “I am doing this on my own now”.
At the beginning of the record we didn’t want to fall into the old track – we wanted to be really open and maybe get, no one well known, but get a guitarist in, get maybe different people in and trying to record some shit and just do something different. When really it is down to the drums and the bass – old school! That is what we get excited about.

So has your approach in the studio actually changed or has it kind of gone back to how you worked before?

Liam: Came back right to the beginning. I’ve got round in a complete circle.

So you’re done with the whole Reason thing?

Liam: Oh no! For the geeks I use Logic, Ableton Live and Reason all plugged in together through one computer. I think I am able now to bin an idea if it ain’t working… whereas before like couple of years ago I went through a period where I would really try to make something work and force it. Now I think in my headspace I could see if it is going to work and if it didn’t work throw it away – and get a new idea straight away! And not dwell on an old idea too much.

Obviously your attitude to the online has changed quite a lot – are you getting more comfortable now playing and trying stuff live? Because I know you were a bit paranoid about it.

Liam: Yeah I think I was for a bit. But I think that was more to do with the time of the band. I don’t think we were… with the ‘Always Outnumbered’ album it was quiet turbulent. Before that, me and Keith weren’t speaking. We did sort of like work our way through it. When ‘AONO’ was released and we did that first set of gigs on the back of that record, it was totally cool. We were back to normal and it was fine. I just didn’t really like the fact that I couldn’t just try a beat out and people would rip it apart. Whereas now I don’t give a fuck – I am back to that. That is the way it should be.

Because a lot of stuff is now on YouTube and I know you have this company ‘Web Sheriff‘ looking into this all too…

Liam: Yeah, the record company brought that in. Because, people have to understand, we signed to a new label, Cooking Vinyl are a small label. We went through the whole major [label] thing and a couple of majors were after us. And it was a weird time, because I didn’t have really much of an album together when we were looking for a record deal. And I was always on like “XL were a fucking brilliant label, we needed to find another label that’s at least as half as good as them”.

And actually Cooking Vinyl, and what they’re about now, they are just as good as them, they’re fucking brilliant. The way we’ve brought this record out, everything is on par if not better, than with XL.

But Cooking Vinyl are responsible for the web sherriff thing, because they put everything into this album. They didn’t want anything fucking it up. They had literally put their whole company on the line to do this album, which we’ve got so much respect for. It’s the biggest thing they have ever done.

But I think a lot of people liked the way the web sherriff people were working – they were working with the fans, you know. Which is cool, it wasn’t like “we are going to sue your ass, take that down!”. That’s not cool.

And you’ve now obviously got your own label under Cooking Vinyl, have you signed anyone yet?

Liam: No, not yet. I’m talking to a couple of people, or one set of people specifically. But I’m not sure yet whether that’s right or not. I didn’t plan to do anything at all until the album is finished. But, I think we’re definitely going to start thinking about it.

What kind of artists are you thinking of? Similar to you, or totally different?

Liam: Somebody who can represent the label, but…it doesn’t have to be electronic, but it has to be really different, with potential!

Would you think about producing them as well?

Liam: Me? Nah, I wouldn’t do a Puff Daddy, definitely not! Ideally it would come as a full package. It’s weird, you know, taking on a bit of an A&R man type of role. That’s not really what I want to do. But hopefully people might find a bit of value in my opinion…If they want me to be involved in some of the production then maybe that would be good, but I’m not saying I’d have to.

A lot of your fans are also into making music themselves….

Liam: Yeah, the future is out there, isn’t it, it’s out there somewhere!

Do you check out bands on MySpace and stuff?

Liam: Yeah, all the time, all the time.

One suggestion from the people who posted on the nekosite forum was for you to do a remix competition; is this something you would consider doing?

Liam: Yeah, I am really up for that! Really up for that …. It’s just that at the moment, because we’ve literally been on the road since Australia, I haven’t actually even been to the studio. It would involve me going to the studio and maybe get some of the parts and putting them up for people to download, which is definitely what we should do.
What track do you think would be good?

Maybe a next single?

Liam: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea, I think, just give people the a capella, vocals and just a couple of the key elements.

I’m up for it! I am going to say now that I am going to do that, it would work for ‘Take Me To The Hospital’.

How do you guys plan out the live shows?

Liam: The order of the songs is really important. We were talking about it tonight…like, how many songs can we play of the new record. Because there is nothing worse than going to see a band with a new album out and all they play is the new stuff, you know. So it was about finding the right balance, so we’re figuring that out. We’re definitely going to try ‘Colours’ out tonight, and we’re definitely going to play ‘Thunder’ at some point over the next four gigs, you know. But it might even be the last one, but it might even be tomorrow.

We dropped Spitfire now! It’s hard to keep everyone happy – but as long as we are, it’s alright, he he.

The set obviously can’t keep getting longer, so, we look at the tunes, and have to decide. ‘Comanche’, for example, does something different, that no other song does. It’s got something different, a different kind of rhythm, a different kind of feel. Whereas Spitfire, for me, kind of felt like halfway through it was going a bit flat…. It might come back at some point, but for the moment we’re not playing it anymore.

And you’ve stopped playing ‘Out of Space’ at the last few shows as well…

Liam: Yeah, we are going to bring that back.

Basically, we want to use this smaller European tour also as a bit of a testing ground. People may not like that, but that’s the way it is.

So how is the touring going?

Liam: Love it, absolutely amazing… I mean, Australia was like a big holiday, all spaced out. This is like a proper tour, we’re on a tour bus, you know, we’re doing 3 or 4 gigs in a row, one day off, 3 or 4 gigs, you know, that’s pretty hard core. But it’s good, it’s really good. The band is really on top of each other, we have a laugh on the bus. That’s cool. In Australia, I would stay in my room sometimes all day and not see anybody! I’d be happy to just chill and watch a film.

So how do you guys get fit for a tour?

Liam: I’ve got into running recently! I like to party at night and run in the morning. It sorts my head out.

What do you listen to when you do?

Liam: Ricky Gervais pod cast!

People know I do like drinking – so I still like partying, but I really like running now. So as soon as I get up I go running, at home. I tend not to run on tour. But when I’m at home, it just sets my head up.
But you know, Keith, he completely stopped drinking or doing any kind of drugs for about a year now, so I mean, for him, in his head, the band is everything to him! So for him to enjoy it, he has to be in peak performance. But that’s just him, Keith just does the extreme.

You’ve said before that you often do a lot of tracks at the back of the live shows, after you come off stage. Does that happen on this tour?

Liam: Yeah, I’ve got lots of tracks in the studio, definitely about 4 or 5 tracks that I really like that need to be finished. So what I’m going to do, when I go back to the studio, I will get all the parts and put them on my laptop, so I can work on the road. So maybe when we’re going to be on the UK tour, or some other gigs, maybe I can just try a few things out, you know.

So, I will have to ask about that Unkle Remix of No Souvenirs…

Liam: James [Lavelle] is a good friend of mine. I spoke to him the other day actually, but I haven’t seen him in a couple of years. But, you know, James was good friends with Rob, 3D [Massive Attack]. I probably gave him the parts, but I can’t actually remember us ever saying “Yeah we’re going to do something with it, use it”. He basically did, somehow it was out there. But his mix is fine, it’s got nothing to do with what we did, it’s completely different. So I mean, maybe fans should just forget about the track…and then it might pop up [laughs].
I don’t know….It’s had to much build up now!

I told you I’d play it to you, didn’t I! I will do that, and then you’ll probably be like: “oh, ok, that’s alright…”

It’s quite a song…it’s more of a song for us. You know as soon as it gets to ‘songy’, it gets on quite weird ground with us. It’s like ‘Omen’, ‘Omen’ is just on the right edge…so I don’t know about ‘No Souvenirs’. And plus, ‘No Souvenirs’ is a collaboration between me and Rob. So it is a bit less of a Prodigy tune, you know.

What’s with the recurring Fire themed songs, are you trying to get one into every album now?

Liam: [laughs] Yeah! It’s our own kind of laugh… it seems to happen by accident. Cause the World’s on Fire vocal [sings the vocal], I didn’t pick it because it had the word fire in it, I picked it because I liked the sample. And it was just by accident and we were like “fucking hell, can’t believe we’ve got another ‘fire’ in it!”. We seem to be drawn towards that.

We haven’t talked about ‘Warriors Dance’ yet, I really like that track live. I think it was the first one you played live. Was that consciously, kind of looking back to the old days?

Liam: Yeah. The thing is, it was written…. We’d done ‘Colours’…and ‘Colours’ isn’t the defining moment of the album, it’s a good track but it’s not the defining track of the album. We’d done ‘Colours’ and we’d done a couple of other demos that didn’t make it on the album. So ‘Warriors Dance’ was really the first thing that really got us excited. It was also quite a bit of time in. We had Gatecrasher coming up, and Keith was like “Listen, forget about the album for a bit, we need a new track to play live”. And so I started listening to a lot of old records, you know like Renegade Soundwave and that.

So yeah, we got really energised by that early sound. And then I thought the baseline was more now sounding, but the beats were more old skool. But it felt really fresh, it felt much fresher than any other tune we’d done. So it was like “this doesn’t feel at all retro, this feels just really exciting”. Like that… so that was good. And it wasn’t actually meant to be on the record, but then we just listened to it and we were like, yeah, it has to be. And it really reminded us what we were about, but we didn’t want it to be a retro thing. We just liked that for that one moment we could go yeah, bang!

Do you think maybe doing the Greatest Hits thing before kind of helped you get to that point?

Liam: Yeah, yeah, I think maybe a bit. It definitely got us in the mode to go into the studio with the want to make a record, you know. Fucking ready to do this.
Because doing a ‘hits’ album and a tour, is kind of a false sense of security. Just because you’ve sold a few of those albums doesn’t mean that you’ve still got the potential to come back and still write another good record, you know, these records have already been out, so it’s just reminding people about them again. It wasn’t like completely new versions that we reinvented ourselves. It’s always about the latest record, so we weren’t under any illusion that we were ‘back’. We hadn’t gone anywhere, but what I’m trying to say we now proved ourselves again.

But what that did that whole tour, it really brought us back together.

ZURICH March 9th 2009 – Neko interviews Liam

So…. You played ‘Colours’ in Munich. But you haven’t played it since…

Liam: Yeah. So basically like, you know when an album can’t be all the same thing so the album is made up of like a journey, so like, ‘Invaders’ didn’t work when we first played it, I didn’t think, and you might have noticed I’ve manipulated it into a bit more of a rocking tune now that sort of fits along with everything else.

And so, on the album ‘Colours’ seems to sit, and really works as a song. But for me it feels like I could…it didn’t set my world on fire straight off as a dynamic live tune.

It’s kind of like pretty straight up, quite punk rock sort of straight, quite linear do you know what I mean, whereas something like ‘Run’ for example, has lots of builds and drops and kind of very dynamic. So I think that some Prodigy tunes sort of arrive on the stage, like perfect do you know what I mean? Once I rearrange it and do a live version it will work. That’s my honest opinion.

Yes. Do you think you’re still going to play ‘Thunder’ on this tour, because you were talking about it?

Liam: Thunder’s nearly ready! It will probably be Paris or New York. Which you’re probably not going to, New York, are you?

I’m going to Miami though.

Liam: Are you really? Oh we’ll definitely play it by then. 100%.

Cool. I’m coming over just to see Thunder then.

Liam: [Laughing] Yeah right.

Are there any tracks on ‘Invaders Must Die’ that you’re definitely not going to play live?

Liam: Erm, maybe ‘Stand Up’ we won’t play live, which you’re probably happy about. No I think Stand Up’s got a good position where it is [played after the concert is finished], you know, so that’s the only one I think. I know Maxim wants to try ‘Piranha’ soon.

You changed ‘Diesel Power’ around a little bit on the last shows.

Liam: Yeah. Do you want to hear the story behind that?

Yeah.

Liam: So, I’m on the internet looking around YouTube and stuff and I come across this bootleg of ‘Diesel Power’ and Pain. I don’t know anything about this Pain ‘Shut Your Mouth’ do you know that?
So, I don’t know who they are, nothing about them they’re like a rock band, I think they’re like a Euro rock band. It’s Pain – ‘Shut Your Mouth’ the record’s called. If you check it out on YouTube you’ll hear that riff at the beginning. Anyway so I was checking it out on the internet and I found this bootleg of ‘Diesel Power’ and ‘Pain’ that someone had just smashed it together, so I thought it was really, really cool so I basically bootlegged my own bootleg, yeah?

Which is kind of cool I think because it shows the throw away-ness and the cut and paste-ness which is still important to the band you know.

Do you have any special plans for the UK arena tour that you’re doing?

Liam: Erm, yes. [pauses] Next question. [Laughing]

We’re going to have a few surprises, we’re going to play, …I’ve gotta try and find it but we’ve got a classic that people won’t expect us to play we’re gonna draw up from the vaults. That should be good. But I can’t tell you more than that.

You’ve got Dizzee Rascal supporting.

Liam: Yeah!

Because usually you’ve got more up and coming bands that aren’t really known.

Liam: Yeah, but usually they are more smaller tours aren’t they, and so if we were doing like a Brixton or something like that maybe we would have had smaller bands ….
Dizzee ok, so basically, we can draw lots of comparisons with Dizzee because basically, he’s come from a scene, and he’s come out of it and he’s sort of had to be creative on his own, to sort of carry on with what he’s doing. And I think he’s faced a lot of the same sort of issues as we did when we first come out of the scene, out of our scene you know.

So I think, we kind of respect him for what he’s done and, I don’t know we just thought it was a good…I mean we all love ‘Sirens’ that tune you know? And ‘Old Skool’ as well and we just thought it was a good alternative like really different thing to put on for us you know? You know we don’t usually, we never normally have sort of something more urban based. But, I think we all really like Dizzee. For sure.

And then there was a rumour about us saying we were going to do a collaboration with him which I don’t know where that came from. I think I might have said it then the next thing it was in the papers. [Laughs]

What’s the last band you’ve seen live?

Liam: erm [pauses] it was either, the Arctic Monkeys or [thinks] Arctic Monkeys yeah, yeah.

Was it good?

Liam: Yeah, mega. It was in Australia. Alex Turner is one of those creative people along with Jack White who are fucking special. Just pure talent. I saw loads of bands in Australia, yeah it was good.

And you’ve remixed this Oasis track ‘Falling Down’.

Liam: Yeah!

How did that come about, because it’s like the first remix you’ve done since 1995 [Method Man - Release Yo‘ Delf]?

Liam: Noel [Gallagher] asked me to do it when their album first came out but I was right in the middle of my record, so I couldn’t do it then and I said “Ask me later on and I will sort it out”. ‘Cause I liked the tune.

And then he asked me just as I’m about to leave to go to Australia, I’m like I’m not going to be in the studio so I’m going to have to do it on the road. I carry the laptop around with me so I busted it out in the hotel room.

Yeah, I enjoyed doing it I mean my main aspect for it was I didn’t want to make it into a dance record I really like the song. And so I wanted to keep the song structure and just move it into like, a different sort of sonic area do you know what I mean, just make it much harder, make it less smooth, without losing the song there.

Do you think you’re going to do any other remixes?

Liam: Absolutely. I mean, it’s something I’m definitely doing, I’ve had like 3 or 4 requests off the back of the Oasis thing straight off so, you know, yeah definitely. I like ripping into other people’s tunes.

Cool. On the album you’ve got ‘Warrior’s Dance’ and there’s like this link after it, what is it, where is it from?

Liam: [Laughing] That’s erm, that’s me in Finsbury Park, Ghost Train yeah!

I was trying to get … I was walking through Finsbury Park fairground, with my dictaphone trying to get sort of like atmosphere for the record, and just kind of maybe some cool noises and stuff when I passed this ghost train and this siren went off .
And I went up to the guy “Can you put the siren on?”. He goes “No Mate. You’ve got to go on the ghost train.”

I was like “Ah fucking hell!” Got on the ghost train. I was actually with Liam G [Gallagher] at the time. So we, both of us got on this ghost train and [Laughs], I started to record it. And as we went through the doors, the siren went off behind me and the fucking doors shut like… and it’s all on the actual Dictaphone but I didn’t put it on the record but the actual original tape was really funny. It’s me and Liam going through this ghost train for about a minute with all these ghosts jumping out at us and stuff. And then when I got back round I said to the guy “You didn’t put the fucking siren on, where’s the siren?” and he’s like, “Oh, you paid your money” and then he put it on so….yeah.

Do you think you’re going to have a different mix of ‘Warriors Dance’ for the single, like you had for ‘Omen’?

Liam: I tried to do a different version of it, with different drums and it didn’t come out as good, and so I made the decision just to stick with the original because it just wasn’t, it wasn’t as good you know? In the beginning I thought it was alright, it was kind of, it was taking it at a different angle but then once I’ve put them side by side the original sounded much more exciting so that’s the version but we’ve had some remixes done.

What about ‘Dead Ken’? [as a potential B-Side]

Liam: Yeah, that’s way off yet but I’m thinking the next single is going to feature definitely one of these tunes I have sitting around.

Because when we were in Munich you said that you’ve got about an albums worth of stuff that didn’t make it on the album , would you at all consider putting any of the stuff just online?

Liam: Absolutely yeah. None of this stuff will roll over to a possible next album or anything. That’s it for now, so, you know, absolutely 100% we will do that you know, for sure. Haha, you know me and my promises!

There’s some good tunes there though you know, it’s like – I did this wicked tune. It was going to be a collaboration with another vocalist, and I got Martina [Topley-Bird] in who used to be with Tricky to do this kind of Ella Fitzgerald vocal that I sampled. She was fucking amazing. She just sung these couple of lines but that wasn’t the collaboration, it was another vocalist that was with her on that tune but it works with just her vocal.

What’s it called?

Liam: The working title is ‘The Day’s My Enemy’.

And any kind of unreleased tracks that you’ve got from when you were signed to XL (Recordings) do XL have the rights to those or are you going to be able to release those?

Liam: There’s not many left to be honest there’s only ‘No Souvenirs’. Yeah I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. ‘We Eat Rhythm’ I suppose is still knocking around. I mean if I actually went through all the stuff in the studios there’s probably loads and loads of stuff but, nothing worth, nothing that I think worth, you know?

There’s a lot more material around now writing this record than there was before. Yeah, for sure. I’m still finding tracks that are sort of half done that I’m finding now that I think are still really good you know? It’s weird. They’re just missing one element or something do you know what I mean?

How do you keep old stuff you’ve got, do you back things up or do you just leave it lying around?

Liam: No [laughing] it’s just lying around.

Keith was really distressed, he was like, when we were doing the record he kept coming in, he goes “Remember that tune you were doing? Oh it was fucking amazing I’ve got a lyric for it!”.

I was like “No what was it?” and he’s like “Yeah you know the one that goes…” and he tried to sing the beat or whatever, the riff, I’m like “Nah I don’t know”.

So I’d spend about two hours looking through all these hundreds of bits of shit I’d started. So no, I try and sort of keep them in some sort of order now, yeah.

I’ve got about, I’d say, I’ve got roughly eight really good ideas that maybe didn’t work on the record but could be definitely good B-sides or live tracks.

What are your stand out moments in your career so far, because it is 20 years now, almost isn’t it?

Liam: Stand out moments. I don’t know, this has been pretty good this [referring to current European tour] you know, because we’ve come from so many problems in the band you know?

I mean, you know this, obviously the whole ‘Baby’s Got a Temper’ sort of period is like, you know, it’s pretty much documented, and sort of all the problems with me and Keith, him sort of doing his solo thing and all that type of shit caused a lot of problems so, I mean, actually being able to rebuild, the whole thing up from that again, it’s been really cool. But I mean yeah the obvious things like the gigs like Moscow and some of the special gigs we did earlier on, Beirut you know. And you know the first gig was fucking amazing, ‘Labyrinth’.

I mean even real personal things like being in the studio and then suddenly coming up with the right vocal for a tune you know. Like me and Keith in the studio when we wrote ‘Firestarter’ and it was like I went totally out on a limb to record him and we’d have never even thought of getting him in the studio so that was, that was a really good moment, you know.

Things like, yeah finding, seeing, you know, when this record suddenly having three tracks ‘Take Me To The Hospital’, ‘Warrior’s Dance’ and maybe ‘Thunder’ that suddenly felt like the album had finally got started after six months or you know those three tracks come together after about , I think maybe, sort of, month seven or something, so suddenly then going “Wow yeah, this feels like it’s really solid already” so we built on that. That’s my latest highlight.

Interviews by Andrea Schnepf aka neko.

Special thanks to ‘ant4000b’ and ‘James Jupiter’ for help with the transcribing.

Update March 22nd: The Prodigy have added another date to their UK tour in April and will now finish at their legendary home in Brixton, the O2 Academy on Saturday April 18th. Support comes from very special guests Dizzee Rascal, Kissy Sell Out & Chase & Status.

Tickets go on sale on Thursday Mar 26th at 10am GMT via
http://www.gigsandtours.com/?a=the+prodigy&site=theprodigy

This show is over 18s only and runs from 9pm to 3am.

The Prodigy Invade Europe
The Prodigy have just completed touring Europe and I had the chance to attend some of the shows – and it’s been fantastic!

Read fan reviews from the shows:
26th Feb Stockholm, Berns
27th Feb Oslo, Sentrum
28th Feb Copenhagen, The Grey Hall
2nd Mar Berlin, Huxleys
3rd Mar Cologne, E-Werk
4th Mar Amsterdam, Melkweg
6th Mar Munich, Tonhalle
7th Mar Bratislava, PKO
8th Mar Vienna [Special Report by ant40000b]
9th Mar Zurich, Maag Event Hall
15th Mar Paris, Zenith

New Festival Shows

The Prodigy have also announced a number of fetsival shows throughout this summer. Below a summary of the latest announcements:

Frequency Festival, St Poelten, Austria
The Prodigy will be headlining Austria’s Frequency Festival and closing the event on 22nd August. For tickets visit: www.musicticket.at / T: +43 1 96 0 96

19th June ­ Live In The Park, Donard Park, Newcastle, County Down, N Ireland / www.planetlovemusic.com 5th July – Heineken Open’er Festival, Gdynia, Poland / www.opener.pl

The Prodigy join Oasis in line up for Rock Werchter Festival The Prodigy join the likes of Kings of Leon, Metallica, Placebo & Oasis for Belgium¹s biggest rock festival – Rock Werchter in Rotselaar. Taking place over 4 days, The prodigy play the main stage on the opening night, July 2nd. For more info & tickets visit www.rockwerchter.be & www.proximusgoformusic.be or telephone 0900 2 60 60 (within Belgium) 0900 45 000 45 (within Holland) +32 34 00 00 34 (all other countries)

GLOBAL GATHERING
The Prodigy will headline the UK’S Global Gathering festival, alongside Orbital & Pendulum on Friday July 24th. The event takes place over two days at Startford Upon Avon’s Long Marston Airfield. Click here for line up & tickets www.globalgathering.co.uk/tickets

SOS 4.8 Festival, Spain
The Prodigy kick off the festival season at SOS 4.8 on May 1st in Murcia, Spain. A 2 day festival of music & contemporary art, The Prodigy will be joined by Underworld & 2 Many DJs amongst others. For more info & tickets visit: www.ticktackticket.com / www.atrapalo.com

DOWNLOAD 2009
The Prodigy will be appearing at the UK’s premier rock festival Download at Donington Park on Saturday June 13th. For more information & tickets visit www.downloadfestival.co.uk

The Prodigy return to play Germany’s most popular festival event ­ Rock am Ring & Rock im Park in June. This year they will play Centrestage prior to Slipknot.

June 6th – Rock Am Ring – Nurburgring
June 7th – Rock Im Park – Nurnburg

For info & tickets visit: www.rock-im-park.com / www.rock-am-ring.com / www.eventim.de

Yes, that is right, The Prodigy have entered the UK album chart at number 1 with their newest studio album ‘Invaders Must Die’! What an amazing result, congratulations!

The Prodigy Invade Europe
The Prodigy are currently touring Europe and I have been to two of the shows so far (Stockholm and Copenhagen) and it’s been fantastic. They’re small and intimate venues and the band have been varying the setlist to include tracks from the new album, similar to the UK club shows late last year.

Read fan reviews from the shows so far:
26th Feb Stockholm, Berns
27th Feb Oslo, Sentrum
28th Feb Copenhagen, The Grey Hall

Next Gigs:
2nd Mar Berlin, Huxleys
3rd Mar Cologne, E-Werk
4th Mar Amsterdam, Melkweg
6th Mar Munich, Tonhalle
7th Mar Bratislava, PKO
8th Mar Vienna
9th Mar Zurich, Maag Event Hall
15th Mar Paris, Zenith

see you there!

You all already know this – Omen has been released today so you can get it now in all formats, from the shops, online etc.

The Prodigy are back on tour!

Below the latest dates, all announced over the last couple of days. For full listings please go to the ‘tour’ pages.

Roseland Ballroom in New York City on
March 26th. Click here for tickets:

http://www.livenation.com/edp/eventId/403751

The Prodigy return to play Germany’s most popular festival event ­ Rock am Ring & Rock im Park in June. This year they will play Centrestage prior to Slipknot.

June 6th – Rock Am Ring – Nurburgring
June 7th – Rock Im Park – Nurnburg

For info & tickets visit: www.rock-im-park.com / www.rock-am-ring.com / www.eventim.de

DOWNLOAD 2009
The Prodigy will be appearing at the UK’s premier rock festival Download at Donington Park on Saturday June 13th. For more information & tickets visit www.downloadfestival.co.uk

SOS 4.8 Festival, Spain
The Prodigy kick off the festival season at SOS 4.8 on May 1st in Murcia, Spain. A 2 day festival of music & contemporary art, The Prodigy will be joined by Underworld & 2 Many DJs amongst others. For more info & tickets visit: www.ticktackticket.com / www.atrapalo.com

GLOBAL GATHERING
The Prodigy will headline the UK’S Global Gathering festival, alongside Orbital & Pendulum on Friday July 24th. The event takes place over two days at Startford Upon Avon’s Long Marston Airfield. Click here for line up & tickets www.globalgathering.co.uk/tickets

Throughout 2008 the band then introduced more and more of the new material in their live shows. ‘Run with the Wolves’ in Barcelona in October and then ‘Omen’ and ‘Take Me to The Hospital’ on their UK tour in December.

The big news soon followed, they had finished the album and it would be released on 23rd February 2009! Like most fans of the band, I couldn’t wait to hear not only the studio versions of the live tracks we were all so excited about, but was also eager to hear what the rest of the album sounded like.

Then, in early January 09 I got to hear it, the full new Prodigy studio album. In full length, from start to finish, one chance to listen to it all. Yay!

So here it is; my initial review of the album. And while this is an initial impression, one thing that’s for sure is that there is still so much more to discover on this album…

1. Invaders Must Die

The album kicks off with its title track, ‘Invaders Must Die’. We have all heard this one, as it was the first track made available online to everyone as a free download in late 2008, complete with professional video. (You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiqFcc_l_Kk).

While some of us said it wasn’t a very accessible track when we heard it the first time, it has not only impressed me a lot at the live shows but it is a real grower and stays around almost like an anthem. It’s a great album opener and title track. And while it’s got a clear influence by Pendulum, it is of course also very Prodigy.
I noticed also that the album version has a different outro than the downloadable single of the track had, and was leading rather seamless into the next track, …

2. Omen

We heard ‘Omen’ for the first time at the live shows in the UK in late 2008 and it is set to be the first single off the album to be released mid-February 2009. The video is now available online as well on the Prodigy youtube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMVTKOoy1uk.

This track is just so very melodic and the vocals by Maxim and Keith are much more ‘singing’ than any other Prodigy track we’ve heard. It’s such a mix of styles, from old school, to punk rock, techno and breakbeats – where do I even start! The result is a track that is in places heavily produced, but to the extent that it works just perfectly and as a whole is just pure energy.
Like on the track ‘Invaders Must Die’, effects are used over the voices and the combination of Keith and Maxim on vocals sounds fantastic. What a great single to return with!

3. Thunder

‘Thunder’ is a track not yet played at the live shows and brand new to us all. It starts with an initial build up leading quickly into its main reggae-like sample “I hear Thunder but there is no rain. This kind of Thunder breaks walls and brings pain” which leads into the main chorus “Thunder, Thunder”. It’s an amazing track. Great breakbeats with a real old school vibe that still sounds very fresh. The vocal sample sounds brilliant and makes it very catchy. I’m here almost two weeks later after hearing this track just once, and I still have it in my head!

4. Colours

There’s something in the beats of ‘Colours’ that reminds me in a slight sense of AONO, but in a very good and fresh way. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but there’s something here that bridges the style from the last album to this whole new sound in this track. It’s all electronic, sexy with a catchy melody in the instrumental and had some production work by Morgan from ‘Does it offend you, yeah?’. The vocals are by Maxim and Keith and they fit the IMD theme perfectly and go something like “I’m ready for the war, bring your colours to the floor!”. This track is a grower I think. It doesn’t have as much of that instant intensity when hearing it the first time as some of the others on the album, but you can tell it has so much potential and that you’ll get to love it.
When I listened to this track I just thought I’d gotten the full flavour of it when all of a sudden this amazing build-up just brings another new dimension to it, the beats speed up and it all releases in some amazing break down. In fact, this happens on many tracks on this album, and every time manages to keep the tracks fresh and keep surprising you, yet make them sound so Prodigy!

5. Take me to the Hospital

‘Take me to the hospital’ – what a track. This was played live for the first time at some of the later shows on the UK tour in Dec 08 and became a fan favourite then. The studio version just confirms what we knew then already – this really rocks.

Starts with these amazing old school synths just like taken from the early rave days, then erupts into these rocking beats. Throughout the track there’s a play on the siren sounds, which suits the “welcome to the scene of the crash …” lyrics.

6. Warriors Dance

Now this is a tune we’re all familiar with in its live version since it’s been played at the live shows most of last year already. It’s such a danceable summer tune, so easy to get into, I can’t imagine how anyone could not love this track.
Of all the tracks we’ve heard live, the studio version of this one is in some ways the most predictable as it’s still so very close to the live version. Which is a good thing. The massive bass, the female voice sample, the horns, it all works so well.
Towards the end, like with other tracks on the album, there is a break and then the horns come back in, breaking the silence, building up once more to the voice sample and full on beats.

The outro of the track is a spoken sample, which I couldn’t make out if it was taken from a film or someone talking.

7. Run with the Wolves

‘Run with the Wolves’ is another real favourite of mine on this album, it’s the most punk rock of it all and a really fast tune.
Keith’s vocals work amazingly and to me this is the track ‘Warning’ never got to be, it’s even better and more dark and dangerous, pure adrenaline, the kind of track you can’t sit still to.
And once more, just towards the end as you think you’ve got this track figured out; it leads into a soft synth line that adds a whole new touch to this tune, before it continues again with its heavy military beats.
Rocking!

8. Omen Reprise

‘Omen reprise’ is obviously as its name suggests a retake on ‘Omen’. Starting off with siren it contains distorted samples from ‘Omen’ but yet is different than a remix. It’s almost cinematic in its feel and purely instrumental. Works very well and after the loudness of ‘Run with the Wolves’, this track brings you back down to earth.

9. Worlds on Fire

“3 – 2 – 1 – 0….” Many of us have heard this track live now as it was played at most all of 2008’s shows. The studio version has even more of an edge than what we heard live. It builds on a repetitive voice sample of “Worlds on Fire” with clever piano lines, vocals by Maxim and yet again some old school influences that pay tribute to Prodigy’s roots.

10. Piranha

‘Piranha’ is the track that contains the most vocals and is the typical Maxim track. While he performs vocals on ‘teeth gripping’, the pounding beats are a just setting the right tone to visualise the piranha’s power . “P-P-P-Piranha” is pure attack.
Towards the end again a sudden unexpected breakdown, that goes quieter on you for just a bit before then leading to even faster and harder beats, bringing this powerful tune to its end.

11. Stand Up

I said a number of times in this review that parts of tracks just went down an unexpected path. But nothing could have prepared me for the surprise ‘Stand Up’ would be.
The intro begins like an atmospheric theme but then leads into this completely different track. It’s a happy track, with chilled, slow beats and melodic synths that will just bring a smile to your face.
Some people said they were hoping for another ‘Narcotic Suite’ on this album. That’s not what this is; instead think something like David Holmes’ 69 Police, but with an edge.

And so it ends. Wow.

The album flows perfectly from start to finish. It’s one where you should disable your shuffle features for a change and play it from beginning to end. At the same time I think each of the tracks can stand their own and there aren’t really any fillers. Be prepared for a sudden rush of energy and excitement, too …

Welcome back, The Prodigy.

[Discuss in the forum]

By Andrea Schnepf

Note: Change on 25 Jan to reflect that vocals in Colours are by Maxim and Keith, NOT the guy from ‘does it offend you, yeah?’

As reported previously on nekosite, The Prodigy have ‘taken over’ Radio 1 for two hours tonight and, oh boy, was it great!

Not only did they premiere their new single Omen (yes! the studio version! of the new single!) but also they played some of their own all time favorites. Each of the tunes played throughout the 2 hours of the show had influenced the band in some way.

Reading all the fan comments I think I am also not the only one who thought Keith ran this show and seemed to feel very much at home on the radio. They were in good spirits and Liam even promised a new competition giving away his 303 on www.theprodigy.com over the next days. Yet to be seen if that happens of course

So now, you can of course listen to it all again, courtesy of the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00gkkry/Zane_Lowe_Presented_by_The_Prodigy/

‘Omen’ is 30min in (if you really cannot wait) but i really recommend listening the full thing from start to finish.

And Omen, well it’s fantastic, a really strong track. Just to post some of your comments from the forum:

“Fucking Hell. How good is OMEN? Amazing” - Gunthrax
“omen sounds like the fucking bomb man.” - tomlad
“the album looks like its going to be a banger.” - Retroboy
“very very…excellent.deffo a very strong single!!!” - Andy_Peters

Discuss all this with other fans [HERE].

Omen Video Premiere

According to Channel 4’s TV listing, the new Prodigy video will be shown on 18th January at 00:05.
Source: www.channel4.com/tv-listings/daily/2009/01/17

The Dates to know

As reported before, the new Prodigy single ‘Omen‘ is released on 16th February and the new album ‘Invaders Must Die‘ on 23rd February. For more details go [HERE].

More Soon!!!