- I'm fascinated with aggressive music on a street level. We draw from all corners of rock 'n' roll history, hip hop, dance, punk, whatever, and spit it out as the Prodigy sound. The live element allows us to take it one step further, to really connect with the crowd and bring out a darker side to the band. It will always remain important to me to create something raw and unpolished.
- I was 15. I basically just did it for myself in my bedroom and I spent like a year just learning the techniques, going to mixing competitions watching people, listening to stuff and just picking it up. And then I think I entered a couple of mixing competitions. I entered a mixing competition on a London radio station and entered a mix under one name and two weeks later I thought no, it has these bad points, I'm gonna do another one. So I entered another mix under another name and I came first and third with both those mixes. It just took off from there. But I never thought Yeah, I want to be in this big band!
- America is exciting to us because they haven't got all the baggage that the UK has. My main concern is the preoccupation with scenes, and the interest in the 'electronic music scene' - what the hell's that? We'll go over there and rock it on our own, we don't need to rely on a scene to survive. We have far more flexibility than other electronic bands as well - some dance bands are too purist and won't go on rock bills, but as far as we're concerned that's too myopic and limiting. We've got no doubts that when things kick off, we can deliver the performance and the music and the goods, that's our side of the bargain.
- As far as the rock 'n' roll format in dance music goes, I don't think it's been done before with such full-on attitude. The idea behind that was because no-one else hade done it. Everything was right at the time for us to do that.
- I go in and out of the studio in sporadic periods, I don't go in there for hours on end. I'm looking for that initial vibe, be it from a beat, a sound, a loop, whatever. Nothing is planned, nothing is deliberate.
- It's important not to get too locked into one way of thinking, some kind of routine or format. That's what happened to me with the first album, "Experience". I got locked into certain sound within that rave scene, specific types of songs, and as a result it is quite a one dimensional record. I don't want to do that again.
- We'd been away for a year and we needed to come back with a big impact, but just another dance track would not have broken any new ground. As far as I am concerned 'Firestarter' set a whole new level for English music, that's my honest opinion. When people heard that track it was a major turning point. It was so experimental, crossing the barriers between punk and dance. Keith re-invented himself and it was a great introduction to him. It was convincing but not just because it was No.1. The track sounds like it means business, the way Keith delivers the vocals, the music has such attitude. It was a landmark.
- When you first break into the music scene, everyone is so naive. I was only nineteen when I started happening with 'Charly' and I was so into the rave scene - apart from hip hop, I was blind to everything else.
- [on NME magazine] "These questions are reliant on my memory and unfortunately that part of my brain doesn't exist. We like the NME 'cos they've always been supportive, but if they diss us we'll set fire to them."
- [on the meaning of the song "Breathe"] When we did the song, it was about confrontation between Maxim and Keith. There was no deep meaning. It was like, you want to taste me, come over here and taste me. And then Maxim was like, breathe me, breathe me... It was just more of a confrontational thing between them two. When they do it on stage, that comes across really obviously. I'm not gonna sit here and try and think of some deep meaning because it just hasn't got one. Firestarter has but Breathe hasn't. It's basically like a full-on, almost punk dance track. It's kind of got the energy of our other tracks but it's also got the edge of Firestarter in a way. When you see it live, it's really confrontational between them two. We just wanted to get that on record and it just captured that live part of the show, you know?
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content