Back in the early 1990s, The Prodigy, for better or worse, were thought by many to be the future of music. With songs and videos for “Firestarter” and “Smack My Bitch Up,” they were shocking, rude and controversial. Now, some 15 years later, they are back on the road, promoting a new album, Invaders Must Die, and sporting the original trio of Liam Howlett, Keith Flint and Maxim Reality for the first time since 1997. This time around, the stakes are high with nothing less at risk than their credibility.
Their march across America touched down in Detroit Friday night at The Fillmore at the official pre-party for Movement, the annual techno extravaganza. Locally, the booking struck many festival goers as odd. On one hand because they tend to headline main stages, as they have at Ultra. On the other, the band has a broader audience than Movement’s headliners, Carl Cox, Derrick May and Luciano/Loco Dice.
To the band, though, this was just another stop on the road west. They didn’t even seem to know about it until the interview, which was conducted in their dressing room an hour before the show. So the first question, which asked whether they had special ties to Detroit techno, was less logical than expected.
“A lot of great music came out of here. We were aware of that. People like Derrick May,” says Howlett. “He is from Detroit, right?” But, he adds, happy the reference is correct, “we never locked into the scene”.
“We did come out of the British rave scene. We knew what it was and we respect the form. But we were full of passion, were oblivious and naive and didn’t want to be purists because that comes with too many restrictions.”
Even today, after all these years, interjects Keith Flint, the dancing dervish of the group, “they are still trying to pin us down. But that has long since stopped bothering them. Instead, they seem far more interested in the reaction to their new album, which is, as far as they are concerned, a “triumph.”
“Things were looking pretty bleak in 2002/2003,” admits Howlett. “And it [the genesis of this album] definitely comes from a low point. But there is nothing like three people in the studio wanting something to work.”
As to the end result, they have “complete confidence in this. It’s very energetic. The size of our sound has always been a sonic weapon, but these songs can hold up with the old ones.”
With little time left, we talk about the L.A. show next week and Howlett, to my surprise, asks about POP, an old amusement park central to Southern California beach history and the whereabouts of the old Powell Peralta skaters before saying our good-byes.
While I’m not sure how many of these fans will be at the festival over the next few days — my guess being very few — the band plays better than they have in years. With elements of rock, hardcore, techno, drum ‘n’ bass and even reggae and Public Enemy, they move through 90 minutes of the band’s history. And lo and behold, they are right. Although an extended version of “Firestarter” gets pretty close to transcendence, the new songs hold their own.
So watching them smack the audience around, you have to give them their due: In their refusal to be pinned down or beaten, The Prodigy have turned out to be the future of music after all.
Words by Neil Feineman, photos by Joe Gall
