Hot Press
I’ve Firestarted So I’ll Finish by Stuart Clarke1996
Before we go any further, I want to put on the record that I consider Mel Smith to be one of the wittiest,most intelligent and downright sexy men ever to have lived. I mention this because I’d hate Maxim Reality to think I was in any way hurt beyond belief and severely depressed when he said I was a deadringer for the big-boned comedian, ”You’re not as fat as him,” he professes good-naturedly, ”but you’re got the same sort of face.” Cheers. Three hours to go until they lay waste to the Point and in time honored Spinal Tap tradition, The Prodigy are arguing on the phone with room service because the sandwiches they’ve just delivered are cheese-less. Thank God they don’t have a drum, me or I’d still be picking out theshrapnel. While the tour manager takes care of the dairy produce conundrum - ”two hundred quid a night and you don’t even have any Easi-Singles”-it’s down to the serious business of extracting as much poop as possible from ”Britain’s outrageous cyber punk sensations” (The Sun).
As a long and fervent admirer of Jeremy Paxman, I’ve decided to go for a rapid fire interview technique which eliminates unnecessary waffle and gets straight to the kernel of the nut that needs cracking.Or something like that.Alas there’s to be no pictorial record of our verbal jousting because they’re not in full Mummy-that-man-over-there’s-scaring-me mid. It’s a question of degree, of course, the band still looking for all the world like they’ve stepped off the set of a Mad Max movie.
Stuart Clarke: Lads any exotic new piercings
you want to tell us about?
Liam Howlett: Me bad Keith were going to get our dicks
done but we bottled out at the last moment.
Keith Flint: I’ve had a few piercing nightmares
with things splitting and getting infected. The idea
of having pus dribbling out me dick isn’t very
appealing, but it’s on my list of things-to-have-skewered-in-97.
I’m not sure if it hurts or not. Everyone toldme
I’d be in fucking agony when I got my tongue done,
but apart from it swelling up to twice it’s size
for a week it was cool.
No it doesn’t hurt a bit.
Keith: What, you’ve had yours done?
Well, er, a friend of mine was telling me about having
his Love Missile F1-11 pierced in London. The worst
bit was when I ...sorry, he was warned by the bloke
doing it that his bowles might relax when the needle
went in. But thankfully a change of underwear was not
required.
Keith: This mate of your’s would’nt happen
to look like Mel Smith, would he?
Maxim: I got my nipple done, but because it’s really
small it went under the skin. I tell you, man, for six
months I wouldn’t let anyone fucking touch me on
that side.
On to more savoury matters. Who’s
your favourite Spice Girl?
Liam: The one with short dark hair. Victoria, I think
it is.
Leeroy: I don’t know what the blonde one’s
doing in there; she’s a disater.
Maxim: I like the one who got her tits out, she’s
got balls. Metaphorically speaking.
Keith: Geri? She’s not actually good-looking. None
of them are what I’d call particulary fine. They
appeal to a more oooey-oooey-oooey-get-’em-out
crowd. You know, pissed up blokes who reckon they might,
if they’re really lucky, be in with a chance of
pulling.
Liam: They’re pub cabaret singers who’ve been
given a Richard & Judy makeover. I’m surprised
they’ve done so well as they have because, by and
large, little boys aren’t interested in girls.
Keith: Nah, they’d rather shag footballers.
What do you think of our own national
heroes, Boyzone?
Liam: Boyzione make Take That look fucking credible.
Keith: Take That danced, they sang, they put on a fucking
good show and towards the end of they’re career
they became a credible pop group. The thing I really
hate about Boyzone is that they’re so unnatural.20-year-old
kids dressing in tweed suits because that’s what
their manager tells ’em to do. And what’s
with all thes covers?’ Words’ was crap 20
years ago, so why be crap with it again now?
Liam: Give it its respect, that Gabrielle and East 17
record is really soulful. Who’s the dwarfy one
who went out with thatgirl from Eastenders? Brian Harvey?
That guy can sing.
Others records that’ve given you
a buzz this year?
Liam: Manic Street Preachers, Smashing Pumpkins, Rage
Against The Machine.
Keith: The new Beck album’s fucking great.
Maxim: East Coast hip hop’s been good in 96. The
West Coast’s been a bit too gangstary.
Keith: The only dancey stuff I’ve liked is Underworld
and The Chemical Brothers. I’ve stopped going to
clubs because 99% of what they play is bollocks.
Were your record company as miffed as
Moby’s when you announced you were moving away
from techno?
Liam: The thing with Moby is he really has gone rock’n’roll.
He’s thrown his keyboards away and started writing
what, in my opinion, is bad hardcore. With us, we’ve
still got loads if dance elements in our music. I mean
’Firestarter’ was a dancesong with rock attidude,
so XL haven’t got a problem with it.
Leeroy: Moby is writing dance music under a psuedonym,
isn’t he?
Liam: I heard on MTV saying the only dance stuff he
likes nowadays is the cheesy stuff.
Keith: He’s not a Technohead fan, is he?!
Talking of Technohead, would you let
The Smurfs cover one of your tunes?
Leeroy: I’d like to cover The Smurfs with a very
heavy pillow and sit on it.
Liam: They wanted to turn ’Firestarter’ into
’Smurfstarter’ but I told them where they
could stick their pointy hats.
Maxim: No blue man covers my fucking songs.
Keith: He can be black, he can be white, he can be yellow,
he can be any fucking colour he wants, but he can’t
be blue.
Leeroy: That’s a bit Smurfist.
Are you pleased or horrified that U2
have been citing yourselves, Underworld and The Chemical
Brothers as the biggest influences on their Pop album?
Liam: I’ve spoken to Bono a couple of times. I
wanted him to do a track on our record-and he wanted
me to do a remix on theirs-but our schedules we're totally
out of sync. I think that for a band of their size they
take a lot of risks, which is cool.
Keith: It’s not their fault that they’re growing
old and fat is it?
What’s the most outragous lie that’s
been printed about you this year?
Keith: There was an article last weekend which was complete
fabrication. It said I was engaged. You know, totally
smitten and wrong bought.
Liam: The strange thing is that it was to my bird, so
you can imagine how I felt!I take it you were straight
onto you’re lawyers?
Liam: Nah, I was straight onto my bird!
Keith: If it had been really hurtful to someone I was
close to, then, yeah, I’d have thought about suing
but as it is, it didn’teven get me hot.
What’s the most frightening thing
you saw on Top Of The Pops during 1996?
Maxim: The opening credits. I had to turn away immediately.
Leeroy: Peter Andre was preety sick. He wears fucking
girls’ suntan cream.
Keith: I developed a severe hatred of the Crash Test
Dummies last year which has strecthed over into this
year.
Chris Evans. Discuss.
Liam: Disgusting you mean. Nah, he’s a talented
guy who doesn’t like us so I’m prepared not
to like him.
Keith: Whatever about him being mouthy and arrogant,
you have to say he’s a skilled broadcaster who
gets an audience whatever time of day he’s on.
I think it’s helped him having Oasis to latch onto.
You know, he’s been acting the lad of late with
his designer tracksuits and barneying in public.
Liam: Actually, I’d be quite worried if he was
up our arses all the time because that would mean that
we’d been absorbed into the mainstream. I never
want that to happen to The Prodigy.
Do you do any celebrity hob-nobbing
yourselves?
Leeroy: Apart from the odd round of golf with Mike Reid,
nah.
Keith: Gloria Estefan , amazingly enough, is a really
good laugh. We met her the other day and it turned out
she’s a bit of a fan. We thought she was being
polite at first but, no, she’s heard the records.
Maxim: She’s fucking indestructible, isn’t
she? First she broke her back in a coach crash and then,
last year I think it was,she nearly topped herself falling
out of a boat. Rock’n’roll!
Alanis Morisette. Why?
Leeroy: I agree.
Keith: I don’t want to diss her but there’s
something there which annoys me. It’s probably
all that love/hate bollocks. She goes on about having
her heart broken and not caring, but she obviously does
cos she’s singing about it.
Maxim: To have had that many disasterous relationships,
she’d need to be 50.
Liam: She writes some fucking good tunes, I have to
admit, but it’s too contrived. Too dreamt up in
a company boardroom.
Were you glad that The Stone Roses knocked
it on the head when they did?
Liam: They had a few internal problems but their music
was still good. They were certainly better than Oasis
who, I dunno, just don’t live up to all the hype.
Don’t get me wrong ,they write some killer fucking
tunes, but contary to popular belief they’re not
The Beatles part two.
Who do you fancy getting under the mistletoe
this Christmas?
Keith: I’ve already had Liam’s bird, so I
reckon that girl on the Prince video.
Liam: Tiffney from Eastenders.
Keith: You can’t, she’s just married Grant.
Liam: Yeah and that girl on the Prince video is his
wife.
What’s better,Willy Wonka or Chiiy-Chitty-Bang-Bang?
Maxim: Willy Wonka without a doubt.
Leeroy: Bollocks, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang’s a classic.
Keith is the Child Catcher.
Liam: They’re both crap compared to The Wizard
Of Oz, though not as bad as Bedknobs & Broomsticks.
That does my head in.
Keith: That would be a great song, ’I’m the
Child Catcher’.
Who’s your favourite Father Ted
character?
Liam: None of us have really watched that, have we?
The funniest thing on tv is The Simpsons. You that episode
where Homer gets stuck in the water-slide? That’s
the business.
Any recent Spinal Tap moments you’d
care to share with us?
Maxim: The best one ever was when Keith got stuck in
the plastic ball.
Keith: The zip got stuck but opened enough to let the
air out, so I was running around in this saggy bag.
I still reckon somebastard sabotaged it.
Liam: You suffer from saggy balls quite a bit, don’t
you Keith?
As professional firestarters, do you
prefer coal or briquettes?
Keith: Nah, what you want’s a great big bucket
of petrol and watch the fucker go!
