The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett on playing Coachella after Keith Flint’s death — “It was like jumping off a building”
- Share via
When the Prodigy first played Coachella in 2002, they were outlaws. The brash electronic group’s 1997 LP “The Fat of The Land” had topped charts in the U.S. and heralded the mainstreaming of underground rave culture, which would morph into the EDM boom here a decade later. They were MTV staples for grimy videos like “Breathe” and “Firestarter,” where the dual-mohawked singer/dancer Keith Flint skulked around an empty subway tunnel, sneering in kohl eyeliner and an American flag sweater.
Liam Howlett, the Prodigy’s founder, recalled his band’s debut at Coachella as “a real British invasion. It was quite a different festival back then,” he said. “I remember it being quite loose and unregulated.”
Twenty-three years later, there’s a new yearning for that era, when dance music embodied tech-juiced libertinism and invention. When we go to the club, we want to hear those club classics, after all.
Prodigy old-heads and Gen Z revivalists will get to hear them (the band’s now a duo, with singer-dancer Maxim and other touring musicians) on Friday at 10:05 p.m. in the Mojave tent. Howlett spoke to The Times about recovering from Flint’s death at 49 in 2019, Gen Z’s longing for a different era of rave and if A.I. has any place in the modern raver’s toolkit.
In the run-up to Coachella, international artists are getting nervous about visas and the consequences of Trump’s crackdowns on dissent.
It must be cathartic to be back playing big festivals after Keith Flint’s death. Is it emotional being up there without him?
Right after Keith passed away, we just didn’t know what to do. We didn’t even speak about anything for years. Finally we just hung out and one of us said, “I think I’m up for it.” We talked about gigs — Should we? Could we? We ended up with the same answer, which was basically that the only way to find out is to get some gigs in small venues. It gave us the answers we needed.
Man, it was f— just highly emotional. I’ve never felt so affected just because the crowds were totally with us. It was like jumping off a building. We just didn’t know what the f— was gonna happen. This is why we had to do it. I’ll never forget the feeling, like the crowd gave us the answers we needed to carry on.
But I will say that us carrying on isn’t a Keith tribute show. We want to honor him, and we will continue to do that, because Keith is more than just a person they saw on stage. Even though he wasn’t a musician, he was such an important person in the studio as a right-hand man. When I’m writing music now, he still survives in my mind, and that’s a beautiful thing, you know. That’s knowing we’ve got more to give. Because that’s when I’ll stop, when I’ve got nothing more to give.
There is a fresh longing for raves of yore — there’s a reason Charli XCX is singing about wanting to hear the club classics. As someone who pioneered that era, what are young people yearning for there?
The night is a call to these kids. Electronic music always is there. I think it’s because, basically, pop producers use electronic music and they dip into that when they’re making pop records. We consider ourselves on the harder end of electronic music, and we’re quite pure in what we what we do, even though it’s quite mixed up. It’s a combination of culture-clashing British influences and American hip-hop, but it’s electronic music that has always had its place, especially in Europe and England.
When I was growing up, I was very lucky, because I grew up in three big cultural movements. I missed punk because I was too young, but two-tone ska, I got into that big time. Then hip-hop came over to be another massive thing, and then I discovered rave culture. I wish my son could experience at least something like those movements. He’s lacking a bit now, and I think the blame totally lies in social media. Things aren’t allowed to simmer on the underground, they don’t get the chance to live there long enough for it to grow. They’re exposed fully to the public straight away. I think that’s the reason why cultures aren’t longer-lasting.
Plus, you kind of need to experience it in the right physical setting, and not just on your phone.
Going out to raves in London and around the U.K., we were standing next to sound systems that were shaking your whole body to understand what music can do. While you’re flipping through phones and looking at videos, if you don’t also experience it standing next to a sub-bass, you haven’t experienced what frequencies can do to people. I was very privileged as well to have that ingrained into me very young.
Dance music has always been open to new technology, but the Prodigy’s music was always very handmade. Does A.I. have any place in club music today, or is that antiart?
I’m interested in any technology, but I think it’s so dangerous to rely on anything like that, anything that takes any type of creativity away from the person. I think instead of being afraid of it, I believe that an artist can be in the studio, and if A.I. could be utilized to shine a light or help unlock an idea, then I think that’s a good thing. As far as relying on it to produce, we don’t want to take the creativity away from a person. But I’m interested what the positive things about it are, like how can it help educate people.
Coachella returns April 11-13 and April 18-20. These are the acts our staff can’t wait to see in Indio.
Your last album came out in 2018, though you have new music coming soon. Dance music is evolving faster than ever in the modern era. Do big statement-piece albums like “The Fat of the Land” still feel possible today?
You have to attack it in different ways. Obviously, writing has taken time because of the whole situation. As far as writing new songs, I’m not sure whether it’s going to be in the shape of an album or what it is, because we want to be able to release music quickly. Releasing an album just seems too drawn out to me. So we’re trying to think of other ways of doing it so people can get the music quicker. As soon as we’re happy with a tune, I want it out there.
Obviously, the world is changing all the time, there are different ways of getting music to people. That interests me, because between the time I finish a song and the time it comes out, that period is too long. But I never let anything be released until it’s at a certain standard. My son’s in a band and he just sticks stuff up straight away, and I’m jealous. We want to find the right balance of that.
Does your old music resonate with him?
He’s in a guitar band, so there’s nothing electronic about what he’s doing. That’s a choice he made because he knows he can’t beat his dad. [Laughs] It’s very difficult, I think, for guitar bands now, but he’s good. Man, we were there once. It’s funny to see it all again through my son’s eyes.
The Prodigy was the embodiment of a subcultural band that got huge. In an era when everything is accessible and chewed up online so quickly, how do you preserve that sensibility today?
From a young age, the music I liked was not friendly music. It’s always something that was weird, or had a bit more anger, an attitude or depth. We’re not a political band, but we are a band of the people, we are an escapist band. I went back to a small studio — basically like a bedroom. I can do everything, I can mix in here. The sound of my last record sounds better than the previous record, which was mixed in a big studio. I’ve gone back to DIY. Too much equipment can weigh you down, and with limited equipment, your brain has to figure out ways to do stuff and be creative.
In this room, it’s a mess with loads of weird devices everywhere. I’m not an artist that likes to stare at a computer screen. I put the computer on as a tape machine, press record, play for an hour, then stop and listen to what I’ve got. Something good happens when you’re playing that loud through a real system.
More to Read
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
