Earlier this year, around the release of the latest album from The Prodigy, Invaders Must Die (iTunes / Amazon MP3/CD / Insound), the band had the privilege of experiencing a photo shoot by legendary music photographer Mick Rock, best known for his work with 1970s rock icons like David Bowie, Queen, Iggy Pop, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and Blondie.
TheMusic.FM writer Charles Poladian got video of the often hilarious scene as the eccentric Mick tried to squeeze the best possible shots out of the band on the roof of New York’s 60 Thompson hotel. Today, on the release of the album’s third single, Take Me To The Hospital (which includes remixes from Rusko and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age) (iTunes / Amazon MP3/CD / Insound), we debut this fantastic photo shoot footage and our interview with The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett, all below.
Interview With The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett
Interview Highlights
- Mick Rock is a “legend” who they now love, but, at first, Liam and Keith simply “didn’t like him.”
- In the studio, the band listened to some of Liam’s “thousands of records” he bought as a DJ during the “golden years of the rave scene,” 1989 to 1992.
- Liam has gotten his “love back for the dance music again.”
How did Busy P (Pedro Winter) end up doing an opening DJ set for your New York show earlier this year?
Yeah I mean Busy P — I’ve loved the Ed Banger sound and the label for many years since it first started and we’re just really thankful for him to have done it with us. I just respect him, really.
Have any of the newer electronic sounds or any other music you’ve been listening to impacted your work on Invaders Must Die?
I think so. I think like for the last record, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, it wasn’t influenced really by as much dance music. But for this record, I kind of recognized what the band was about again, and just really was excited by a lot of dance music again. It just seems to have much more energy and much more kind of like – dirt and … sex – to it, somehow. It’s sort of got really dirty again and really kind of noisy and more rock ‘n roll. It sort of has an excitement again.
So along with that, I listened to lots of electronic music. I got my love back for the dance music again. Not all of it. But certain bands. I went out and just kind of soaked it up.
You’re always influenced by what you’re surrounded by at the time, so maybe a bit of that and a bit of the old school. We spent many, many times in the studio listening to our old records again, like from the rave scene – I used to DJ quite a lot out in the scene – so we spent quite a lot of time listening to tracks that I bought from ’89 through ’92. Those particular years were the golden years of the rave scene. So I’ve collected, you know, thousands of records, and so we just went back and listened to a lot of that stuff.
Tell me about your photo shoot with Mick Rock. What was it like to be assailed by these crude, often hilarious things he yells at you throughout it?
Mick Rock — he’s great. When I first met him, when he first walked into the room, I was like, “I’m not gonna get on with this guy. I’m gonna not get on with him at all. I don’t like him.” And, Keith – he didn’t like him.
But as soon as I started to speak to him, I really liked him. So I went from kind of like really not liking him one bit, to actually really liking him, and actually wanting to hang out with him that night. I wanted to get him out with us, get him a drink and just hang out.
I just thought he was great. He had so much energy, and I like that kind of British punk rock attitude and … the only trouble with it was that he was just making us laugh the whole way through. So a lot of the footage will be of us smiling and laughing. Which is kind of like, not probably what we intended. But I had a great time. I thought he was fucking great. He’s a legend. It was a pleasure doing it. And we came away from it really energized.
We do a lot of pictures and we do a lot of interviews and the amount of time we step away feeling like “ahh, fuckin’ shit — the photographer didn’t do anything, they didn’t get it.” The photographer has to draw it out of you, you know, you’ve got to be energized by it. Like a crowd.
He’s just fucking great. I loved him. I hope we see him again, you know, because I thought he was really cool.
Interview conducted by Mike Lewis.
