The Making of.. Open Up

“Burn Hollywood burn”: Eastern samples, pumping rhythms, rebellious lyrics… “We were breaking seriously new ground,” says John Lydon

- Leftfield Lydon

When John LYDON spent a weekend in 1979 playing reggae to a young friend of a friend, he surely didn’t imagine that this 19-year-old, neil Barnes, would end up introducing him to the dance world 14 years later. “I don’t often make excursions out of my own world,” LYDON explains today, “but when I do, I know it’s always for the right reason, and Leftfield are the right reason. Friends for life, they won’t do me no wrong.”

LYDON had previously experimented with dub and hip-hop alongside Afrika Bambaataa on Time Zone’s “World Destruction”. But Leftfield’s 1993 hit “Open Up” saw him try out cutting-edge techno, with the duo of Barnes and Paul Daley meticulously combining countless eastern samples and breakbeats to create the fiery, high powered track.

We were breaking some seriously new ground,” says LYDON. “The idea of working with an alleged singer was novel for them! We knew we were going into a dance world with this, and how would it work?” “From the word go we wanted John for this track,” says Paul Daley. “Anyone else would have been a disappointment. We didn’t know if it would work and I don’t think John did, either, but the vibe was tops from day one of working together.”

“We had to do something that warranted getting John in,” recalls neil Barnes. “We were terrified that we’d do something second-rate. We worked on the bassline until we got it right, spinning in records endlessly, trying different breaks to get the right feel for it, changing the hi-hat rhythm 100 times, different bass drums… We’d push things sonically as far as we could.”