Tread Carefully Or I Will Cut You To Shreds

Not our words, Keith Flints The Prodigyfrontmanwho, as we found out, wont stand for being called afirestarter*

There’s a no-smoking sign on the wall of the London studio where we meet Keith Flint. Still, The Prodigy’s pierced and punk-plumed wildman is rolling a fag. He crams a wad of Golden Virginia into a crumpled Rizla, licks it, lights it and takes a long, merciful drag.

“I fucking hate this nanny state we live in right now,” he exhales, filling the room with smoke. “It’s like being back at school. I cannot be told what to do. As soon as I’m told not to, I will. It’s the death of life, the nanny state. And it kills everything. It will turn us all into zombies.”

We are talking about the controlling influences of the music industry. It was only while making of The Prodigy’s new album, The Day Is My Enemy, that he says he had a staffing cull to kill the ‘maggots’ feeding off the band.

“When you’ve got people telling you to do this and that, you can feel like meat,” he blasts. “So I now only directly deal with [bandmates] Liam or Maxim. I’ve never had a personal manager; I’ve always looked after myself. That’s why I dress myself, that’s why I speak for myself, and that’s why I remain myself. I’m quite willing to fuck things up for myself but I’m not going to have some cunt do it for me. Not for something that’s so precious. Would you let someone come into your family and tell you how it should be run? I never have, and right now, I’m using that history to be even more of a cunt.”

A conversation with Keith is not unlike one of his gigs. It is unpredictable, visceral, and raw. It can be angry at times, scary at others, but entrancing throughout. But he is not the four-letter lady-part he just singled out. Not today, anyway. In fact, he is rather charming and funny. Eloquent, too. And he laughs a lot.