It’s about kicking against the pricks and just not rolling with the flow. So, it’s about the demand for more than the mindless, cultural Spotification that dominates our very existence. ‘No Tourists’ is just a statement that you’ve got to try harder.” Not following things just because it’s easy. to explore another alternative route with the danger and excitement. The world’s forgotten how to explore, and we’re against that. You’re force-fed all this shit, and it’s hard not to go along with it and be lazy. People have become lazier and forgotten how to explore. “‘No Tourists’ is ultimately about escapism and fucking needing to be derailed. And if people think I am being political, well, I can’t stop people reading whatever they want into it. “I know what it means and it isn’t anything to do with politics. As he looks at me, his temporary anger quickly changes to laughter. He’s standing in front of his mixing desk, flanked by analogue kit, an Orange amp and a randomly placed bright red front door with a singular number 7. “What, do you think people will reckon it’s about immigration?” asks a belligerent Liam. At a time when the Windrush Generation have found themselves being repatriated, despite believing they held British passports, ‘No Tourists’ probably needs explaining. In the time since that ‘Nasty’ playback, we’ve had Brexit, that shift right has become a full throttle lurch, the Tories have adopted UKIP’s voice and questions around borders and immigration are top of the daily political news agendas. Just in case people missed the subtle call to arms issued by ‘Nasty’, Liam has christened this latest set ‘No Tourists’. ![]() In the punch-drunk mudslinging of shift-to-the-right post-UKIP Britain, it’s hard not to hear it as a political comment on immigration.Īlmost four years later on a hot August day in 2018, we’re back in Liam’s studio to listen to the band’s seventh studio album and chew the fat over the making of the album, and that title. ![]() ![]() The suffocating aggression only fully lets up with a brief drop, in which long-time collaborator Brother Culture utters the repeated words ‘I ain’t no tourist’ with militant defiance. The ear-bleeding combination of analogue attack, Keith Flint’s rabid vocals and the relentless, thunderstruck beats combine to create an ambience of oppressive claustrophobia. It is as fierce a cut and thrust of electronic punk as the band have yet managed. As the first single from the album, ‘Nasty’, snarls its way into the room, Liam Howlett turns the volume up, leans back in his swivel chair and grins. We’re in Liam Howlett’s King’s Cross studio listening to what would become The Prodigy’s sixth studio album ‘The Day Is My Enemy’. A cold, damp day in North London, late in 2014.
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