#Jilted30: Their Law · PWEI Interview
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Prodigy’s Music For The Jilted Generation, we’re continuing to post exclusive stuff from the making of the album. This time we tell the story of Their Law: an anthem of rebellious Britain in 1994. All Souvenirs team had a chat with Pop Will Eat Itself’s Adam Mole, who gave us plenty of detailed insight into how the idea for the song came about, how it was recorded and what happened afterwards. We also went through some recognisable live versions of the track, and checked out a show by PWEI themselves, who still perform ‘Their Law’ at their gigs to this day as well.
Music for the Jilted Generation, a record that injected a healthy dose of rebellion into the global dance scene’s jugular, transforming The Prodigy from yesterday’s underground heroes into today’s world-renowned Electronic Punks. Among the album’s standout tracks is Their Law, a collaboration with Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI), and an anthem that still resonates with time even three decades later. Released amidst the rising tensions between the UK government and youth culture, the tune served as a blistering critique of the Criminal Justice Bill, which sought to clamp down on raves and free parties.
In late spring 1994, Australian promoter Mark Dynamix conducted a lengthy 20-minute interview with Liam, which clearly captured Howlett’s attitude to the subject. It was recorded just before the band’s Australian tour in June. Although Howlett would later repeatedly deny the political message of the album, this May chat illustrates well what was important to Liam at the time.
Liam Howlett for Mark Dynamix: In England we’re going through big problems at the moment with the police and the government who are trying to close down all the parties, the whole party scene and basically stop young people having a good time. So it’s kind of like the Jilted Generation is, you know, thousands and thousands of people who have been brought up on this corrupt music: it’s meant to be drug related, it’s meant to have involved in the bad acid house scene and it’s just… It makes me laugh.
However, Liam was also sure that he didn’t want to get too political and turn The Prodigy into the new NWA, shouting ‘Fuck Da Police’ from the stage – he was just going to do what he loves and what he does best: badass electronic punk. But when the volume is deliberately turned down at your gigs, or the show even gets cancelled on ridiculous pretexts, it’s hard to remain indifferent. ‘I have always said that we are not a political band, but this was just one point that could not go untouched, this whole law about partying is such bollocks’, Liam admitted in Martin Roach’s ‘Electronic Punks’.
Liam Howlett for Mark Dynamix: The original album cover was going to be a police hat on fire, which is kind of like a real controversial cover, you know, but we didn’t want to get too heavy.
These undertones of ‘Music for the Jilted Generation’ were epitomized in ‘Their Law’, a track born out of frustration with the Criminal Justice Bill. Although the tune was inspired by political tensions, its production was pure creativity.
From late 1993 onwards, Liam moved further and further away from dance music and discovered guitar stuff: Senser, Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana and many others. His fascination with Kurt Cobain’s band led to the track Voodoo People, which directly samples the opening riff of Nirvana’s ‘Very Ape’. This in turn gave Liam some fresh ideas for a new tune with guitars — it appears that work on ‘Their Law’ was started in the late winter/early spring of 1994.
Liam Howlett for Martin Roach: Once I had ‘Voodoo People’ completed, that pushed me on to a new writing approach because it was a really different sound, and with that in mind I drew inspiration out of my own track to write the next one, which was ‘Their Law’.
Initially, Howlett had sought a collaboration with Senser, another act from the UK’s burgeoning underground scene, known for their blend of rap, rock, and electronic elements. But as fate would have it, Senser’s busy touring schedule meant they couldn’t join the project. Enter Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI), a band known for their industrial and alternative rock sound.
Liam Howlett for Martin Roach: We had played with PWEI a couple of times and I love the energy of guitar bands on stage. I think that guitar and techno could go together perfectly so well, but I don’t think that anybody has done that well enough yet.
Speaking to All Souvenirs, Adam Mole recalls that in the early nineties, Pop Will Eat Itself played a few end-of-year shows alongside The Prodigy. One memorable gig outside London featured Pop Will Eat Itself, The Prodigy, and Sister Sledge. They also likely shared the stage at a couple of Newcastle University events, where their dressing rooms were nearby. Although there’s no clear recollection of direct interaction with The Prodigy, they must have seen each other performances during these gigs.
In the official music licensing databases you can find earlier evidence of Howlett’s collaboration with Pop Will Eat Itself: allegedly in 1989 Howlett worked on the track Sixteen Different Flavours Of Hell: information about this can even be found on iTunes. However, this is a mistake: the co-writers of the tune listed in the databases are one and the same as the co-writers of ‘Their Law’ – it is unknown why they were moved to a completely different song and why this inaccuracy was made. Adam himself also confirmed the mistake to our team: Liam has nothing to do with this tune.
The first collaboration between PWEI and Liam Howlett actually took place in 1994, a few months before the release of ‘Music For The Jilted Generation’.
Adam Mole for All Souvenirs: We were writing our 1994 album ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ in Rich March’s loft in Birmingham and we got word via RCA or our manager CJ that The Prodigy wanted to collaborate on a track. Our only communication was they wanted guitars and vocals for a track on an album they were writing about the Criminal Justice Bill being passed in Parliament that prevented gatherings by law, in an attempt to stop illegal raves around the country basically. I’m not totally sure of all the details cos its a long time ago but I don’t think we had any other requests from them at all. Not even a bpm.
Originally, it was Graham Crabb, co-founder of PWEI, who likely came up with the chugging blocked guitar that opens ‘Their Law’ and carries through much of the track, although in its initial form, this riff was played on a rave-style synth.
Kerry Hammond (the band’s guitarist back then) delivered an epic rock riff that appears near to the middle of the track, and Clint Mansell (the band’s lead singer and guitarist at the time, and now, award-winning movie composer) came up with some words, possibly forming a few verses.
Clint Mansell has also worked on ‘First Warning’ score: read here
The band played all these parts separately, aligned to a BPM, and sent a cassette to Liam Howlett’s house through the post — it was 1994, so no fancy email attachments, cloud sharing or even p2p back then.
About a week later, the band was asked to call Liam, and it was likely either Clint or Richard March who spoke to him from Rich’s house in Birmingham. From what they recalled, Liam mentioned that he liked the rock God type riff and could use the vocals, but wasn’t keen on the ravey riff or some of the synth sweeps they had sent. It became clear that Liam didn’t want any keyboard parts, which made sense as he had never requested them. Following that, the band was asked to head into a studio (Rich Bitch in Birmingham) to record the guitar parts to a click track, along with the vocals. It seems that Liam only took snippets of the phrases ‘Fuck ‘em and their law’ and ‘Crackdown at Sundown’ for the vocals, possibly from longer lines sent by Clint.
Graham decided to ask Rich to play the keyboard riff, which Liam hadn’t liked, on guitar as a backup… just in case. Thus, one of the most recognizable guitar parts for The Prodigy was literally born at the last minute.
What makes ‘Their Law’ even more iconic is the incorporation of a sample from Smokey and the Bandit, the iconic ‘70s movie. The line, originally delivered by Sheriff Buford T. Justice (played by Jackie Gleason), was altered slightly for the track: ‘What we’re dealing with here is a total lack of respect for the law’. Adam Mole shared that PWEI had already sampled this film a few times on a previous album and added the sample as a nod to the oppressive atmosphere of the time, saying, ‘We thought the line fitted the subject matter Liam was after’.
Digging into his memories, Adam recalled another funny story about another line from the track that appears near the chorus: ‘I am the law and you can’t beat the law’.
Adam Mole for All Souvenirs: The previous evening my Mrs made me watch a shit film [Fried Green Tomatoes directed by Jon Avnet] and the line ‘I am the law and you can’t beat the law’ just jumped out so I recorded it on cassette and dropped it onto the studio cassette minutes before it was posted off.
For American journalist Dan Charnas, who happened to be in London in 1993, the story took an unexpected turn when he was asked to lend his voice to the record. As a result, his voice appears twice on ‘Music for the Jilted Generation’: the first time – in the opening Intro (which we wrote about in detail recently), and the second time — at the beginning of ‘Their Law’. In this case, once again, XL failed to clear the rights to the sample, and in addition to the album introduction, Dan also recorded a quote for another track.
Dan Charnas for passionweiss.com: I went by the [XL Recordings] office, and [Richard Russell, label’s boss] was like, ‘You know, The Prodigy has this record where there’s this sample we can’t clear, and we need an American accent. Can you do that accent?
Charnas agreed, unknowingly contributing to one of most iconic albums of the decade. The person who recorded Dan was Richard Russell himself.
Adam Mole for All Souvenirs: That was it. I don’t know if we heard any feedback but we just got a tape before their album came out when we were finishing our album mix in London. I seem to remember that we liked it but thought the beat was a bit lumpy… little did we know… I guess that’s why they’re an internationally acclaimed band and I’ve driven a van for DPD for 22 years… ha.
Liam Howlett himself recalled the collaboration with a sense of pride. ‘It has a real street sound, pure skateboard, surf guitars with heavy drums, real hardcore, elements of hip-hop, and slow, heavy beats as well’, Howlett recounted to Martin Roach. ‘Their Law’ has so much aggression in it, it’s totally hard’.
dB Magazine #69, 8-21 June 1994: [Liam’s] favourite band at the moment is a loud English guitar band called Senser. He has also worked with Pop Will Eat Itself, both as a remixer and on his new album. In fact, the album includes guitars and a flute. “I actually like to think of us sometimes as grunge techno,” he says.
Incidentally, there were rumours in the press in the 1990s that Liam had not only co-written a track with PWEI, but had also done a remix for them! We asked Adam about this and he replied that such a request might well have come from their label – but for some reason the collaboration never materialised and PWEI never worked with The Prodigy again.
Adam Mole for All Souvenirs: Not as far as I’m aware, [no remixes have taken place], but Liam may well have been asked, as our 1994 record ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ was quickly followed by a remix album of all the songs called ‘Two Fingers My Friends’ that included mixes by the likes of Youth / The Orb / Jim Foetus / Fun Da Mental / Jah Wobble / Renegade Soundwave / Apollo 440, so I presume he could have been asked.
The fact that ‘Their Law’ was written immediately after ‘Voodoo People’ is not only indicated by Liam’s interviews, but also by the instruments used in the tracks. The main synth line on these two bangers is the same Roland JD-990 with the 65 Wailing Guitar patch. Other samples used include the Techno Grooves’ Drop That Bassline, released on 3 March 1991 (this is the main beat backbone of ‘Their Law’), and two of Howlett’s other favourites: ‘Radio Babylon’ by Meat Beat Manifesto and ‘Assembly Line’ by The Commodores.
- Sample: synth
- Sample source: Roland JD-990 – Patches – 65 Wailing Guitar
- Sample: beat
- Sample source: Techno Grooves – Drop That Bassline [Mach 3, 1991]
- Sample: shout (‘right!’)
- Sample source: Meat Beat Manifesto – Radio Babylon [Helter Skelter / Radio Babylon, 1990]
- Original source: Cheryl Lynn – Encore (Dance Version) [Encore (Dance Version), 1983]
- Sample: break & shout (‘ha!’)
- Sample source: The Commodores – Assembly Line [Machine Gun, 1974]
Painted by Les Edwards | lesedwards.com
In its final form, ‘Their Law’ became the embodiment of defiance, a sonic middle finger to the authorities. The pounding drums, grinding guitars, and bursts of electronic energy collided in a way The Prodigy have never done before.
Despite the raw power and unmistakable message of ‘Their Law’, it never became the single off ‘Music for the Jilted Generation’ and ended up as a strong album filler. As Liam Howlett explained to Mark Dynamix in May 1994, ‘We are still talking about [releasing a single]. But yeah, I’d like to see it as a single just because it’s such an off-the-wall track’. In the same interview it was mentioned that ‘Their Law ’single could come out after the release of ‘Voodoo People’, but unfortunately these plans never materialized. Adam Mole himself also remembers the plans to release the single, but also doesn’t know what caused its cancellation.
Curiously enough, Liam was also considering releasing a full-vocal version of Their Law with extended lyrics for the single. It is unknown whether he wanted to take the lyrics that Pop Will Eat Itself sent him, or whether he was thinking of working on a new lyrics.
Liam Howlett: Even though the version on the album is quite an instrumental track, if we’re going to release that as a single…
Mark Dynamix: More vocals…
Liam Howlett: Yeah, we’ll have obviously more vocals in it to explain that Their Law is obviously to do with the law in England on the party scene.
The track was kinda ahead of its time in terms of sound and fit seamlessly into the next era of The Fat Of The Land. Alongside Gizz Butt and all the new more rock-leaning attributes, it held its own during the live shows on The Fat Of The Land tour, pumping up the crowd as much as the fresh songs from the forthcoming album. It made such an impact that its live performance at Phoenix Festival ‘96 even ended up on the B-side of the Breathe single that same year, despite being from the previous album. Adam Mole recalls being in the crowd: ‘I was in the mosh pit when they headlined Phoenix in 1996… it was truly amazing. Unforgettable in fact!’
It’s also hard not to remember their legendary performance of ‘Their Law’ on Manezhnaya Square in Moscow in 1997 – often mistakenly referred to as a concert on Red Square. The Prodigy still remember this show as one of the most memorable of their career, and the live video of ‘Their Law’ from Moscow was included on the 2005 compilation of the same title…
So, the track ultimately never became a single, which meant there were no alternate versions or remixes associated with it. However, in 2005, Their Law lent its name to a greatest hits compilation: Their Law (The Singles 1990-2005). It was released on 17 October 2005.
A couple of years ago we published the full story behind this compilation, including the design of the album: check it out here.
Despite not being a single, a shortened version of the track made it onto the first CD, which was exclusively for singles.
This shortened version, known as the ‘05 Edit’, isn’t a special radio edit like singles typically have — it simply ends a couple of minutes earlier than the album version: after chorus at 5:30, the long outro was removed.
It wasn’t until over 5 years later, in preparation for the Milton Keynes gig on July 24, 2010, that Liam refreshed the track, updating the intro and adding new FX samples for variety. Since then, this version has become a regular at live shows.
This updated version is what our team has recreated! Their Law (‘10 Live Edit) is another special gift in celebration of the LP’s anniversary.
As well as The Prodigy, PWEI also still performs ‘Their Law’ today, featuring a repeated verse lyric that Graham added, although these weren’t the verses originally sent to Liam.
Thirty years on, ‘Music for the Jilted Generation’ remains a testament to The Prodigy’s defiance and energy. And ‘Their Law’? It’s more than just a track — it’s a time capsule of a generation’s refusal to bow to authority, a reminder of what British youth were into back in 1994.
Headmasters: SPLIT
Additional thanks to: Sixshot, Adam Mole, Canyon Hill
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