In November 2020 theprodigy.ru team made a fantastic interview with Kieron Pepper, former The Prodigy drummer, Baseface member, multi-instrumentalist, and a music producer with more than 30 years of experience.

 

Some of you can probably remember Kieron Pepper at legendary The Prodigy’s 1997 Brixton Academy gig, as well as at dozens of parties he hosted with Dima Gordy, Pepper’s BaseFace bandmate. Kieron co-wrote “Baby’s Got A Temper”, “Razor” and “Black Smoke” by The Prodigy and co-produced Keith Flint’s solo album “Device #1”, as well as Maxim’s legendary “Carmen Queasy”. In addition, Kieron helped Leeroy Thornhill with the release of “Beyond All Reasonable Doubt”, where they recorded several tracks together. Pepper also took part in the creation of Hyper’s “We Control” album, where Leeroy also appeared as a co-writer.

Kieron Pepper spoke about what he’s working on now, told about his 10 years of experience with The Prodigy, Liam Howlett, and Keith Flint, showed some details about FLINT’s debut album, shared Baseface’s future plans, and gave us a huge amount of information about his musical background. Thanks to Dima Gordy and Dmitrii Wuks for making this interview happen. Russian translation can be found here.

Part 1. About Keith Flint.

Did Keith write any lyrics or record any vocals between 1997 and 2002? That means between “The Fat Of The Land” and “Baby’s Got A Temper”.

Yes, 2000 to 2002 was when Keith & I wrote quite a few songs, some of which ended up on “Device #1”. The first solid song from those sessions was “Prescription” – but the arrangement was different from the album version. The music was written initially with just myself, Keith & Tony Howlett: we had a joke band name and jammed for hours at his house just for kicks before it got serious. Then the rest we wrote with Jim Davies when he joined the fold (after he was welcomed back to The Prodigy at that time). Other songs were written after 2002, before the recording of the album at Olympic Studios with Youth.

Why has Keith’s solo album never been released? What can be said about the album’s fate after Keith’s passing?

The album was never finished properly. The tracks that appear on the private copy of “Device #1” (which was leaked) were truly great in energy and really captured the moment, but there was a general feeling that it could have been better.

I’d love to finish the album at some point, bringing in more elements from the earlier demos. I wasn’t using computers to produce the demos back then, just samplers and hard-disk recorders. I don’t know where the 1/4 inch tapes of the album track masters are.

I’m not sure if any part of the album is salvageable though, and it wasn’t released at the time for a reason. I’ve got boxes of old demos in the loft, but I just can’t bring myself to go up there and look yet. There are probably a few conversations to have first.

As you may remember, there was a track called “Vacation”: basically, it was The Prodigy’s track but later it was re-sung by Keith. Did those two versions differ a lot from each other? Were any elements from it incorporated into Liam’s tracks later on? Do you recall anything about it?

It was actually the other way around. “Vacation USA” was one of our tracks that was on “Device #1” that Liam wanted to work with; along with “Razor” and “No Name No Number” (“NNNN”), which became “Baby’s Got A Temper”. I can’t remember if Liam finished a version of “Vacation”.

Was Keith upset about the fact that his solo album hasn’t been released? Or did he grew indifferent towards his solo career upon returning to the band? What do you think: did he have enough freedom to unfold within The Prodigy?

I think we were all gutted. I wanted nothing more than for that band to succeed — especially for Keith, but there were many factors against it.

Keith lived and breathed The Prodigy — it was his life, and after the extra experience of writing songs in this way, I’m sure it gave him extra impetus and fire to contribute to all the great The Prodigy tracks that we love after that period of time.

Part 2. About The Prodigy.

You may remember the track called “Dust Yoself”, it was played live a couple of times back in 2002. Still, we have no recordings of it whatsoever. Do you remember, maybe some elements of it were later used in other Liam’s tracks? If that’s true, do you know anything about it?

This was a jam/link track used in between songs at gigs, I used to love jamming live with Liam — I think at the time they were loops that he triggered from the Roland W-30, and so it was very organic and easy to change the structure at will. Maxim would freestyle lyrics — there were some awesome versions that I am sure must exist from fans’ bootlegs.

I imagine that some of the sounds found their way into other later tracks, even if they were put through the mangler, chopped into fragments.

Why do you think Liam released nothing between “The Fat Of The Land” and “Baby’s Got A Temper”? It was the most commercially successful time for the band. Fans are sure that there was enough material for an EP.

That’s a question for Liam really. A lot of the songs/ideas at the time I think ended up (in some form or other) on “Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned” and later albums. I hear sounds and riffs from that time even on “No Tourists”. Liam has well and truly honed his sound over the years; his armory of beats, riffs, treatments, and production tricks are outstanding. I’ll never get bored of his music, and I can’t wait to hear what happens next.

Kieron Pepper at The Prodigy’s gig in Kyiv. Ukraine, 1998.

Part 3. Personal questions.

What are your musical roots and background? How did you start playing drums?

A self-taught multi-instrumentalist grew up on a diet of Cocteau Twins, The The, Street Sounds Electro compilation albums, Fugazi, shameless 80’s pop and underground acts you will have never heard of, that played my local music venues Y-Club & The Army & Navy — where I did my first gigs.

I was in a band called The Changelings (1989–1990), I sang and played guitar/keys — the drummer Dan (still my best friend) wanted to leave and become a frontman. I was more interested in keeping the band together and was very keen to learn the drums, so we swapped. It’s all Dan’s fault.

Could you tell us more about what you’re up to at the moment? According to your Instagram account, you are currently working with many artists and doing different production. Please, tell us about the most interesting projects you are working on now.

I have two main passions at the moment, firstly writing and producing with fresh bands such as Wargasm and Crashface, and other bands and artists; and secondly, I help young acts with artist development — whatever they need — from songwriting to pre-production for recording or live performances, advice on branding and helping to connect them to the right people they need to advance and excel. Sometimes just moral support, belief, and opportunity are enough to help people to the next stage.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with many artists who are really starting to make waves or have gone on to greater success: Chinchilla, Sophie & The Giants, July Jones, Joe Carabine, Annabel Allum, Stu Brootal, Bruch, China Bears, Hounds, Hockeysmith, Dekay, Lime, Lúna, MIN t, Neon Islands, Nuuxs, Owen Petch, Penelope Isles, Prima Queen, Rila’s Edge, Rocky Nti, Sam Animal, Xero, BEACH RIOT, to name-check a few…

I particularly like helping acts in the early stages, I’ve been doing it for years behind the scenes. It is so rewarding to see them earn success through hard work, talent, and focus.

I’ll eventually make my private work in this field more public; but for now, meeting creatives through references and word-of-mouth is cool for me.

I still get my kicks playing with bands. I play bass with Sleeper (wrote an album with them in 2018), and drums/samplers/synths with Radiophonic Workshop (we did a soundtrack for a horror film called Possum last year).

Exclusive performance: The Radiophonic Workshop’s upcoming live show utilizes the internet as one…

https://www.musicradar.com/news/exclusive-performance-the-radiophonic-workshops-upcoming-live-show-utilises-the-internet-as-one-big-tape-delay-get-a-sneak-peek-of-the-show-here-first