Warrior’s Dance • K-Guy Interview

In May 2009, The Prodigy dropped Warrior’s Dance, a fierce, fiery follow-up to Invaders Must Die. Sixteen years on, the tune still hits hard — and for some fans, it also brings back memories of something a little more offbeat: a set of limited-edition prints by British street artist K-Guy. Released later that same year in collaboration with the band, the prints reimagined the cig packs from the ‘Warrior’s Dance’ video, turning them into bold, iconic artworks. To mark the 16th anniversary of ‘Warrior’s Dance’, All Souvenirs caught up with K-Guy to find out how it all began.

Released on 11 May 2009, ‘Warrior’s Dance’ played a surprisingly pivotal role in the band’s history. Originally intended as a live-only banger for the summer festival circuit, the track ended up becoming not only a fan and band favourite, but also the namesake of an entire music event, ‘Warrior’s Dance Festival’, held from 2009 to 2013. More than that, it added a lasting symbol to The Prodigy’s identity — with Maxim and the band beginning to call their fans “warriors” as early as 2008. The word stuck, and over the years it’s become part of the group’s DNA, with fans still referring to themselves — and the band — that way to this day.

In the lead-up to the single’s release, The Prodigy dropped a music video in which animated cigarette packets throw a full-blown rave in a nondescript London boozer — nearly burning it to the ground. Directed by Corin Hardy, the video brought to life one of his childhood dreams: to animate cigarette packets and give them attitude. The result was something genuinely original and hard to forget. The design of the packets? That was also crafted in-house by Hardy and his team.

While we’ve already broken down the full behind-the-scenes story of the video — along with a deep dive into the making of the tune itself — in our feature marking its 15th anniversary, today we’re shining a light on a different visual relic from that era: a limited run of prints featuring those very same cig packets, crafted by K-Guy, London-based street art charlatan and self-proclaimed maker of mischief.

Actually, it all traces back to around 2005, when K-Guy began creating a series of cigarette packs featuring doctored health warnings — first as street art pieces pasted up around London, and later, in 2007, as a limited run of screen prints.

The story with The Prodigy picks up a couple of years later — around 2009, “if memory serves,” as K-Guy told All Souvenirs. One day, Liam Howlett dropped by the Westbank Gallery (133–137 Westbourne Grove, W11 2RS) and clocked a couple of K-Guy’s prints on display. Soon after, The Prodigy unveiled the cig pack promo for their then-new single, and not long after that, Liam messaged him on Instagram to see if he’d be up for turning it into a print. The timing was spot on, and everything worked out — “perfectly kismet,” as he admited.

K-Guy on his site (16/09/2009): “One more thing I forgot to mention is that Liam from The Prodigy contacted me recently. Seems like he’s a fan — which is mutual — and looks like we’re going to hook up and do a print together: K-Guy vs The Prodigy, a marriage made in heaven. I’ll keep you updated with info as and when.”

By the time the prints were nearly ready to go, The Prodigy were — as usual — on the road, which led to a logistical headache: over 200 prints had to be shipped in a crate to Russia, where the band were touring in October 2009, just so they could sign them before everything was sent back.

From time to time, particularly pedantic fans wonder why the official ant logo wasn’t used on the packaging — and instead, an amateur version appears: a not-so-clean, fan-made redrawing that’s been circulating online since at least the mid-2000s. At the same time, the word Hospital is written in the official font, suggesting that Corin Hardy’s team (he directed the video) or K-Guy himself clearly had access to official promo materials if they wanted them. But there’s definitely a certain charm in that kind of carelessness.

The final release dropped on 1 December 2009 and featured three colourways: fluorescent yellow, pink & orange — each printed on heavyweight black 300 gsm black Somerset satin printmaking paper. Every edition was limited to 25 hand-numbered and hand-signed prints, with both The Prodigy and K-Guy putting pen to paper. To make things even more special, each print had a hand-painted white background, making no two exactly alike. Distribution was handled with help from the now-defunct team behind littleartbook.com (also known as LAB), who helped get the prints into the hands of fans worldwide.

The Prodigy Store: “First up in The Prodigy versus series was the infamous worldwide tattoo legend that is Mo Coppoletta and his apocalyptic ‘Invaders’ print. Then came one of the most in demand young British artists Stuart Semple with his dark and demonic ‘Thunder’ print. Now with great pleasure LAB presents the third from The Prodigy Vs series with an explosive eye catching print by one of London’s most prolific urban artists K-Guy and his ‘Take Me To The Hospital’ print.”

Before the final run, K-Guy also created a handful of test prints to play around with colours and stuff — these were never signed by the band and remain separate from the official editions. Both the test prints and originals from that 2009 official run still pop up on eBay from time to time.

The print was warmly received by fans, and the whole thing went down as another offbeat but much-loved Prodge collaboration. The next collab wasn’t far off — a few years later, it was K-Guy who made the first move.

K-Guy for All Souvenirs: “[The next one] was all instigated by me. I had the idea of producing a portrait of the band using ants and dropped the guys a message with a very rough mock-up pic to see if they’d be up for it. They sent me the Prodigy book ‘Invaders Must Die’, and I grabbed the images from that and created the final ant portrait.”

K-Guy on his site (22/05/2012): “I finally found the time to get some rubber ant stamps produced and then build up a legion of the little critters to form the basis of the piece. […] Keith, Liam and Maxim […] came back with ‘Man, we all luv this shit, it’s large’, so we’re hooking up again to do some print editions.”

The piece, eventually titled AnthroPRODIGY, went live in mid-June 2012. It was a 40″ x 20″ four-colour screenprint, each in a signed and numbered edition of 30 — with both The Prodigy and K-Guy putting their names to it once again. The artwork was released in six colourways: Acid Lime/Violet, Fire Red/Orange, Neon Camo, Poison Black, Metallic Gold/Blue, and Metallic Silver/Red. The new print struck a chord with both the band and the fans — again.

Later, the red/orange version was even used by the band on a set of promotional postcards, handed out as fan souvenirs and for various promo activities. Visually and thematically, the artwork fit seamlessly into the new era of The Prodigy, launched with ‘Invaders Must Die’ and still very much ongoing.

K-Guy for All Souvenirs: “An interesting fact or two about the postcards was that it was actually my idea, when I was having a chinwag with Liam (might have been John), who was saying that they get asked to sign stuff when they pull up to airports and the like. I produced the postcards for them, and for payment they sent me about 25 signed versions. As a gesture to the fans, I gave them all away for free to fans on my Facebook page — probably not my smartest financial move, but worth it!”

Following those two releases, K-Guy had hoped to continue working with the band on new concepts — and The Prodigy were up for it. But this time, things got complicated. All changed when the band brought in a new marketing company — from that point on, getting a final decision became nearly impossible, and securing sign-off proved even harder. What had once been a direct, handshake-level process turned into a tangle of NDAs, contracts, and demands for “a stupid percentage of the profits for actually doing very little.”

K-Guy for All Souvenirs: “It was as easy as anything before. I talked to the band, they said yeah, I talked to John [Fairs, the band’s manager], we verbally shook hands and did the art, simple”

One way or another, K-Guy still looks back fondly on his work with The Prodigy. He remains a fan of the band, and admits that he’s also turned down a number of collaboration offers over the years. One particularly notable request came from Snow Patrol, who had invited him to design an LP sleeve — but he just wasn’t into the band or their music, and his punk attitude kicked in. In retrospect, he acknowledges that perhaps he should’ve taken the cash and the exposure, but at the time, he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Bad judgement call, who knows?” he grins.

K-Guy for All Souvenirs: “Now that time has elapsed, I’m super proud of the art I did for The Prodigy. When it was happening, you don’t really think about it, I guess — just get on with it.”

A few missed chances, a few iconic pieces — and no regrets. Some of those prints are long gone, but if you fancy owning one, K-Guy’s still got some work up at kguy.bigcartel.com. Worth a look.

Headmasters: SPLIT
Additional thanks to: K-Guy

YOOMONEY (RUS): 7928З82272З

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