#AONO20: Hotride · Juliette Lewis
On 1 November 2004, The Prodigy released Hotride as the second single from Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. With vocals by the inimitable Juliette Lewis, the track blends Liam Howlett’s signature electronic punk with a generous dose of his twisted humour. Two decades later, All Souvenirs dives into the backstory of ‘Hotride’: where this unusual collaboration began, why the official music video was rejected, and who actually designed the release cover.
In the #AONO20 series, our team tells the full story behind each track on the 2004 album. We’ve already covered ‘Spitfire’, ‘Girls’, ‘Memphis Bells’ and ‘Get Up Get Off’ — and now it’s time to find out all about ‘Hotride’, the 5th track on the LP.
Photo credit: Rich Fury
Photo credit: Sidney Baldwin
Photo credit: Andy Willsher
A full vocal track by Keith Flint was recorded specifically for the third ‘El Batori Mix’, also known as The Passenger Mix. This was the only track with Flint’s voice during the album sessions.
For a while, the band performed this version with Keef live on the ‘Always Outnumbered’ tour. However, the track didn’t fit well in the Prodigy’s set and sounded somewhat awkward.
Eventually, it was reworked toward a more Howlett-style electronic punk sound, culminating in a performance at the Lowlands Festival in 2005. The All Souvenirs team recently remastered this recording!
Different editions of the single also included a B-side and a remix from another artist. The B-side Who U Foolin was written by Howlett in Reason back in 2003 in the then-popular broken beat style. Elements from this track were later used in both versions of ‘Get Up Get Off’ and ‘More Girls’. Notably, this was the only full B-side release in 13 years, since ‘The Trick’ on the 1996 ‘Breathe’ single—the next one appeared only in 2009 on the ‘Invaders EP’ with the well-known ‘Mescaline’.
As with ‘Girls’, a special edit was also made for the ‘Hotride’ music video. However, unlike ‘Girls’, the ‘Hotride’ video edit wasn’t released even on promos and can only be heard in the video itself.
Photo credit: picturescope.com
‘Hotride’ is a bold example of Howlett’s fearlessness in choosing artists he wants to work with. This was also noted by Juliette Lewis herself at the time: “I think what [Liam] is doing is really amazing, because he’s not trying to repeat past successes with The Prodigy. He’s actually taking it up a notch,” she recalled in an interview with NME.
Stay tuned for our upcoming posts celebrating the 20th anniversary of one of the most underrated albums by British electronic punks, ‘Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned’. Our next stop—the story behind ‘Wake Up’ featuring Kool Keith of Ultramagnetic MCs!
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Trick was released on Breathe single, not on Firestarter! And last bside from that era is No man army from Smack my bitch up single.
Pretty sure the AONO demo that’s suspected to be ‘Good Morning’ got recycles into Rise of the Eagles.
Yep, these tracks have a similar vibe.
Ok, apparently Rise Of The Eagles is a cover, I didn’t know that. But it’s a cover of a song from 2004! Which makes me suspect that maybe the AONO demo was still maybe inspired by it?