Reality Check

The man they call MC Maxim Reality is best known for screaming such deeply philosophical tenets as "psychosomatic addict insane", "I've got the poison I've got the remedy" over the searing rock-out breakbeats of the world-conquering Prodigy.

But all that may change with the release of his debut album Hell's Kitchen. Maxim is quick to dismiss the notion that this is a stopgap album before next year's follow up to The Fat Of The Land.
"Basically, I didn't want to do an album with twelve tracks with me doing vocals on all of them," explains Maxim. "On stuff like 'My Web' I did vocals, but I wanted to concentrate on the production. It s a more of a backseat introduction. But it s still me, me, me! (laughs)
The idea of the album was to make a raw album that represents me so I didn't want to get a producer. All the music was recorded in my home studio and over 90% was completed there. It was just brought to a mastering suite to EQ it."
What will surprise a lot of observers is how fully developed Maxim's world view is compared to some of the more cartoonish elements of even the Prodigy's best work.
"There were a lot of feelings bubbling inside of me for quite a while," says Maxim. "The album is like a cauldron bubbling over, combining a lot of elements of darkness that people don't like to face. People get scared of reality, particularly in the entertainment business which is based on escapism. I'd like to think that I'm re-introducing reality, and giving a faithful depiction of how I view society. Telling a personal story has become engulfed in technology and I think that we are losing touch with ourselves.
On this album there is a lot of reading between the lines. 'Killing Culture' is about exactly that. One line goes: Kissing moral contracts suicidal impact . The song deals with a recording artist killing culture and killing themselves. People are always obsessed about getting into the music business to the extent where they'll sell their Mum. But in the Prodigy, we've got on TV shows like Top Of The Pops not through writing pop songs or listening to people who think our stuff is too hard for radio, or that there shouldn't be swearing or blasphemy. Fuck 'em!"
The Prodigy are noted as one of the world's most thrilling live bands, especially in the dance arena where you could make a strong case for them being the only stadium dance band that really works. Due to Maxim's commitment to Prodigy live duties, he will not be touring with his album however.
"That s because of my loyalty to Prodigy, he explains. It would be like taking a brick from something to build something else and damaging the original structure. The Prodigy have never sounded so good before and we can't wait to get going again. Album-wise we keep on changing a couple of tracks, but our goal is to get it out next year and go out again next summer. We're totally charged up for that."