9. Max RomeoChase The Devil

I heard The Prodigy’s ‘Out of Space’, which I really liked. We played with them in Austria. I think we were headlining the gig, but then they did something after. They all just jumped up and down in a line to a backing track – it was really funny, but really good. And it made me go and search out the record that was sampled in ‘Out Of Space’. I had to go and find out what the original was. This opened a whole new door for me to get into reggae music, dub music, ska… all of that. Before it had just been UB40 on Top Of The Pops. It all got a bit mainstream. I thought I didn’t like reggae. Bob Marley was so big that it didn’t really count. I didn’t know anyone who played reggae. ‘Chase The Devil’s such an accessible song, about a guy chasing the devil off the Earth and sending him back out to space. It’s a great production – a Lee Perry production. The Upsetters are playing on it. It was such a different thing for Max Romeo – he was like a lover’s rock kind of guy. He sang these smooth love songs, and then he hooks up with Lee Perry and makes this fiery, Rastafarian record. Quite political. It got me into The Heptones, The Aggravators – that kind of stuff. I disappeared down the wormhole. That’s the joy of it. Though occasionally I get all completist about it and we have to remortgage the house!