THE ROCK
We meet Keith Flint and his band at Cage Rage 3, an extreme fighting event in the legendary Caesar's Palace Nightclub on Streatham High Street in South London. Like Ancient Rome without the glamour, it's a world where grown men bay for blood and kick the shit out of one another in a 24 foot octagonal cage. And everybody knows who Flinty is, and they’re all pleased to see him.
Keith’s new band Flint are a muscular, driving force, with big guitars and two drummers. So far, they’ve played a couple of gigs in London, been up to Donington for the Download Festival and remixed Marilyn Manson's MOBSCENE track. But Keith’s still got a long way to go to convince the world he’s a Rock God.
It's great we have people like Keith Flint in the world, he's one of the modern breed of English eccentrics. With loads of money, a penchant for theatrics and a deep rooted desire to 'ave it hard you've got to love him. But best of all he's been there, done that, asked for seconds and he still wants to get up on stage and do it all again.
PK: What’s a day in the life of Keith Flint like?
If I’ve been out the night before and got really fucked the first thing I’ll do is drink 2 bottles of water, maybe chuck a Berocca in there. Then I go out on my mountain bike and go up the river. I do about 12 miles: The first 5 miles is usually pissed and quite wobbly. When I get home I have a shower and then go back to bed.
PK: Do you still do loads of bike racing?
Yeah, I get these super bikes when they’re about a year old. They’re fucking superb bits of kit around the £100,000 range, I took one racing and did fucking well.
PK: How often do you go out?
This week I did 1000 miles, all street riding. I go anywhere, to tracks, to watch friends race cars and bikes, or just down to the coast.
PK: Why do you do it?
Every time you come home with a ‘fucking hell I didn’t think I was going to make that’ vibe. It keeps you alive and it keeps you on your toes. You’ve got to stay keen – we’re just animals, you know?
PK: Do you watch much telly?
Telly is fucking evil. I know because I’ve been sucked into it. I didn’t realise how beautiful it was to say ‘Kat, what do you mean Kat?’. You get sucked in and then you get into the gossip, you know; ‘I know the future of
Eastenders, Kat’s going to leave’. Then you’re really fucked.
PK: Have you always liked rock stuff, not just dance?
I Listened to Joni Mitchell when I was traveling years ago. When she sings about the vapour trails and the aircraft going across the sky looking like guitar strings I was seeing that over Israel. Being there, not understanding any Hebrew or Arabic, I thought to myself: ‘there are no cars orbikes or anything, it’s untouched by human sound - no different to 2000 years ago or whenever Christ was here’.
PK: You have a house in a little village in Essex don’t you? is it like home or is it an escape?
It’s not a safety zone because I must admit that I only go back there once a month at the moment. I think when I was doing a lot of touring I needed an idyllic environment to come back to though.
PK: do you still have amazing bonfire parties?
Yeah, Christmas is wank and birthdays are just there to depress you and this was something that people had forgotten about. For me it’s about mayhem, the mayhem of 10 grands worth of explosives mixed with a fucking good party. Maybe that sums me up very well: mayhem, beauty and a fucking good time. You know, there is nothing more fun than inviting all you neighbors around into your house and then Boy George turning up with 5 transvestites and they end up dancing on your tables.
PK: What is it like in your new band Flint?
It’s not going to earn me any money and I’m going to be flying economy and I’m going to be on the tour bus, but that’s great. I don’t want to wait two years to go and do it First Class, I want to do it now. I want to achieve every day. I’m going to be staying in very shoddy B&Bs but that’s not me being a martyr, I’m just prepared to do what it takes to make me happy.
PK: Do you feel you have to keep up with your people’s perception of you?
I don’t have to tell you ‘yeah last night I was shooting people and fucking them up and shagging ho’s’ to back up what I know I can do when I’m on stage. I’m not fucking fodder for the fucking sluts out there – that’s not me. If I was gardener I would say ‘I’m a fucking gardener, come and look at my garden, it’s the bollocks’, but I’m not a gardener. I wish I fucking was ‘cos I would like to hold my head up proud. When I get up there and I’m showing people what’s happening to me when I am listening to something that is ballistic, it gives me this energy; It’s like a therapy, it’s like a phoenix.
PK: do you do many drugs?
I do get off my trolly and lie on the sofa ‘til 11 in the morning drinking shampoo if I think it’s got any alcohol in it or opium if it’s poppy shampoo. Believe me I’ve sat here drinking warm speckled hen and a miniature of Bacardi simultaneously, but I tell you what, when you are on that stage you do the finest drug of any description. It makes you realize that drugs just pollute that natural high.
PK: have you ever had a medical check up?
I went to the doctor the other day and he said I had a resting heart rate of like, 57 and I was like ‘fucking hell no way’ and that was really bad news ‘cos it meant I just went out and got absolutely wankered for 48 hours.
PK: do you get fan mail
None at all
PK: stalkers?
No
PK: How would you kill someone?
By tying them to a tree in Epping Forest, getting a sheet of acid (LSD) putting it in their throat – waiting until their darkest moment and then cutting them very slowly.
PK: What would you do to stay in the Big Brother house?
Feed someone a sheet of acid, tie them to a tree…