Maxi Jazz still faithful after 15 years

The Faithless front man spoke exclusively to the Caribana website just before their stunning set.

Faithless made a triumphant return to Caribana, with their Friday night headlining set on the the highlights of the 20th edition of the festival. Just before taking to the stage, front man Maxi Jazz spoke to the Caribana website about the festival and new album The Dance.

Caribana: What do you remember about your first Caribana appearance in 1998??
Maxi Jazz: I remember the venue because we went out earlier today and as soon as we saw the stage I said "Ah yeah I remember this" but the actual gig itself has passed into the hazy mists of time as we've probably done about a million gigs since then.
It is an absolutely wonderful place. It is a beautiful site. We've had a really nice day and we've actually spent most of the day on a lake on a sail boat.


Caribana: When you started out 15 years ago, essentially as a club act, did you ever expect to be playing festivals, either smaller ones like Caribana or bigger ones like Glastonbury where you play later in the summer?
Maxi Jazz: I honestly had no clue. We got together to make one single and because we got on so well we thought "Ok lets make an album. Lets keep our feet on the ground guys, no one is going to buy it and you know we're going to have some fun making it." So to still be here 15 years later playing festivals of any description or size is just astonishing to me. And the amount of affection that we are held in is again a matter of amazement for me. It is incredible after all this time.

Caribana: And you are still having fun?
Maxi Jazz: Oh yes. The hour and a half that you spend on stage is energising. It is beautiful to see that many people as one. It is a great feeling to see that and to be a part of engineering that.

Caribana: Your new album has recently been released and has been a critical and commercial success, entering the UK chart at number 2?
Maxi Jazz: Yes, it came in at number 2 which is astonishing. We got beaten by those hoary old rockers The Rolling Stones. Having said that we have been described recently as “The Rolling Stones of dance music”, which pissed Sister Bliss off no end. So that was quite ironic that they would get the number one spot but for me it was amazing. Apparently we sold nearly 30,000 records in that first week and over 70% was physical product with only 29% downloads. For us this is incredible.

Caribana: You changed your record distribution process in the UK, doing a deal with supermarket chain Tesco to sell The Dance. How did that come about?
Maxi Jazz: That was something put to us by our management as Tesco had approached them and said that they would really like to handle this record. When the management then put it to us, they said that Tesco has some 2,000 stores up and down the country and if you go to any other record shop they won't have anything like that. It you put your product in a supermarket, people don't have to go especially to buy your record. They can go and buy it with their normal weekly grocery shopping.  So we sort of chewed it around a bit and thought "Well, actually that's not a bad idea".

Caribana: And now that the record is out there, how do you feel?
Maxi Jazz: Once you out a record out it is a bit like your 20-year-old child leaving home. You know he's out there in the world doing his own thing now and he is going to be influencing people on his own without your help. And you give whatever help you can as much as you can and generally that means going on tour to promote it. But thats a done deal now and the next thing you are looking at is making a new baby.

Caribana: Just listening to the record again today, the lyrics really jump out at you. There is a spirituality about the lyrics; where does that come from? Is it something that subconsciously feeds into the music?
Maxi Jazz: No, I'm a a Buddhist and one of the reasons I worked with Sister Bliss and Rollo in the first place is that a mutual friend introduced me to them as a Buddhist rapper and that excited their imagination a little. Once I had written the lyrics for Salva Mea they were intrigued and wanted to know a bit more about buddhist philosophy and the Buddhist perspective on aspects of life. So I tried to explain that in the best way I could and Rollo said "Can you write that stuff down in song form" and I said "Almost certainly" and he said "Let's make an album then." So Faithless from the outside, from the very beginning, has always been a vehicle for Buddhist philosophy.

Caribana: And over 15 years of ups and downs with Faithless that has helped you keep going?
Maxi Jazz: In 15 years you will row and fight and spit and have arguments but it is never, ever like a personal thing. It is always because we are all very motivated and you want whatever piece of music you are working on to sound incredible. And if the three of us are working on a bit of music then for sure we will have different ideas on which ways it should go once we have got it to a certain form but the amount of respect we have for one another as individuals, as musicians and as band members is unshakeable. So that platform allows you to be as extreme as you want. You want everything you have brought to the table because then what happens is you create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Faithless' enduring legacy for me is that we are all very different - we're were not four jazz heads who got together at college and made a jazz band - we've all got completely different musical backgrounds and we throw it all in there and fuse it and create something that has its own individual distinct character and flavour that can't be imitated because it is the product of the three of us.

Caribana: How has the music industry and particularly the dance music industry - people are saying that dance music is dying - changed since you started?
Maxi Jazz: I don't agree with this idea that dance music is dying. There are creative people everywhere in this world, who are right now making sounds and vibes that we can only guess at. Dance music will never die, neither will reggae, neither will hip-hop nor any of the other music trends that have popped up in the last 20 or 30 years. What has happened is that music has become much more disposable because of people's access to music via the web. And musicians aren't getting paid quite as much. But I also believe that the whole situation is still in a state of flux; we haven't got to the end game yet. There is a new musical culture being developed as we speak and I'm quite sure for a lot of people right now they don't quite understand the value of music because it is so readily available to them. And at some point in the future, as people grow and the situation develops, the value of music will become more apparent to people and hopefully we will start getting paid again but it is a developing situation.

By Adrian Harte