INTERVIEW MaxiJazz (Faithless)

Whilst recently in town as a part of the recent No Roots tour, Faithless played a packed Vodafone arena to rave reviews. Before the gig I caught up with their eloquently evocative front-man, Maxwell Frazer, better known to the world as Maxi Jazz. He's thrilled with the way the new material has been received by audiences. "Given that the set that we play is as much the new stuff, obviously we've got all the old favourites in there but there's quite a few new songs in there, and they're going down really well so we're well pleased about that."

The album features the newest member of the Faithless collective, cult Sony recording artist LSK, much to Maxi's delight. "The most obvious thing of all of the previous vocalists that we've had, have been a contrast, their light to my shade if you like, and Lee is like a pea from the same pod. We have the same world view pretty much. We listen to absolutely the same music. It has never happened before on a Faithless tour bus, that any member of the band has put in their favourite mix CD and fully 80% of the tunes, "oh I've got that!" You know generally reggae, generally really old hip-hop or if not old hip-hop then hip-hop with intelligence, not bling rap music! He will always play hip-hop rather than rap, and it's great to be around him. You know, we go out record shopping together and I spent so much, Jeez! I've got like two shoulder bags full and a proper big normal sized round-edged metal box that's nearly full, that is also carrying 7" records. I bought some Seven inch reggae in Japan. I couldn't believe it, I had to get it!" Maxi puts this shared love of reggae as the key factor behind why they compliment each other so well. "Yeah, because we both have a base in reggae. Reggae is the music that turns him on and also me, before hip-hop. You'll see it on stage tonight, a lot of the time when I talk to the crowd, I'll dip back into 1984-85, pretty much to 89, when I was running soundsystem with my boys. You use your island blood and the Jamaican comes out, and with my rhymes the same thing. I'll always lean towards Jamaican phraseology rather than American, even tho' I love rap and I love hip-hop music. And Lee's exactly the same, and I think that is why even though we have totally different vocal styles they compliment each other because the base is the same. Which is a love of old water-house reggae music... it's the best music in the world, I don't care what anybody got to tip off. It's actually the one form of music that I know for a fact that I could listen to all night and not have a change! I mean I love hip-hop to bits but after two hours man, I'm like play something else next. And those guys that just go and play house music all night long, what is that- I don't get it. I grew up with people playing a TribeCalledQuest, and then the Rolling Stones, if its funk you play it!"

Maxi's favourite track of the new album is I Want More Part One. "It's Lee's part...we both were given different sections of that song with the title of I Want More. Lee came from the perspective that his mum was always telling him "I want never gets" so he's written a song about people who have got stuff and they're complaining that they want more, and comparing it to people who can live like a king on the crumbs from the table if you see what I mean. I just love... he's got a really plaintive chorus, it goes "What do you mean, I want more-" really beautiful!" However there's no room for both parts on the latest single to be released in Australia. "Yeah, I Want More Part 2 which is my take on I Want More is the single, and it's a shame. I think personally they should have had both tracks out as the single, but of course it doesn't make marketing sense. It makes musical sense but not marketing sense. My take on I Want More is the fact that there's so much stuff in this world and what I want more of is people smiling to me rather than their basic... The first half of the song talks rea Tags

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• faithless