Professor Green

At Your Inconvenience...

MAXIM: What have you been up to since we last spoke? Or rather, what haven't you been up to?
PROFESSOR GREEN: I'll start with what I haven't been up to. I've been slightly better behaved than I used to be. I've been made an honest man of ...pretty honest! As for what I have been up to, pretty much just touring non-stop. Oh, and I made an album as well. Just on the side. Pretty much was on the side! Shot two videos, for the warm up and for the first proper single 'Read All About It'... but mostly just touring constantly. If I'm not doing a tour it's a one-off gig or PAs. Or festivals, which have just been amazing. They were good last year. This year they've just been incredible. I think people had time to digest the album... alot of the festivals I did last year the album hadn't been out, so we still had people that didn't know it. We still had massive crowds, but this year has been something else. Noticably different!

MAXIM: How's the new album coming along? You've finished it now right?
PRO: Yeah! It's finished, mastered, all the artwork's been done. I've been fortunate again with this record, because the label have let me make the record I want to. I didn't have a single record rejected or anything, everything was accepted first time when I delivered the album and the label were ecstatic, which hopefully is a good sign! Same with the artwork and stuff, it was all my ideas, which have then gone on to influence both videos and I've helped to write the treatments for them, so I've had alot more involvement this time around. Because of that, the whole project's alot more cohesive. We were kinda chasing our tail a bit last time, the first single we put out just to see what happened, then it chartered at number 3, so we were like "fuck... we need the album and we need it now". So there wasn't really much time to think too deeply about everything whereas this time I kinda knew what I was doing from the beginning. It's given us time to make a really complete and quite broad project.

MAXIM: Made any dream purchases? Got any that you still wanna make?
PRO: Do you know what, I bought a really nice jacket for the 'At Your Inconvenience' video, and then I followed suit and did the same for the video after and they both cost stupid money. I also bought a really nice watch, which was not a stupid accessory bling watch, but I always said if I made a bit of money it was something I would like to buy myself. Not really into massive chains and that, and now I'm trying to save to get a house. I don't have bad credit or anything, I just don't have credit!

MAXIM: Now you're a Puma Ambassador, what does that involve?
PRO: It just means I have to wear Pumas, which isn't really that much of a chore, 'cos they're quite nice! I was a bit apprehensive at first because I thought "Hmm, sporting brand..." and I'm not exactly the most sporty of people, but I was told all I'd have to do is sport the trainers! Not really a big deal. I get to do the opening of Foot Asylum next week in conjunction with Puma, and I did a one-off secret gig with Puma last week in Manchester. It's quite beneficial for me to do stuff like that, because I get the opportunity to do smaller gigs with people who are real, real fans, who have gone through the effort of doing whatever they had to do to get their tickets. The whole After Hours Athlete thing is something I'm quite familar with being as well, their idea behind it was that it's not about running 100 metres in the fastest time, it's about going out, getting absoloutely twatted and coming him with a girl or at least her number. In my heyday, it was something I was quite into doing!

MAXIM: What's the most powerful piece of literature or film-making you've ever read, seen or heard?
PRO: In terms of heard, Gorecki was quite powerful. Definitely. And Suicidal Thoughts by Biggie. It felt quite open and honest, like he was genuinely in that place when he wrote the record. Seen... that's not easy. Let's go with Irreversible. That was probably the most powerful... it will stay with me forever and I'll never watch it again. The director is in the opening shot in the gay club giving some bloke head in the background... bit of trivia for you there. I've tried to wipe the film from my memory, mostly down to the noises. Hearing somebody get their face caved in with a fire extinguisher is horrible.

MAXIM: What's your favourite film?
PRO: Of all time would be impossible to pick. Favourite film of recent times would be Dark Knight. I'm not very good at watching films more than once without a great amount of time between visits to the couch, but that film I can watch over and over and over again. Ever since I was a kid I've had a very short attention span, if I've seen something recently and I know what's gonna happen I get bored, very ADHD. I'm interested to see how they pull off the next one. They said they weren't going to unless they could raise the bar, so they must be sure!

MAXIM: Any crazy fan stories?
PRO: I was in Edinburgh, after having a very interesting night in Ibiza the night before, got there and found out my show was at 4 o'clock in the morning so you can imagine how that went. We were getting picked up at 8 in the morning for the airport so none of us went to sleep, got to the airport, got on the plane and fell asleep for the first time. Woke up and looked at my watch, two and a half hours had gone past. "Oh", I thought, "must've just landed in London!". Nah. We were still on the tarmac in Ibiza due to french air traffic control. IQ, my DJ, was green, his hangover was the worst I've ever seen, never seen him like that. When we finally landed, the baggage took FUCKING AGES to come out and I just made the flight to Edinburgh by the skin of my teeth. Before I went on stage, I had no idea what I was feeling and I've never been like that before. When I got off stage, and I really wasn't in the headspace to deal with it, I had these two sisters come over and offer themselves to me. They were also with another girl who said "I can be the third sister if you like!". I just looked at my manager and then back at them and said "What is wrong with you that you'd get into bed with your own sister?". It's the kind of thing that you banter about with your mates you know 'Oh yeah I shagged two sisters', if they were twins I might have done it.. good looking twins... but all I could think was 'You're somebody's daughter, what the hell is wrong you?'. If they're just friends then fine, but otherwise no. Unless they're good looking twins I don't condone incest!

MAXIM: You don't come from a traditional background, what are your feelings on being raised in something other than the usual mother & father scenario, same sex couples adopting and the like?
PRO: I don't really have any feelings on that, it's not something I pay too much attention to. The key factor when a child's growing up is security, feeling safe and having a stable environment; I never had that. Have we moved along far enough for a child to not get stick at school for having two mums or two dads? I don't think we have. Is that fair on the kid? Probably not. But at the same time, is anyone any less deserving of raising a child? No.

MAXIM: It's quite a heavy topic. As are the recent riots in London and further afield after the shooting of Mark Duggan. What are your feelings on what transpired?
PRO: It began as a knee-jerk reaction, and then when people realised they could get free trainers they got stuck in. At that point it wasn't for a reason, which is why when they did put more police out they didn't hit the streets because it was cowardice. If they had a real reason, had some fire in their hearts, a few extra police wouldn't have stopped it. But they weren't actually campaigning for any cause, they just thought it was OK to do that. It's easy to condemn those people for doing that, but for me I feel it should have raised awareness that we need to look at the reasons why people thought it was OK in the first place... again it comes down to how you were raised.

MAXIM: You must have hit some lows in your time on this rather interesting planet... what made you keep going, and what advice would you offer to those who look up to you?
PRO: Blind stupidity and carry on. Nothing else to do for as long as you're here, it's the only thing you can do. Whatever happens to you, your only option, irrespective of what it is, is to carry on. Suck it up, it gets hard, but what can you do?

MAXIM: What have you got in store for us in the near future?
PRO: First single 'Read All About It' is out October 23rd, and the second album 'At Your Inconvenience', not 'At Your Convenience', or 'At Your Own Convenience', I almost wish I hadn't called it what I called it just for people getting the fucking name wrong! But yeah, that's out October 31st, and then after that I'll be straight into my winter tour. More of the same, but bigger and better!