The quotes by Liam Howlett:
"I'm fascinated with aggressive music
on a street level. We draw from all corners of rock 'n'
roll history, hip hop, dance, punk, whatever, and spit it out
as the Prodigy sound. The live element allows us to take it
one step further, to really connect with the crowd and bring
out a darker side to the band. It will always remain important
to me to create something raw and unpolished. "
Liam
"When I listen to our old records there
are certain elements I still like, I can see why they worked
but I would never write like that again. Take 'No Good (Start
The Dance)' - it's not a cool sound, it was back then, it was
part of that scene, but you need to move on. And I was never
happy with the second album Jilted. Everyone made a big thing
about that record but I was never fully happy. I liked certain
songs, maybe six, perhaps, but the rest were not right. The
ground-breaking tracks were 'Poison', 'Voodoo People', 'Break
And Enter' and 'Their Law'. Only four ground-breaking tunes
on that album. I knew 'Breathe' and 'Firestarter' were good.
That created an enormous pressure on me for the next track,
but so did my first single 'Charly', so did all the other big
tracks along the way. In a strange way I think that's what
drives me, at least partly. What drives me even more is that
we have the power to put things in the charts that would otherwise
not be heard. We have the power to write a piece of music that
is fucking hard and anarchic and know that it will get in the
charts and fuck up the mainstream. "
Liam
"'Firestarter' was like that. Keith heard
the track as an instrumental and thought it was wicked and
said he couldn't wait to dance to it on stage. He sat
there for a while and then said 'I would love to put some vocals
on this'. We put the actual vocals down in a London studio,
and I can't explain the feeling me and Keith got that night,
driving home listening to the tape, playing it over and over
again. I knew then it was original, that I had achieved something. "
Liam
"All Prodigy music is raw, and that will
never change, the production is raw, the sounds are dirty,
you can't get away from that. Take it or leave it. "
Liam
"We'd been away for a year and we needed
to come back with a big impact, but just another dance track
would not have broken any new ground. As far as I am
concerned 'Firestarter' set a whole new level for English music,
that's my honest opinion. When people heard that track it was
a major turning point. It was so experimental, crossing the
barriers between punk and dance. Keith re-invented himself
and it was a great introduction to him. It was convincing but
not just because it was No.1. The track sounds like it means
business, the way Keith delivers the vocals, the music has
such attitude. It was a landmark. "
Liam
"America is exciting to us because they
haven't got all the baggage that the UK has. My main concern
is the preoccupation with scenes, and the interest in the 'electronic
music scene' - what the hell's that? We'll go over there
and rock it on our own, we don't need to rely on a scene to
survive. We have far more flexibility than other electronic
bands as well - some dance bands are too purist and won't go
on rock bills, but as far as we're concerned that's too myopic
and limiting. We've got no doubts that when things kick off,
we can deliver the performance and the music and the goods,
that's our side of the bargain. "
Liam
"It's important not to get too locked
into one way of thinking, some kind routine or format. That's
what happened to me with the first album, Experience. I got
locked into certain sounds within that rave scene, specific
types of songs, and as a result it is quite a one dimensional
record. I don't want to do that again. "
Liam
"As far as the rock 'n' roll format in
dance music goes, I don't think it's been done before with
such full-on attitude. The idea behind that was because no-one
else had done it. Everything was right at the time for
us to do that. "
Liam
"When you first break into the music scene,
everyone is so naive. I was only nineteen when it started happening
with 'Charly' and I was so into the rave scene - apart from
some hip hop, I was blind to everything else. "
Liam
"I go in and out of the studio in sporadic
periods, I don't go in there for hours on end. I'm looking
for that initial vibe, be it from a beat, a sound, a loop,
whatever. Nothing is planned, nothing is deliberate. "
Liam
"The firestarter is in him, there's something
locked deep and dark inside Keith which drives him forward. "
Liam
"With 'Breathe' it was a completely different
to 'Firestarter'. I had already finished the song and they
had been dancing to it for several gigs, they knew the song
well. Then Keith came up with 'come play my game' in my studio,
so we got Maxim round. I rewound the tape and went into another
room to sit down. Fifteen minutes later they had the vocals
worked out and finished. "
Liam
The bloke is a complete lunatic. When
I met him (Keith) five or six years ago, he was driving round
in this battered up old Ford Escort and there was one night
we went out doing three-point turns in the snow, off our faces
on E and mushrooms. I'm not saying this was acceptable behaviour
in fact it was fucking stupid but it'll give you an idea of
where our heads were at at the time. Liam on Keith
"We'd been away for a year and we needed to come back with a big impact, but just another dance track would not have broken any new ground. As far as I am concerned 'Firestarter' set a whole new level for English music, that's my honest opinion. When people heard that track it was a major turning point. It was so experimental, crossing the barriers between punk and dance. Keith re-invented himself and it was a great introduction to him. It was convincing but not just because it was No.1. The track sounds like it means business, the way Keith delivers the covals, the musc has such attitude. It was a landmark. " Liam
'Firestarter' was like that. Keith heard the track as an instrumental and thought it was wicked and said he couln't wait to dance to it on stage. He sat there for a while and then said 'I would love to put some vocals on this'. We put the actual vocals down in a London studio, and I can't explain the feeling me and Keith got that night, driving home listening to the tape, playing it over and over again. I knew then it was original, that I had achieved something. " Liam
"With 'Breathe' it was completely diffrent to 'Firestarter'. I had already finished the song and they had been dancing to it for several gigs, they know the song well. Then Keith came up with 'come play my game' in my studio, so we got Maxim round. I rewound the tape and went into another room to sit down. fifteen minutes later they had the vocals worked out and finished. " Liam
I'm really strange when it comes to working. I like to do everything myself. I can't have anyone else in the studio. The first embryonic stage of writing a track and starting the music, I have to be on my own. I have to be stumbling around in the studio, catching a vibe with no one else around. That's the way it works best really. Liam
When I was 14 years old, I used to record stuff off the radio and do mixes with the pause button on my cassette player. I've always loved doing mixes. I never liked sport or anything like that. Mixing tunes together was just what I always wanted to do... Liam
I was 15. I basically just did it for myself in my bedroom and I spent like a year just learning the techniques, going to mixing competitions watching people, listening to stuff and just picking it up. And then I think I entered a couple of mixing competitions. I entered a mixing competition on a London radio station and entered a mix under one name and two weeks later I thought no, it has these bad points, I'm gonna do another one. So I entered another mix under another name and I came first and third with both those mixes. It just took off from there. But I never thought Yeah, I want to be in this big band! Liam
"The music business is like a big trap
and that's why I never like to put both feet into it - I like
to stand back and laugh at it, because if you jump into the
mainstream completely then you are never going to escape. Songs
like 'Firestarter' burst on to the mainstream and bend it,
twist it. Then we retreat back underground. That's the best
way. "
Liam
