Channel nine - national news

Howlett juggles fatherhood and career

• 10th February 2005

For The Prodigy's Liam Howlett, juggling fatherhood and a hardcore dance music career isn't easy.

But the 33-year-old is doing his best.

"You have to definitely make time," the new dad told AAP from London ahead of his upcoming Australian tour.

"I kind of sometimes battle with myself, trying to do the baby thing and I haven't given up partying - you can't do that, can you?

"It is hard man! Being a father is not easy."

Howlett's child, who he simply referred to as "the baby", sat on his lap and gurgled into the telephone throughout most of the 20 minute interview.

With his hard punk dance image and hit songs such as Firestarter, Voodoo People, Breathe and Smack My Bitch Up, it is a stretch to imagine Howlett as a father.

"The father thing don't enter into it," Howlett, who is married to Natalia Appleton, a singer from the defunct girl group All Saints.

"I haven't changed what I'm about. I am there the same as I ever was."

The Prodigy last toured Australia in 2002, doing the rounds as one of the headline acts at the Big Day Out music festival.

The group last year released `Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned', their fourth studio album and first offering in seven years.

The band spent most of last year touring Europe.

"I always say that dance music and where we came from is really universal," he said.

"It kind of just spreads across all boundaries."

The Prodigy's Australian tour kicks off with the Two Tribes music festival in Sydney on March 5.

Two Tribes then heads to Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne.

The band will also perform separate shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

Howlett, who writes most of The Prodigy's music, has already begun working on the next album.

Asked what sort of music he was writing, Howlett said it was "some weird shit".

"My studio is mobile so I basically just carry it around with me in my bag and I write all the time.

"There will probably be brand new tracks I have written in Australia on the road there - that is how quickly it can turn around."

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• Liam Howlett