|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Biography
Full name: Liam Paris Howlett
Date of birth: 21st of August 1971
Place of Birth: Braintree, Essex/UK
From ‘Cut to kill’ to The ‘Dirtchamber sessions vol. one’: His interest in music was about to get to the surface very early. At the age of 14, he mixed songs recorded from the radio using the pause button on his cassette player. It was the time he went to school when he first got influenced by hip hop music and the whole culture about hip hop. He learnt break-dancing alongside his crew called ‘Pure City Breakers’ and used to go Djing in his first band ‘Cut to kill’ before he started writing his own music. He decided to leave ‘Cut to Kill’ when they nearly got into a shooting one day when they where trying to have a gig at a bar where most of the guys were black dudes. He was just filled up with the prejudices, the vibes and he didn’t see any changes going on in the hip hop scene.
The time he got contacted with rave music - which was quite a new thing back then - was when he went to his first rave in 1989, at the age of 18, which was held at Essex-based venue called ‘The Barn’. He became hooked immediately and from this point of time on he would spend his time recording and mixing some rave tunes in his bedroom.
At the weekends he went to all the raves and when the clubs closed down in the early morning those ravers went on to party on the beach while Liam played a compilation of the latest rave tracks out of a van. One day Keith approached him and asked whether Liam could do some remixes for him. When Liam had done the remixes he would pass it to Keith and one night when Keith and Leeroy were in Keith’s car returning from a rave they put Liam’s tape, with ‘Prodigy’ written on the cover, into the stereo system and got completely hooked. They decided to approach Liam and ask him if he wants to play on stage with Keith and Leeroy dancing at the front of the stage. After Liam hesitated a few seconds he eventually agreed… the Prodigy was born.
Later Leeroy asked his friend Sharky to join the band and she agreed. They soon realized that they would need a MC to bring out the right power onstage. After they searched for a while they got to know Keith Palmer who was known under the name of Maxim Reality. They offered him to perform with them and after he agreed the Prodigy were a group of five.
After they signed a record deal with ‘XL Recordings’ which was a local independent record label, they released their first album ‘Experience’ in 1992 which reached the top three of the UK charts. The next Album ‘Music For The Jilted Generation’ was released in 1994 and had a big success all over Europe, despite Liam was never fully happy with Music For The Jilted Generation, he thought only about 6 tracks were ok. The final breakthrough was made when the single ‘Firestarter’ was released in 1995. After it was discussed if the authorities should ban the ‘Firestarter’ video from the TV screens because it frightened some kids it went directly to the number one spot all over Europe! After the release of the second single ‘Breathe’ the Prodigy finally released their third album ‘The Fat Of The Land’ in July 1997, about six months overdue.
It became silent about the Prodigy up to now, but a fourth album is due to be released in 2002!
When Liam was offered to do some mixes for a radio show he got involved with his old favourite tracks again and this encouraged him to release a mix album containing all his favourite tunes in February 1999. It was the first material which was recorded in his new home studio ‘The Dirtchamber’ so adequately the album was to be called ‘Prodigy presents the dirtchamber sessions volume one’. The CD has got excerpts from about fifty tunes cut to eight tracks with a duration of 59mins.