Liam Howlett - The Prodigy

The Prodigy

On 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 Flint approached him and asked whether Liam could do some mixes for him. When Liam had done the mixes he would pass it to Keith. One night, when Keith and Leeroy Thornhill were returning from a rave, they flipped Liam’s tape onto side B (which was titled "the prodigy" in reference to the Moog synthesizer used) to find some of Liam's own tracks on it and got completely hooked. They decided to approach Liam and ask him if he wanted to play on stage with Keith and Leeroy dancing at the front of the stage. Liam agreed, and The Prodigy was born. The Prodigy name came from a synthesizer called a Moog Prodigy which Liam used in his tracks. Howlett signed to leading UK rave label XL Recordings on the strength of several tracks played to XL boss Nick Halkes and in 1991 the debut Prodigy single was released.

Liam used to purchase records from a record shop owned by Tim Palmer, although Liam did not know this prior to the XL meeting. The shop was mainly staffed by Tim Palmer's mother. Liam and his friends would travel into London, where the shop was located, and ask for the most underground of dance tracks, the ones only a dedicated specialist dance DJ would know of, simply to test Tim Palmer's mother. Time after time they would be amazed as she acknowledged the track and handed it over for them to listen to.