Liam Howlett

Composer, producer, leader of the band The Prodigy. Born August 21, 1971 in Braintree, Essex. He was first influenced by hip hop music and culture when he began to attend school at Alec Hunter Humanities College in Braintree. He learned breakdancing alongside his crew called The Pure City Breakers, and DJed in his first band Cut 2 Kill . After a fight at a gig of the band, Liam left Cut 2 Kill and started to write his own music. He became connected to rave music and he reportedly went to his first rave in 1989. 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. In 1998, Liam was offered the chance to do a mix for Mary Anne Hobbs' radio show. He dug out some of his old favourite tracks again and this prompted him to release an edited (due to some copyright issues) version of the mix in February, 1999. It was the first material which was recorded in his new home studio "The Dirtchamber", so accordingly the album was to be called "Prodigy presents Dirtchamber Sessions Volume 1". In the end of January 2006, a compilation album titled "Back to Mine: Liam Prodigy" was released. It was a collection of Howlett's favourite tunes, including an exclusive Prodigy track called "Wake the Fuck Up", which is often performed as an intro in The Prodigy's live concerts. Howlett was a co-producer on the track "Immunize" from Australian drum and bass act Pendulum's third album Immersion, which was released in 2010. Husband of Natalie Appleton.