Keith happened to be the first, and I said to him, ‘We need one more element’. “And as usual, all three of the others come round to have a listen. “I recorded it as an instrumental,” recalls Liam. And Liam may not be responsible for the ensuing carnage. His public profile is surely set to go ballistic in about two weeks, though, in the wake of his starring role on ‘Firestarter’. And obviously the press and the fans are going to latch onto him now. People only started to notice when he dyed his hair. “But he’s been insane for five years! He was insane the day I met him dancing in The Barn in Braintree.
“People say Keith looks insane these days,” shrugs Liam, during a break from overseeing the filming. It’s another step on a seemingly inevitable ladder to megastardom for Keith, and yet, despite dressing, acting, dancing and now singing in a manner that psychologists might well describe as ‘ludicrously attention-seeking’, he swears that neither he nor the band want to make him a star.īut could there be a convert career strategy being playing out by The Prodigy’s enigmatic supremo, Liam Howlett, designed to push the most blatantly charismatic quarter of the band into the spotlight? This doesn’t stop him from effortlessly slipping onto a vocal personal that is a schizo-barmy Mr C meeting a speedball-bonkers Gary Glitter in hell. We all cling to our barely adequate paper masks, but Keith makes his vocal debut on ‘Firestarter’, and so must breathe it all in for the 12 or so hours it takes to finish the filming. This video is being filmed deep in the tunnel of a disused London Underground station, amid thick, choking clouds of dust. All we know is that somewhere within them lies the seething, screaming soul of the greatest rock’n’roll dance band of the ‘90s. It’s long since become impossible to tell where mild-mannered Keith Flint ends and Keith Prodigy, The Firestarter, begins. But the cartoon is probably Tim Burton’s Batman Vs The Firestarter, with Keith Flint playing a psychotic dancing clown who, as a result of a freak electrocution accident at an Essex rave five years ago, became permanently wired with ‘the buzz’, a slave to the rock’n’ vibe, bent on inciting chaos and riot, and infecting the youth of Gotham City with his feverish, bad craziness. The video is for The Prodigy’s new single, ‘Firestarter’. And although he is removed from his natural habitat, the stage, we can still see a cartoon approximation of him, impeccably method-acted by his non-evil twin, Keith Flint.
The man with the torn-up hair and crumpled expression behind the tracking camera is attempting to capture on video the primal nature of the rock ‘n’ roll beast that is Keith Prodigy. “CUT! CUUUUUUUT FOR F-’S SAKE! Keith, love, can you stop wandering out of shot? And remember to mime all the words this time…”
Suddenly, it stops, turns, and snarls at its own shadow. On we creep, down into some foul, decaying verminous hell-hole and through to a dark, dank tunnel, choking on the clouds of dust. Fascinated by this grotesque, yet strangely lovable mammal, we pursue it deep into its extraordinary purple, pink and white-striped crest, and the clank of the ferocious-looking spikes and buckles that protrude from its neck, ears, nose and tongue protect it from attack by predatory small children.