Firestarter

Sleeve info:
Tracks 2 & 3 written by L. Howlett, K. Flint, T. Horn, A. Dudley, J. Jeczalic, P. Morley, G. Lanagan. Track 2 written by L. Howlett & K. Flint. Track 4 written by L. Howlett.

All tracks produced and mixed by L. Howlett at Earthbound Studio. All vocals engineered by Neil McLennan at the Strongroom.

Tracks 1 & 3 sample of the Breeders "SOS" courtesy of 4AD. Art of Noise appears courtesy of ZTT Records Ltd. Vocals tracks 1 & 2 by K. Flint. Track 2 additional production and remix by Empirion. Special thanks to Jimmy "Goose" Davies for guitar. Photography by Colin Hawkins. Band shot by Phil Nicholls.

Track 2 published by EMI Virgin Music/Copyright Control. Track 4 published by EMI Virgin Music Ltd. Tracks 1 & 3 published by EMI Virgin Music Ltd/Copyright Control/Unforgettable Songs/Perfect Sons.

FIRESTARTER
I was listening to the Foo Fighters album and I think it's track #7, "Weenie Beenie," the punk track on the album. This is on the first album not the second one. I listened to it and I don't know where I was. I think it was either Macao or something like that. I had the album on and I was listening to it. And I was thinking it was a good track. The track is not a ground breaking track. It's just a good, solid rock track and I had that in my head. I don't know. I went into the studio to get something that had a similar type of energy. It wasn't like I want to write something like that because the two tracks are so different anyway.

I just basically laid the drums down first and tried to get the drums sounding really live and really big and basically getting the drum sound sounding as real as it could. And not too mechanical. With a good groove and stuff. Basically laid the drums down, laid the bass down. Then I think [singer/dancer] Keith [Flint] came 'round after that and he listened to the track. And basically we said this is an instrumental for the album. It's gonna be like an instrumental track, whatever. And he said to me, "Yeah, I really like that. I'd like to put some vocals on it. Can we have some vocals on it?" We were sitting there. "You want to do vocals?" And he was like "Yeah, yeah, I want to try and express myself on this track. " And it was like, well, fuck it, let's have a go at it.

Basically he wrote about five lines and then just kept repeating it over and over again on the mic. Then we both decided it worked. He went away. And that night I basically brought out lots more guitar sounds I had recorded before and basically laid them on the track and everything seemed to come together really quickly. And by the next day I finished the instrumental. And Keith came back around and we laid the vocals down and it was done in about three days.
- Liam Howlett

Did you know that when firestarter was released, all of the Prodigy's previous singles went back into the top 75!