![]() ![]() ![]() Keith was to become public property, even tabloid fodder – a relationship with TV’s Gail Porter saw the couple branded “beauty and the beast”. “Clothed Twister just doesn’t have the same appeal.”īut for Flint and for The Prodigy, the effect of ‘Firestarter’, its Flint-fronted follow-up ‘Breathe’ and the attendant 1997 album ‘The Fat Of The Land’, each of which hit Number One, put The Prodigy up with the biggest acts of the Britpop era. “You have to lather yourself up with baby lotion or something first and make sure you can slip into all the relevant positions,” he explained. He was often happy to clown around – one NME writer witnessed him dropping his trousers and photocopying his arse in a Japanese print shop for our Christmas 1995 issue, he and a writer went to Lakeside shopping centre to discuss all things festive, whereupon Keith revealed that he’d be spending Christmas Day playing ‘Naked Twister’. ![]() Keith’s dancing, his way with an anecdote and his boundless energy made him a firm favourite among fans of the group long before the public at large took note. So I ended up singing it in this weird accent, ‘ Oi’m a muckspreaderrrrr, twisted muckspreaderrrrr.’ But it ended up sounding quite… menacing.” “It was so ridiculous because English isn’t my strong point, by any stretch of the imagination. We always harmonise on ‘One’, and instead of lighters, we light up our mobile phones and wave ‘em in the air.” “Because the only singing Liam’s ever heard from us is me and Leeroy singing U2 songs on the way home. “We had no idea how it was gonna sound,” Keith said. When NME spoke to Flint on the Firestarter set, he was under no pretences about being a ‘singer’. Keith (left) with his Prodigy bandmates in 1992 “Well, if that makes me Bez, then I’m proud to be a Bez.” But instead, I’m out there havin’ it, screaming, ‘Come on you c*nts! Let’s fackin’ GO!’ What do you want? Entertainment, energy, some slammin’ sounds, something to look at, a lot going on, a real close vibe with the audience, or three musicians standing still?” As he told NME in 1994: “You could pay your 20 notes to see me sit behind a drumkit, right, Leeroy on guitar, and I could play along with no enthusiasm. Just as early chart hits like ‘Charly’ led serious clubbers to write The Prodigy off as a novelty “toytown techno” act, Keith’s role in proceedings could too easily be reduced to that of a ‘Bez’, after the Happy Mondays vibes man.īut Keith saw value in what he did – dancer was a role he had invented for himself, and one he took pride in. Both were regulars at The Barn in Braintree, Essex a then-hippy-looking Flint was impressed by Howlett’s DJing and production and volunteered his services – along with those of his friend, Leeroy Thornhill – as dancers. He was their figurehead.įlint hooked up with producer Liam Howlett on the rave scene. Really, he wasn’t quite that: he was something less, and something much, much more. ![]() Reports today, on news of Keith Flint’s death, have tended to describe him as The Prodigy’s singer. Writer Johnny Cigarettes observed how The Prodigy were “push the most blatantly charismatic quarter of the band into the spotlight,” noting that Keith’s “public profile is surely set to go ballistic in about two weeks.” He was not wrong. NME was there that day in March 1996, witnessing the birth of an icon. And in Flint, here was a techno Sid Vicious, a cyberpunk icon, a bogeyman for the Britpop years. This was rave music channeling the spirit – and the look – of punk. #FLINT OBITUARIES FULL#It’s one of the most enduring images of 1990s pop culture, if not of the 1990s full stop: Keith Flint, in an abandoned London Underground tunnel, kohl-eyed stare fixed on the camera, dancing like a seizure, wearing a stars and stripes jumper, hair styled into two horns: “ I’m the firestarter, twisted firestarter…” ![]()
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