The Earache & The Prodigy connection

Question: I read somewhere that earache tried to sign the prodigy back in the day is this true? also is this the reason why during the 90s earache picked up the side project of gizz and also why jim ended up in pitchshifter?
Also does earache have any interest in the power violence scene at all, I remember once reading in a fanzine that dropdead had contacted you but it didnt get very far, to which im quite suprised being as dave witte whos in an earache band is a leading figure of the genre. From:

Answer: Funny you should mention The Prodigy- they are one of my favourite bands of all time (along with Slayer).In the early-mid 90's they were responsible for turning me onto Rave/techno music which was coming out of the underground in the UK.The band had banging beats and a certain punky attitude which i thought was fantastic, they still have it to this day.We never got the chance to sign The Prodigy, but the time would have been a year ago when they finished with long-term label XL to go with their own imprint under Cooking Vinyl umbrella.A bold move again from a very savvy band.
In about 1997 Earache was due to sign the English Dogs, a hardcore punk band led by Gizz Butt, himself a scene stalwart, and as we did the signing, he informed us of some weird news- Liam Howlett had hand picked him to be the new live guitarist for The Prodigy, replacing Jim Davies who had famously played guitar on the "firestarter" track and had appeared on and off at live events with them too, but who it seems Liam decided didnt cut it onstage as well as Gizz.Jim was out and Gizz was in. The irony was that English Dogs (who quickly changed name to Janus Stark) made an album for Earache but never toured properly in support of it, since Gizz was wanted by The Prodigy.Jim soon hooked up with Pitchshifter (who were on Earache previously) and had pioneered rave/drumnbass mashed up with metal at around the same time as prodigy, but with less success. So yeah it was weird that the guitarists Earache was working with were both chosen by Liam.

As for Drop Dead, yeah that first pressing of the debut album was a total fave round here, and i think we made contact to try to work with them, but the band were too DIY in their outlook to consider working with Earache, so it never happened. We certainly tried tho!