Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris invented disco. No, Calvin Harris reinvented disco. He was Marks & Spencers' champion shelf-stacker two years running. He made his debut album fuelled by chicken breast fillets. He knows the whereabouts of Alex Kapranos' secret studio-hideaway-laboratory-home cuz it's quite near his own place in Dumfries.

Calvin Harris's debut album, with the subtle title "I Created Disco", cost 0p to record. He fashions future-disko using an ancient Amiga computer and is, right now, (literally) knocking together a stonking live set using MDF and 204 samples. "My live band's gonna be even more rocking than the tunes. I'll be singing, but only because no one else in Dumfries can sing. I've got an extremely limited range. But I will be wearing a top hat made from the skin of a tiger."

Calvin Harris is one of those 'myspace sensations' you keep reading about. He was wildly popular amongst The Kids and on The Club Scene, a cult producer-slash-singer-slash-bedroom-knob-twiddler who can make the banging-est of pop-dance tunes out of bugger-all kit. The last time he spent any money on gear was three years ago, when he bought a voice processor for £200. "I'm not the kind of dude who buys Sound On Sound. I know if something sounds nice. If it does, I'll keep it. If not, I'll try and make it nice. You don't need to splash out on technology."

Calvin Harris has big plans for summer 2007: a debut album, of course, and then a single called 'Colours', which contains a dash of Visage's proto-electronica classic 'Fade To Grey' and is about girls' clothes. "Chicks who don't wear colours annoy me because there are many wonderful colours in world - and those women who are not utilising them make me very upset. Although black and white does look good. But if you're gonna go out I wanna see someone in a big canary-yellow hoodie. And big baggy pink jeans."

Calvin Harris's first release will be a limited edition 10-inch featuring the turbo-funky 'Acceptable In The 80s' and the robo-pop jitter of 'This Is The Industry'. What are they about? "The song titles say it all. My tunes aren't supposed to invoke deep thought within people; they're just to get you dancing. But musically it is for the brain - it's not music for stupid people. I take great pride in my productions. It's not knocked out in a few seconds." And if you can't track down a copy of 'Acceptable In The 80s' on 10-inch, don't worry. It'll be coming out properly as a single in March too.

Calvin Harris will make you jump around like a silly-billy - the slamming likes of 'The Girls' and 'Merrymaking At My Place' (the latter soon to be found on a second 10-inch) will meet you on the dancefloor now. But if you let him, he might also make you cry. "I've made a lot of miserable tunes - I've got an album worth of depressing chords. I've not got any lyrics, like."

Calvin Harris has his own label, FlyEye, and a manifesto, innit. "Disco disappeared, didn't it? Everyone got sick of it. Now I'm reviving it, with space goggles, or something."

Calvin Harris only made some of this stuff up.

Favoring a naughty schoolboy look that makes him seem even younger than his already tender years (22 when his first major-label album was released), Scottish artist, producer, and remixer Calvin Harris has a similarly youthful and forward-looking approach to his music. Skipping the usual apprenticeship in the clubs or on indie labels, Harris went from posting his own D.I.Y. electroclash music online through MySpace and similar sites to signing with the multinational giant EMI almost in a single step. Born on January 17, 1984, in the southern Scotland city of Dumfries, Harris was first attracted to electronic music in his teens and was recording bedroom demos by 1999. Two of these songs, "Da Bongos" and "Brighter Days," were released as a 12" club single and CD-EP by the Prima Facie label in early 2002 under the artist name Stouffer. With that single to his credit, the still teenaged Harris moved from Scotland to London, but as a very small fish in one of the world's largest and most competitive ponds, Harris floundered; only one of his songs was released during his time in London, "Let Me Know" with vocalist Ayah on the Unabombers' 2004 live-mix CD Electric Soul 2. Returning home to Dumfries, Harris began posting homemade solo recordings to his MySpace page. An A&R representative from EMI liked what he heard and signed Harris to the label in 2006. Following a pair of successful singles, "Vegas" and "Acceptable in the 80s," Harris released his debut album, I Created Disco, in the summer of 2007. Along with his work as a solo artist, which includes touring in front of a full live band, Harris has become an in-demand remixer -- working on singles by Jamiroquai, Groove Armada, All Saints, and CSS -- and wrote and produced a song for Kylie Minogue's 2007 comeback album. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide