Calvin Harris and Dumfries & Galloway
Calvin Harris is an internationally renowned Scottish singer-songwriter and record producer. He was born in and grew up in Dumfries.
Association with Dumfries
Dumfries is Calvin’s hometown and is the place where he started to make his music..
Personal information
Calvin Harris (real name Adam Wiles) was born on the 17th of January 1984. He makes his music on an old Amiga computer and he used sounds from computer games and has said himself that he likes to do things on the cheap. His most expensive piece of equipment is a £200 word processor. Before Calvin made it big he was a shelf stacker in Marks & Spencer in Dumfries
Career information
Calvin Harris is the name of the man and the band. His band include Irving on guitar, Sean VS The Robots on keyboards, Mark McCubbin on bass and Benny Calvert on drums.
The first single was Vegas but this was only on a limited release. The first official single was Acceptable in the 80s in which, to the disappointment of many fans born in other decades, Calvin declares his love for the 80s and the people born then. This song, unsurprisingly, went high in the charts. His album I Created Disco followed and came out in June. This included Acceptable in the 80s, Vegas and other songs such as The Girls, his second single.
The Girls was very successful and highly popular with people, though Calvin says that it is a fictional tale and he is unpopular with the ladies, “a mixture between [his] height and personality” and that he can’t be picky as “a guy of [his] height (6ft 5) has limitations.” I, however, find this hard to believe! The next single to be released was Merrymaking At My Place though the lyrics from the album had to be changed for the single release. This single didn’t get as high in the charts and got to number 42.
Afterwards Calvin released Colours, which many people know was the song off the DFS advert, though he “didn’t even get a * sofa!” This song samples Visage’s Fade To Grey and was written about girls dressing up in colours, not just black and white.
“I don’t care what you dress like, or what you wear, but please make sure baby you’ve got some colours in there. Now it’s all very well stepping out in black and white, but you know girlfriend of mine if you’re doing that right. “
Calvin hasn’t just written and produced his own songs though, he has worked with the likes of Kylie Minogue, Sophie Ellis Bextor and The Mitchell Brothers. He worked with Kylie on her highly successful album X. His most recent work has been with Dizzee Rascal and Chrome on the song Dance Wiv Me which stormed to the top of the charts and stayed there for a few weeks.
Even though he lost his only copy if his second album in the Terminal 5 drama, it has been recovered and if I Created Disco is anything to go by, this album is bound to be fantastic. So thank you Dumfries for giving us this amazing artist and producer, Calvin Harris.
More information on Calvin Harris can be found at: www.calvinharris.co.uk
Calvin Harris Biography by Chelsea Lethaby