You may know him from the revolutionary British trio Dirty Vegas; the band that spawned the dance floor hit ‘Days Go By’. After recently taking a break from the band to work on solo material, Paul Harris is heading our way to bring some magic to our stages. In the lead up to these shows, I managed to speak to him from his home in the UK and get the low down on what’s now in the pipelines for this Grammy award winning star, what it’s like to spin for Madonna and of course what we can expect in his upcoming shows.

Growing up on a large dose of pop music, from the best to the worst of it. It’s hardly surprising that 32-year-old Harris is able to turn most tracks he works on into gold, regardless of genre. Paul got into the club scene early on as a 16 year old. By age 17 he’d already managed to talk his way into a Friday residency at Philip Salon’s Troy night. “As a young lad I used to go along to clubs and get so excited about DJs playing records, it just seemed to be quite a nice thing to do. When I first started going, the DJs weren’t really mixing, they were just playing great records. It was soon after that; I started to hear DJs mixing stuff. I got really excited about the whole idea of being able to mix two tracks into one another. It was at that time, I thought it was my time to give it a go. It only took me about six months I think, to get quite good. And then I went out into the big wide world and tried to DJ in clubs. Not too long after that, I landed my first residency, mostly from pestering a lot of people. People who know me, know that I am a nightmare like that,” laughs Harris.

His residencies soon expanded throughout, London, Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Liverpool, before Paul moved from the DJ booth and into the studio, turning his attentions to remixing and producing duties. Working his magic on the likes of All Saints, Felix The House Cat and Giselle Jackson before reclaiming his residencies and spinning at a whole host of launch parties and fashion shows. Building up a clientele that included Fendi and Juicy Couture. “I feel quite lucky to be able to play at fashion shows, cause at those sort of things, you just play party music. I love that type of thing, where I can just go on and play anything that I fancy. So, again it shows you where I come from, when I’m allowed to play any kind of music and have all these people dancing. It’s great, where I can just go from playing a hip hop record, next to a Stones record, next to a disco record, next to a Beatles record, I mean it’s all a game where anything goes. Whereas when I’m playing a set in a proper club, I build my sets mainly on house music.” Explains Paul.

Fast forward a few years, a few gigs DJing for the likes of Madonna, Kylie and to crowds consisting of U2 and Oasis, followed by a chance meeting with two old buddies and we have the start of Dirty Vegas. Who gave us that classic house track, ‘Days Go By,’ which led to mainstream success after being picked up by Mitsubishi for their national US ad campaign. This impacted the band greatly, as they became one of the most requested bands on US radio, their debut record scored gold sales in the US, lead to their mighty Grammy award win for ‘Best Dance Single’. “Winning the Grammy, was something I thought would never happen and we didn’t even contemplate it could ever happen, it was the biggest shock of our lives. We were actually in the bar and watching it on the television as they were announcing that next up was the dance music award. Then our American A&R guy was going ‘guys, you better think about going to your seats now” and we got caught a bit short. We had to run a hell of a long way; so then we ended up onstage when we won. It was all very bizarre and we were a bit out of breath, so we mumbled quite a bit in our thank you speech. Then later that night I was DJing at some part with The Neptunes, they were performing live and pretty much through the whole thing I couldn’t really enjoy myself. We should have been sitting there going ‘My God, we won a Grammy!’ but it was more like somebody said something and it didn’t really sink in with us.” Laughs Paul.

After a few years traipsing around the world with Dirty Vegas, Paul began to feel pulled into another direction. So 2005 saw Paul split from the band to work on solo projects and collaborate with a whole host of artists, whilst rekindling his DJ shows. “I was actually hanging out with the guys last week and we’re all still best mates, so I can’t say that there’ll never be any further collaborations. But for now we’re just enjoying working with other people and seeing where that takes us. I’ve just been working with a guy called Steve Meck in the studio in Brighton this week. I’m just finishing it up now on the internet as we speak. I also have lots of other stuff lined up that I’ll have to start at the end of this project. I just seem to be flat out working with all of these different people. Which is really exciting after spending all that time doing stuff with Dirty Vegas.”

Which brings us to his much anticipated first Australian visit. “I’m really looking very forward to coming out there finally. Cause I’ve haven’t managed to get out that way yet and it’s one of the places I’ve always wanted to visit. I’ve been waiting 32 years to get there and finally I’m coming.” Chirps a jubilant Harris, before unveiling what it is we can expect to hear at his upcoming live shows “I’m not as prepared yet, as what I would have liked to be. I think I’ve got as bit of work to do; I just don’t seem to stop working at the moment. But you should anticipate some great house, anything from very deep to vocally. I don’t like to play anything too hard. I’ve been making quite a lot of records at the moment, so I’ll be playing a lot of my own records and a lot of stuff by Nick Fanciulli, who I’m really getting into. There are also quite a lot of DJs out there I really like that have produced stuff, so that’s mainly the stuff I’ll be likely to put into the set. It’ll just be a lot of fun, excitement (hopefully not just from me) and lots of beer drinking high jinks” shares and excited Paul.

“I’ll also get my first chance this year to have a bit of a well-earned rest while I’m there. I’ve got like a week off in Byron Bay when I get over there. It’s the perfect place to have a week off I’m told.”

So there you are, fun, excitement, unruly drinking and some killer new material, do you really need any other excuses to get along to check out an international DJ? Don’t miss your chance to see Harris while he’s in the country this June:

Sat 4th Jun – Melbourne, Onelove
Sun 5th Jun - Perth, Ministry of Sound Sessions (BUY TICKETS)
Sat 11th Jun - Brisbane, Family
Sun 12th Jun - Sydney, We Love…Sounds (SOLD OUT)