CityLife

Making Kylie jump for joy

SOME facts about Calvin Harris: He's "not quite as skinny as Mika'' and, according to his MySpace page, resembles a cross between Rachel Stevens and Zhu Rongji, former premier of the People's Republic of China State Council (we know who was prettier, but which of those two had the worst track record on human rights is perhaps debatable).

He may be fond of "new rave" get-up in promo pictures, but he "isn't a fan" of glomosexuals like the Klaxons. Until two years ago, he was stacking shelves in M&S. This week, he has rocketed straight in at Number 10 in the charts with his debut single - the LCD-style synthfunker, Acceptable In The 80s - and is reflecting on having penned a track for pop deity Kylie Minogue's next album.

How did the future sound of retro celebrate his hit? "Well, it went Top Ten and then we played Glasgow, and we had a couple of glasses of wine and then got on the bus. And went to bed."

Frankly, we would have saved that winning anecdote (guaranteed to slay any dinner party) for Parkinson!

"You know, we're not The View," he laughs. "As soon as the record label can afford to put us in Travelodges, then we might start trashing them. I'm still working on my rock and roll credentials."

We catch up with the affable 23 year old in Skins-land, Bristol, where he's performing at the MTV Brand Spanking New Music event alongside Mutya. Natasha Bedingfield is also present as Calvin takes a break from his Arena tour, supporting Faithless.

"It's quite a step up from what we were doing before," he admits of scoring three cherries on fate's one-armed bandit. "It was all going really badly up until about this time last year. I was sending out demos to record companies and they weren't bothered. But I kept at it. I joined MySpace, not even as a last resort because I had half-given-up, but because my mate had. And I just happened to get in contact with the right guy who sorted me out."

That man was A&R supremo Jamie Nelson, who was impressed with Harris's demos and wanted to work with him. "First he got me to remix the All Saints single and then he said, 'Do you fancy working with Kylie?' And I said, 'Well, yep'."

Trotted down

So, with his backing tracks in tow, 6ft 3ins Calvin trotted down to the studio to work on the Artist Formerly Known As Charlene's comeback album.

"I was a little bit nervous," he remembers. "I had a couple of drinks beforehand (his tipple is Jack Daniels and orange, binge-Britain fans!) which didn't help with the nerves. It made me a bit drunk. I was a little bit wasted. And I was nervous with it. But she makes you feel very relaxed very quickly. She's an old pro. Within five minutes, it was fine. It was just like sitting there with an old mate.

"When someone in the studio persuaded me to play some of my tunes to her - some of my actual own tracks - Kylie started dancing about to them with her PA, going mental and saying they were brilliant. And doing all these star jumps to it. That was pretty weird. I must admit. That stands out as the ultimate surreal moment."

Now that's how to tell a story, Calvin! Not even Agnes's colourful triple heart bypass tales and show-and-tell surgery scars could top that one at a party.

Calvin hails from the Scottish town of Dumfries - as do around 31,146 other people. He spent his formative years holed up in his bedroom composing tunes on an ancient Amiga computer. Influenced first by house music and then later by the ambitious productions of the likes of Timbaland, he never wanted to be a performer, shunning the spotlight. "I just made all this instrumental music, and would look for people that could sing over my tunes in a classic house music style. I couldn't really find anyone in Dumfries, so I decided to bite the bullet and write lyrics for my limited range."

Acceptable In The 80s - about the "the hair, the clothes, the attitudes, the government; it would all just be unacceptable now" - was the first track finished and Harris "can't wait for the PRS (Performing Rights Society) money to roll in" from the countless nostalgia talking head documentaries it's bound to soundtrack featuring John Robb reminiscing, 'Pac-Man? What was that all about?'.

"I just thought it would be funny to write a big old Eighties song," he continues. "I'd bought the Ed Harcourt album a couple of months before and he had a tune called Born In The 70s, and I just (laughs)... nicked his idea ."

Harping

He's earned the sobriquet "the next Mylo". Does that mean we'll be sick to death of you by January (while Dame Elton of John won't stop harping on about you until 2009)?

"I take it as a compliment," says Calvin, "because he's hugely successful. People who compare me to Mylo, though, are people who have heard maybe one of my tunes, know that I'm Scottish and am from a place that that they don't know where it is. And I make electronic music. But we sound totally different."

As a Lily Allenesque internet-reared success story, is there anyone at all you fancy slagging off?

"Who shall I slag off?" He confers with his bandmates, Irving (guitar), Sean Vs The Robots (keyboards), Davey PlAnEcRaSh (bass), Rikki StiXXX (drums).

"Who? The Klaxons? No, not again. You can only slag off people a certain amount of times, can't you? No, not really. I'm a nice guy; I don't slag anybody off. I don't think anybody cares who I have to slag off either. Oh, wait, Hitler! He was a b*****d! Hitler was an idiot." Well, it's not very pop, but in many ways, perhaps Das Fuhrer was the original Keisha Sugababe (rules with an iron fist) or even Lisa Scott-Lee (i.e: big in Poland).

"Most of my MySpace messages now are `Oh, you worked with Kylie. Do you have her phone number? What's her favourite food? You're so lucky (lucky, lucky, lucky? ). What's she really like? And can I have her address please?' It's just daft."

Calvin Harris supports Faithless at the M.E.N. Arena tonight. He returns to play Academy 3 on Saturday, June 2. £6. Call 0161 832 1111. Acceptable In The 80s is out now. His album, I Created Disco, follows in the summer.