PAUL HARRIS (UK)

Paul Harris, Grammy winning artist with cutting edge band Dirty Vegas - started his working life aged sixteen as an Assistant Trader in the city his love of music was already prevailing, but mixing the two worlds wasn’t easy. Leaving his beloved ‘discos’ at 4.00 am and still making it to work for 6.00 am was demanding but Paul had a very specific goal in mind purchasing a set of decks once this was achieved he was out of the city and straight into Special Branch at Busbys, Nicky Holloway’s Trip at the Astoria and Paul Oakenfold’s Monday’s at Heaven.

Paul’s first DJ break came aged 17 after constantly pestering the residents at Philip Salon’s Troy night he was finally offered a set upstairs every Friday playing what was then known as ‘Balearic Beats’ (roughly translated to anything he fancied a set which Paul can still be heard spinning at highbrow fashion shows and private party’s!) Simultaneously a new club opened across the road called ‘The Milk Bar’ so after finishing his Friday night set, Paul could be seen throwing some shapes on the dance floor to sets by Pete Tong and Dave Dorrell. The common denominator of music meant that Paul soon befriended Dave and Nicky Holloway and when Darren Emerson left his Monday night residency at The Milk Bar, Paul slotted in nicely - the Monday night gig continued for five years finally concluding at the Velvet Underground.

The Monday nights were quickly becoming established as a London ‘Hang Out’ for promoters and producers Paul soon found himself locking down residency’s at not only the Milk Bar in London but Pimp in Wolverhampton, Open @ The Ministry of Sound and Billion Dollar Babes @ Raw, he was also guesting at what can only be described as the ultimate nights in the heyday of clubbing venus in Nottingham, the super glam Miss Moneypennys in Birmingham, Cream in Liverpool and Golden in Stoke Paul soon graduated out of the DJ booth and into the studio being asked to remix and produce at the time this felt like more of a challenge, as club music was taking a harder edge away from the house music he loved. He formed ‘Colour System Inc’ with Fionn Lucas and following on from the success of their own releases the offers started flooding in for remixes over the four years they had mixed an eclectic mix of artists, including All Saints, Felix The House Cat, Giselle Jackson, Johnson and Abacus, Abacus became one of the most played records on Pete Tongs show…. All was looking good, but then in 1999, the music scene shifted again, and Paul returned to the booth spinning at London’s hottest parties hosted by close friends, and THE original party girls, Charlotte and Fran Cutler and Meg Matthews.

Paul reclaimed residencies at the hippest nights, Miss D’s Playboy @ Madam Jo Jo’s, the infamous Thursday nights at Kabaret and a number of premier / launch parties spinning for the likes of Kylie, Madonna, Mario Testino, Fendi and Juicy Couture (Paul can still count a number of these names as current clients). Then in 2000 a chance meeting with old friend Ben Harris and a chat at a party, led to ‘Hydrogen Rockers’ being formed – their first release ‘Musica’ was available on CDR and the underground buzz was massive, the track was picked up by Plastica in London and Yoshitoshi in the USA and once again Paul felt he had found a sound he liked!

As well as creating their own music Paul and Ben, once again, turned to remixing with the boys having a seemingly golden touch, their supporters included Sasha, Digweed, Howells, Tong, Deep-Dish and Lawler with dance floor fillers including ‘Sono Keep Control’, ‘Lil Louis Blackout’ and ‘J Magic Love is Not a Game’. A second chance meeting saw Paul bump into anther old friend Steve Smith who presented him with a demo CD containing six tracks he’d been working on one of which Paul and Ben developed a house version of, and was transformed into the modern day classic ‘Days Go By’ so with an essential new tune under the belt ‘Dirty Vegas’ was formed!

A major label deal was signed and a full band was put together Paul not coming from a band perspective was literally thrown in at the deep end but the debut album ‘Dirty Vegas’ was finished. Then something happened which literally changed the band’s life - the track ‘Days Go By’ was picked up for a national US advertising campaign (Mitsubishi) the advert had a massive impact on the US market and the record became one of the most requested tracks on American radio, the album debuted on the US Billboard at number seven and went gold in the US and silver in the UK. A tour followed with Moby as did appearances on legendary TV shows ‘David Letterman’, ‘Jay Leno’ and ‘Carson Daley’, an MTV award nomination, three Dancestar awards (including record of the year) and of course the biggie The Grammy for Best Dance Single (receiving three nominations in total). The boys were so convinced they weren’t going to win The Grammy they were actually in the bar when their award was announced. The much converted award led to two years of solid touring playing at all the major festivals in both the UK and Europe. Then it was back in the studio to start on the follow up album ‘One’ this was released in October 2004 and reached Top 50 in the charts. It was during this time in the studio that Paul started to miss the feeling and atmosphere of making and playing house music, it was then that Paul made the massive decision, to take the plunge, and in February 2005 Paul left the band.

Immediately after, Paul's DJ career once again took off, throughout 2005 he played everywhere from Melbourne to Moscow, Singapore to Curitiba, and NYC to LA. Production also went from strength to strength; remixing a whole multitude of tracks, his last one in ‘05 went top 10 - Tom Novy. Studio work has also been superb; his partnership with Jay P has proved to be the most successful, with twelve tracks recorded and due for '06 releases under various guises. Paul also has a follow up track coming on SR2 after the triumph of "Watchin...' and a new track due on Toolroom Records, and also a new SUPERBASS track on CR2, all due for release sometime around the Winter Music Conference ’06.

Due to Paul’s heavy global DJ commitments he had to pull his much loved residency at London's Kabaret Phophercy, but he will continue to have a guest spot as and when he’s in town. Again in 05 Paul played at the Serpentine Summer party, noted as THE summer party of the social calendar, over the years Paul's played to A-Listers such as Jude & Sienna, Kate Moss and Madonna and continues to support charities by playing for parties for Sergeant Care Cancer for Jade Jagger. Highlight’s of the past year have been his first tour of OZ in June, New Years Day 06 in Tribehouse Germany, and of course his continued residency at Kabaret in London. '06 already has Paul very very busy, with continued studio work, a second tour of OZ & Asia in Feb, followed by Canada and USA in March.