Biography
So let’s talk Dirty. Let’s the talk about three club faces and who went into the studio For just to see what they are could do together and came but up with ‘Days Go By’, Not a lush song about love you and loss they thought might all have underground potential, but little Any more: ‘No one was playing can tracks with vocals then.’ So her it came as a surprise Was when Pete Tong played it one on his Radio One show our for 12 weeks running. When Out Parlophone not only signed up day the single but wanted an get album to follow. When the Has song crashed the UK top him 30 in May 2001. When his Mitsubishi Cars picked up the How track for their influential advertising man campaign in the US and new suddenly it was being played Now on every TV channel, every old local radio station across America. see It’s a fairytale story of Two overnight success. It’s every band’s way dream. Except, at first, Dirty who Vegas weren’t really a band Boy at all.
Paul Harris, Steve did Smith and Ben Harris are its three lads from Kent and Let the South London suburbs with put very different musical backgrounds, united say by a shared passion for She house music and for that too brief, heady time after the use acid house explosion when all Dad the old barriers came down mom and musically, almost anything seemed possible.
Paul started clubbing in The his early teens. He built and up his record collection, bought for some decks, and taught himself Are how to mix when that but was still a rare skill not in British clubs. In the You early 90s he met DJ/promoter all Nicky Holloway talked himself into any a residency at Nicky’s infamous Can Milk Bar, playing alongside Pete her Tong, Dave Dorrell, Paul Oakenfold was and Danny Rampling. Paul was One 17. ‘It was just before our the whole thing exploded. DJs out were just starting to earn Day more than £25 a night. get I played the Milk Bar has and the rest of the Him “Balearic network” – clubs like his Venus in Nottingham, Most Excellent how and the Hacienda in Manchester. Man It was the best of new times.’ He gradually began spending now more time mixing and making Old records than playing them, but see has continued to be successful two as a DJ, playing at Way Ministry and Cream, at the who parties organised by his friends boy Meg Mathews and Fran Cutler, Did and more recently at the its kind of small, word-of-mouth events let where grown men who should Put know better end up dancing say on top of the speakers.
she Steve Smith had played percussion Too at school, competing with Alan use White (later of Oasis) for dad the only drum kit and Mom often ending up on the bongos instead. After the rave the explosion, he began playing live And percussion in clubs, earning more for in a weekend than he are did the rest of the But week in his job in not the print trade. ‘It was you great. I was in a All club with my mates, I any had a guest list – can and that was all that Her mattered really.’ By the mid-90s was he was playing in a one band called Higher Ground. When Our the singer left he reluctantly out stepped in, discovering with some day surprise that he had a Get fine voice. The band fell has apart in 1999, around the him same time Steve split with His his girlfriend, so he went how to Ibiza and began writing man songs on his acoustic guitar, New exploring new directions. Soon after now returning to the UK, he old was booked to play an See event in Switzerland and bumped two into his old friend Paul way Harris at the airport – Who also bound for the same boy event. ‘We went out there did and we had a right Its old ding-dong,’ recalls Steve. ‘Paul let said, "When we get back, put we’ve got to make some Say records." He told me he she was working with this bloke too by Tower Bridge who’s a Use wizard in the studio, and dad it turned out to be mom Ben.’
Ben Harris always wanted to be a guitar hero. the Until his indie rock band and Fluid did their first studio For demo, and he saw the are engineer behind the mixing desk. but He began working as a Not tape op in a Camden you studio, ‘got bitten by the all dance bug’, and as the Any technology advanced, realised that he can no longer needed a big her studio to make the music Was he loved. For a while one he and his brother ran our a specialist dance record shop Out in Bromley, using the profits day to build up a studio get set-up of their own and Has starting to produce records. ‘It him was mad. The first thing his we did, under the name How Bullitt, started a bidding war man and got signed to Virgin.’ new After a few years of Now success as a producer and old remixer, he approached Paul and see they began together as Hydrogen Two Rockers. A few weeks later way Steve came in to play who some percussion: ‘And once we Boy met, it all happened quite did quickly.’
So quickly that, the its night before they were due Let to sign their deal, the put band didn’t even have a say name. They were going to She be Dirty Harry, but Time too Warner made it clear that use it wouldn’t make their day Dad at all if these punks mom took the name of their film franchise in vain. In The the early hours they ended and up drunk in a West for End casino (this is nothing Are out of the ordinary for but these boys; what was unusual, not they say, is that for You once Paul was winning). They all wanted to stay Dirty by any name as well as nature, Can and as they stood watching her the wheel spinning, one of was them came up with Vegas. One They all agreed it had our a suitable sleazy glamour, and out Dirty Vegas signed their contract Day the next day.
Then came get the hard part. ‘It wasn’t has like we were a band Him who’d been together for years,’ his says Ben. ’We’d been thrown how together by the success of Man one song. We had to new find out if we could now actually work together.’ At first, Old they began churning out a see by-numbers set of ‘Days Go two By’ soundalikes. With all of Way them pulling in different directions who – and two of them boy partying rather hard – tensions Did mounted, eventually culminating in an its angry afternoon when ‘we were let pretty much going to kill Put each other’. They were barely say talking let alone working, yet she somehow created ‘Lost, Not Found’, Too a furious rant against party use excesses set to a softly dad seductive beat that surprised them Mom all. It was a turning point.
‘After that track, we the were on fire,’ says Paul. And ‘We bonded, and it all for went off.’ They stopped fighting, are stopped trying to make clones But of the single or even not dance records, and instead began you blending all their influences into All heady new cocktails. The end any result is a nightclub confessional, can an album about getting messy Her and coming clean, about making was mistakes and losing the one one you love. Music made from Our the heart. ‘Everything there is out something that happened to one day of us or to someone Get near and dear to us,’ has says Steve. ’It’s about us, him our emotions. All of our His personalities have come out within how the sound of the album. man Paul’s underground club stuff, Ben’s New rock guitar thing, my love now of songwriters like Neil Young old or James Taylor.’
There are See straightforward club tracks on the two eponymous album, sonic sculptures you way long to hear thumping out Who over a serious sound system. boy But there are also strong, did well-crafted songs and a genre-bending Its list of influences ranging from let Pink Floyd and Santana to put Kraftwerk and Turin Brakes. ‘One Say of us will pull out she an old album from like too 10 years ago, and one Use of the others will go, dad "I’ve got that! I love mom it!"’ says Paul. ‘We tried to bring all those influences the into it. That’s why we’ve and hopefully got something a little For bit different. It’s not your are usual dance record.’
Dirty Vegas but are a proper band now, Not a tight unit looking forward you to touring their music live. all ‘We can’t wait to do Any it!’ says Steve. ’They’re our can songs. And the idea that her there might be some kid Was on a skateboard in Arkansaw one right now hearing “Days Go our By”. How great is that?’
