Calvin Harris: Playah, Geek, or Electro Man? Just Don't Call Him a MySpace Sensation.

Here I was, backstage with [Calvin Harris] and his band at the Bowery Ballroom after climbing up to the tippity-top of the steep winding staircase where, in spite of the the humidity, he was chilling with his bandmates sipping a brewski in the dressing room before the show. Hmmm. No, there was no party back here.  No posse of arm candy, no illicit substances, no dancing or none of the wild merry-making the 24-year-old Scotsman sings about.

Harris cultivates the persona of a "playah," a heartbreaker and a hipster, getting all the girls, and even creating disco. During his interview he claims it's all part of his act. "I'm not like that at all," he told me, though I wasn't totally convinced. In one of his most popular hits, "Vegas," Harris proclaims, "I've got my car, and my ride, and my wheels (when I go to Vegas), I've got my drugs, and my stuff, and my pills (when I go to Vegas), I've got my girls, and my boys, and my girls (when I go to Vegas)."

Still, they seemed like just regular blokes, a bit shy and polite, standing around in the bright lighting, Harris wearing a goofy pink Fruit Loops T-shirt, another band member in a bright green T-shirt with cartoons of some primeval wolf man and the third sporting a glitzy Ramones shirt, all of them with adorably raffish mops of hair. Harris addresses me with a tentative grin. "Hallo! Right, New York Press.  We spoke on the telephone," he said, recalling his recent interview with me from his hometown, Dumfries, Scotland. "Sorry, my battery went dead," referring to our being cut off. 

"Yes, guys always use that excuse," I joked. Did I mention Harris is 6-foot-5 and, according to his [MySpace page], wears a size 12 shoe? Then there's his self-deprecating style flavored by his British accent. Sigh!

Harris, 24 years old, is the newest success story on the electro-dance music scene. Harris and his band had just flown in after a couple of gigs on the West Coast, including the triumphant set prior to Prince's at Coachella. His eponymous CD came out in 2007, and he has another in the works that will be released later this year. The press has labeled him a MySpace sensation, with more than 4 million plays and 2.5 million page views.

"It's not true, I'm not a MySpace sensation – it was just a stroke of luck," he told me. So far, his colorful YouTube videos are approaching 400,000 views, among the top 50 in the UK. Back in 2005, while he was out of work, he put up a few songs on MySpace. Unable to get anyone to listen to the demos he'd sent out, he began staying up all night "friending" everyone in sight, including (luckily) an EMI Publishing executive, who loved his tunes and signed him up, allowing him to quit his job. That was the happiest day of his life.

One of Calvin Harris's most appealing traits is he makes it all look so easy. He claims to have no special talent as a singer nor as a musician and only used his own voice because he couldn't find anyone else at the time. As a teenager, and recuperating from a year-long illness, he spent many hours messing around on his brother's low-tech Amiga music sequencer, creating the sounds which have since made him famous. He considers himself more of a producer and has collaborated and remixed songs with the likes of Kylie Minogue, The Mitchell Brothers, Dizzee Rascal and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Harris is proud he's acquired a huge following among pre-teen girls, tweens and teenyboppers.  "They have just as much right to like music as a banker or anyone else," he says, loyal to his fans. Only a few years ago, he himself was stocking shelves in a department store and when he was 17, he actually packed fish into tin cans for a while. "My hands smelled awful," he confided.

Harris is the model for gawky youth everywhere with a dream, a synthesizer and a video camera. Did he create disco? No, but he has created a danceable blend of electro-funk with simple lyrics his fans chant in the "mosh pit," jumping up and down and singing along with Calvin for the entire two-hour show. Alongside the glammed up girls were many teenaged and early-20-something boys. And there I was, twice their age and mouthing the words to "I Created Disco," as I leapt into the air in my Frye boots.

The kids love him because he's unpretentious, and he's one of THEM, a loser who makes good. He mentions his girlfriend and how he enjoys knocking about at home, but in one of his most popular songs, especially with his female audience, "The Girls," he confesses how he can't help playing around and gets all the girls, but whether it's true or not, there's something very appealing about his all-inclusive taste in women:  "I like them black girls, I like them white girls, I like them Asian girls, I like them mixed-raced girls, I like them Spanish girls, I like them Italian girls, I like the French girls, And I like Scandanavian girls, I like them tall girls, I like them short girls, I like them brown-haired girls, I like them blond-haired girls, I like them big girls, I like them skinny girls, I like them carrying a little bit of weight girls."

In his video, he's shown with a bevy of beauties, all of whom are slender and Caucasian. "Calvin, what's up with that?  I thought you liked all the girls," I asked. "And what about the older girls." Characteristically diplomatic, he replies, "Well, you're white, and you're blonde, so I've included you, too." Was he also thinking I was one of those "carrying a little bit of weight" girls? I didn't ask, but said goodbye since they needed to start the show.

After a brief stop in Glasgow, Harris & Co. are off to Berlin where the band opens for Hot Chip on May  8th.