Dirty Vegas chat

Ahead of their Dubai gig with Ian Brown, Ben Harris talks new music and fighting Dirty 1 Comments

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Dirty Vegas has been out here before but only as a DJ trio, right?
That’s correct, yeah. This time it’s the full live show with Paul [Harris, on instruments], Steve [Smith, on vocals], guitars, drums, synths and everything. Hopefully people who saw us Djing will come and see a different side to the band.

You’ve got a third album coming out soon; tell us about that.
I’m obviously really excited about it. We’ve been making it for a year in Los Angeles, Boston and back here in London as well. We’re taking it back to the dancier roots that we had on the first album, but with the song-based sensibilities of the second. We feel it’s the strongest thing we’ve done. We’ve got a track called ‘Radio’ that’s a techno mashup with a Joy-Division-style punky vibe to it, and ‘Never Enough’ has a French sound mixed with house music. We’ll be playing lots of new stuff in Dubai.

Are you consciously echoing the style of the first one? Your second album was poorly received…
On the first album we were very much a studio band. After that, when touring the world, we turned into a live act. We took all that experience with live instrumentation and put that into the second album, which I think surprised and confused people who hadn’t seen us on tour. This new album is a return to the mindset of the first one: if we like it, it goes on there. But it’s not conscious. We’re not thinking about who we are or what we want to be, we just want to make a good record.

In a fight, who’d win out of your three?
I’d probably say Steve. He’s the biggest. I’d probably leave it out because I’m the smallest one. I’m well under six foot. And Paul’s got the longest reach.

Couldn’t you put up a bit of a fight?
I’d say I’m a bit of a terrier, I’ve got a bit of a bite in me. I’ll chew on the ankles, definitely.