It’s Been One Crazy Ride for Dirty Vegas
Written by Michelle Brockman and Christina Mendenhall
Between memorable sets at the 13th annual Ultra Music Festival, the Grammy-winning trio Dirty Vegas talked about how the ride has been since they first shot onto the radar, when the song “Days Go By” appeared in a Mitsubishi ad in 2003.
This year at Ultra, Dirty Vegas played both a DJ set and a Live set. When asked what was more fulfilling for them as an artist, Paul Harris said, “More meaningful is live because you get to play an hour’s worth of your own music but if the crowd’s great and the performance is great it doesn’t really matter”.
Vocalist Steve Smith added: “It’s the same energy and the same excitement on both things that you do. We are very lucky”.
Prior to the Mitsubishi commercial’s release the group was a relative unknown in mainstream music. Harris said the instant fame caused them to have a bit of a meltdown.
“It was a huge success,” he said. “One day we were in the studio making a record that sold 500 copies and the next day we were on Jay Leno. It literally happened within the space of a month or two. We never expected it do anything like what it did, we just didn’t see it coming”.
They did sell quite a few albums as a result of the commercial, back when people were actually buying albums.
Ben Harris admitted that it’s a very different time to be in music these days. “It’s a bit like the Wild West out there,” he said. “I think bands and the industry need to adjust to what the demand from kids is.”
As a result of this change in the market, Dirty Vegas is now focusing more on selling concert tickets and touring and the subsequent merchandising, and less on actual record sales.
“We can focus on the fun of it, which is going out and playing,” Ben Harris said.
Smith brought up the point that people just aren’t paying for music anymore: “This is music and it’s something that people attach to their lives from the minute they’re born to the minute they die and now all of the sudden they don’t want to buy it. People are willing to go pay for a virtual cow on Farmville but they don’t need to pay for music because they can find it on the Internet for free.”
One thing they didn’t have to give away for free was the work they did on the soundtrack for The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down. Smith said film has a huge impact on their lives and it was hard work but a big thrill to have the opportunity to work on the soundtrack.
They are currently working on a project where they’re taking music from their new album and turning it into to a video-game score. It sounded almost like a top secret project as Smith explained: “We can’t really talk about the name of it or anything right now but it’s never been done before and we’re really excited and are looking forward to more stuff like that when we calm down from our touring schedule”.
Dirty Vegas has a new album titled Electric Love that drops April 26. When asked what their motivation for the new album was, Smith said: “The only motivation we really needed was to be back in the studio recording together, we were all really excited about working together again. The songs were the easy part! It just felt so natural.”
They also have a short list of artists they would love to collaborate with in the future which include Phoenix and Miike Snow.
When asked what artists they currently have on their playlist Paul Harris said he just bought James Blake’s album, Ben Harris said he listens mostly to underground techno or The Stones and Led Zeppelin and Smith has a sweet spot for Katy Perry and Neil Diamond and has just started listening to Beady Eye which is Liam Gallagher’s new band.
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