IT can be the place to make millions, with big-money residencies and state-of-the-art venues.
But Calvin Harris says his time in Las Vegas was anything but glitzy, as he was left so uninspired that it took him years to write another song.
He would earn £1million per show in Sin City but now rarely plays there after it robbed him of his creativity.
In a rare interview, Calvin, inset, explained: “I was there at least every week, playing. It got to the point where I was there a little too much.
"I got tired of it.”
Asked if it stifled his creativity, he said: “One million per cent. It was unreal. No tunes were being made.
“I didn’t make any tunes for a year or maybe a year and a half. I was growing carrots and that was great.
"I grew watermelons, which for a Scottish lad, I was buzzing when I grew my first watermelon.
"But the creative juices weren’t flowing.”
Thankfully the super-star — due to wed DJ Vick Hope, is now firing on all cylinders once again.
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The One Kiss hitmaker had one of the summer’s biggest bangers with Miracle, which spent eight weeks at No1, and has revealed the unlikely secret to the song’s success — seagulls.
He said: “In Miracle, my song with Ellie Goulding, I’ve got seagulls in the background, all the way through it.
“I’ve got a beachy audio track, very quietly, and there’s seagulls.
“I think the seagulls are in the unconscious mind, telling people that it’s summer, they want a 99 with a Flake in it and they’re going to listen to Miracle.”
After more than a decade in music Calvin has amassed a £220million fortune and is the world’s highest-paid DJ, but he confessed he is baffled at how he got his first record deal.
Calvin, who has just released a DJ mix from Ushuaia Ibiza on Apple Music, said: “I still think it’s extraordinary that I managed to get that first album signed.
"It’s not very good. It’s a difficult listen.
"There’s some good tunes on there but I still think, ‘I don’t know how I did that’. I can’t sing.”
Speaking to Vernon Kay on on Radio 2’s Tracks Of My Years, he added: “The second album, I got through by the skin of my teeth because I’m Not Alone did well. The rest... there’s no hits at all.”
It worked out in the end, Calvin.
VICK HOPE couldn’t stop grinning as she celebrated her hen do – but she drew the line at strippers.
The Radio 1 DJ is getting married to Calvin Harris and whisked her mates away for a raucous weekend at a spa which involved a life drawing session and a fancy dinner, which she wore a white feathered mini-dress for.
As she returned to the airwaves yesterday she had to explain if there were any X-rated activities, after a video was shared on Instagram of a male pal dancing on her as she sat in a chair.
Vick said: “There were no strippers. There was no lap dance. He’s just my friend.
"They’re not lap dancers. They’re not strippers.
"It’s just a video of us all dancing. No one’s got their clothes off.
“It was completely PG-13.”
I’ll believe you, Vick . . .
HOZIER is on track to score his first No1 album with his third
record Unreal Unearth.
He leads an all-new top four, with The View’s Exorcism Of Youth at No2, Birdy’s Portraits at No3 and US star Renee Rapp’s debut Snow Angel at No4, according to midweek figures.
Take Me To Church singer Hozier’s self-titled debut went to No3 in 2014, followed by 2019’s Wasteland, Baby! which reached No6, so it would be a real achievement for him to finally make it to the top spot.
He said of the record: “I didn’t want to write songs that were about a lockdown, I didn’t want to write songs that were about the pandemic.
“But I did want to explore – or at least acknowledge, even as a nod structurally – this feeling of going into something, these new circumstances and experiences in that time and coming out the other side.”
KYLIE LATE LATE SHOW
KYLIE MINOGUE will be hoping she isn’t as drained as Calvin Harris by her stint in Vegas.
But it is certain to steal some of her hours of kip, as she is set for one of the latest shows in the city.
I can reveal that unlike her younger counterparts who include Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, who wrap up their shows at around 10.30pm, Kylie’s set won’t even begin until shortly before 11pm.
Kylie, whose hits include Never Too Late, will still be belting out her biggest singles well past midnight at her sold-out residency at Voltaire, in The Venetian Resort.
A well-placed show source revealed: “Kylie wants this to be a unique experience compared to other residencies.
“It is about creating a vibe and feel that is different.
"Many fans get herded into the shows together then ushered out early enough to be back in their rooms or at home by 10.45pm.
“It might mean a lot of the punters staying up longer than they have done in decades.
“Kylie is planning to start the party later and make punters feel like they are back in the heyday of Vegas.
"That will be the intimacy of the beginning, but she is planning to pump up the crowd with all those disco and dance bangers to get them ready to roll late into the night after she is done.”
While the set list is a closely guarded secret, I can confirm Kylie’s latest hit Padam Padam has made the cut.
A number of her classic songs have also been reworked to suit the venue’s cabaret theme.
EMMA IS A LIVIN’ DOLL
EMMA MACKEY is set for great things after starring alongside Margot Robbie in Barbie.
The French Sex Education actress wore this tight purple knitted dress in this shoot for the latest issue of Elle magazine as she opened up about working on the Greta Gerwig-directed blockbuster.
On her role as one of the dolls in the film, which has taken almost £1billion at the box office worldwide, the Death On The Nile and Emily star said: “Greta Gerwig has always been someone I really wanted to work with.
“I get how her brain works. She’s incredible, a joy.
"I really wanted to be a part of it (Barbie), even in the smallest way.
"All of us felt like that. I learnt so much.
"It was life-changing. Greta was very clear that she wanted us all to feel really beautiful, whatever that meant to us.”
WOMEN ON TO A £15 LOSER
THE Loose Women are having to use a seat-filling website to get rid of tickets for their show at the London Palladium.
They are gearing up for a tour across the country next month but I’ve learned there are still almost 600 empty seats for their show in London with Janet Street-Porter, Brenda Edwards and Christine Lampard due on stage.
Tickets originally priced at £51 are being flogged for as low as £15 so the venue looks full when they take to the famous theatre stage.
FENDERS JUST LIKE JEDWARD
SAM FENDER’s singer brother Liam has said there’s no chance they would form a band, joking the duo would “make the Gallagher brothers look like f***ing Jedward”.
Liam, who has just dropped debut EP, Love Will, explained: “We’ve done little bits and collaborations here and there but it’s never been in the remit that we would be in a band or anything like that.
"We are both so involved in our own projects we wouldn’t have a moment to think about it.
"We’re too stubborn anyway, artistically there would be a battle for the big ideas.”
Like his younger brother Sam, who landed his second No1 album with Seventeen Going Under in October 2021, Liam is keen to make his mark on the charts.
He said of his debut release: “I’m excited to be getting stuck into it.”
Sam will be head- lining Reading and Leeds Festivals this weekend.
JUDGING by these snaps Britney Spears isn’t letting herself feel down in the wake of her divorce.
She shared videos on Instagram of her in a green minidress being licked by a topless hunk and being lifted by him and three others.
The Womanizer singer, whose separation from husband Sam Asghari was revealed last week, said the wild night out was getting her own back after suspicions a pal had called paparazzi to take photos of her when she was grabbing a late-night takeaway.
She wrote: “When you go to meet up with a so-called ‘friend’ and drive an hour for chicken.
“Then you have to wait in the car and need to use the bathroom... I knew paps were tipped off because the car I was in was never used before ...So how was I followed?
"So what does a bitch like me do?! I put my green dress on and show up at my friend’s!
“I invited my fav boys over and PLAYED ALL NIGHT!”
Whatever makes you happy, Brit.
DON’T LOSE THAT PHONE, KESHA
KESHA reckons she is sitting on a goldmine with her mobile phone as it features a whopping 19,000 song ideas.
The TikTok singer said she constantly sings into her phone to remember melodies and lyrics but she now has so many that they are overwhelming.
She explained: “The voice memos in my phone, I think I have 19,000, I’m not joking. It’s a nightmare.
“We need to copy them on to something. There’s 19,000 beautiful ideas.
“Well, they’re probably not all beautiful, let’s say a third of them are beautiful.”
That would still have to be one very, very long album.
Some of those songs are inspired by what she believes was a “spiritual awakening” which she went through at the start of lockdown in 2020.
She told Michelle Visage’s Rule Breakers podcast: “I was alone in my bed.
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“I was having a panic attack and I felt this golden wave of warm light and heard a voice start talking to me and the next day I called my therapist and she said, ‘It sounds like a spiritual awakening’.
“I was like, OK what do I do with this?”
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