Superstar DJ Calvin’s new hit? It’s got a great beet!
Scot reveals his surprising talent as a secret veggie grower
AS one of the world’s most successful DJs, he spends much of his time in deafening clubs performing in front of vast crowds of dancing fans.
On his days off, however, it seems Calvin Harris prefers an altogether more sedate environment.
For the Scots musician and producer, whose chart-topping albums have made him a multi-millionaire, has become a keen gardener – and has been showing off home-grown produce on social media.
Dumfries-born Harris, aka Adam Richard Wiles, 35, is the world’s highest earning DJ according to Forbes magazine, making £38 million last year.
Yet despite his wealth he enjoys growing his own vegetables and has recently shared numerous pictures online of his carefully tended carrots and lettuces.
Harris, who has a $200 million residency in Las Vegas and is earning $1 million a show until 2020, began his working life stacking supermarket shelves in Annan in Dumfriesshire.
His debut studio album, I Created Disco, was released in June 2007 and his collaboration with Rihanna, We Found Love, became an international success, giving Harris his first US number one single.
Over the past year he has kept his fans regularly updated on his horticultural progress. His first reference to his own gardening was in August last year, when he posted a video online of his watermelons.
Patting one softly, he said: ‘Good lad, doing great.’ Other world class DJs Sebastian Ingrosso and Diplo expressed their amazement in online comments, prompting Calvin to post more videos.
Slicing into one of his melons later, he commented: ‘Massive nature moment from the garden. Thank you nature.’
By November he was showing off his neatly planted row of lettuces and earning impressed comments from pop stars such as Kiesza.
By January this year he was seen holding potatoes, ‘the goods from the woods’, and saying: ‘That’s your dinner I’ve found.’ At the start of June he talked proudly of his carrots, saying they were a ‘massive sense of achievement’, while DJ and producer Mark Ronson told him: ‘I’m proud of you.’
Last week he posted another pic of his red onions, calling himself an ‘onion provider’ and adding: ‘Come for the music, stay for the onions. Just pulled these out the ground.’
In a recent interview, he said of his love of gardening: ‘We’re at that age now aren’t we? The watermelons are going great guns. They were being nibbled at by squirrels. What I had to do was build a chicken wire cage around each one.’