It was a Wednesday, the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of this century. A day like any other, save for my interview at the SoHo Grand with Scottish producer Calvin Harris. I am tempted to exaggerate and say I tricked him into the sack with me, or vice versa, but, alas, the six-foot-five, blue-eyed electro-pop prodigy was on his best behavior. Perhaps because our hotel room rendez vous included a big plush bed -- on which bandmate Mark Irving was reclining comfortably in bluejeans, Chuck Taylors and a Guns ‘n’ Roses tee. Meanwhile, sitting to the side, Calvin discussed his sophomore album, Ready for the Weekend, due out today, and confessed that, contrary to lyrical content, he doesn’t get all the girls, and recounted how one of his fondest tour memories involves a yellow piece of produce.

Let’s dive right in. What inspires or influences your music?
I like themes. I like catchy phrases. I like things that stick in your head. Not necessarily songs that make sense from start to finish, but things that have an overall vibe. It’s not like I’m writing songs about something I’ve specifically lived through. I’m not imparting anything completely personal. I don’t think dance music benefits from inherently personal lyrics. I also don’t think it benefits from the more cliché, trite songs. If you start using dance music for lyrical inspiration, you’re going to end up in a cul-de-sac of horrific shit [pronounced: shite]. You’ve got to look to other music to make anything worthwhile.

Such as pop music?
I like pop music a lot. Things that get in the charts. I like catchy songs. I like melodies. I also love dance music, from maybe ten years ago. That’s my favorite period, when disco house was big. I don’t really like what’s around at the moment. I try to blend my favorite dance music from back in the day and modern pop music. Song-based dance music. It makes me poppy. I [made] myself the guy [who sings] songs, kind of by mistake. And they are pop songs. But it’s not like I’m trying to be a pop star. I’m doing my best not to be.

Whew. What’s your production process?
Music comes first. Always have the beat done. I’ll be thinking when I make it what I want to write over it. If I come up with a phrase, I’ll have it in my head, but I won’t try and write a song until I think the music is advanced enough for me to make a song out of it. Lyric writing isn’t the first thing on my mind. It needs to be a good musical song before I’m gonna spend time doing that, because it takes ages.

I love your track, “I’m not Alone.” The “Yeah Yeah Yeah La La La” song took some getting used to, but, after a couple listens, I was hooked.
That song was never really for the album. It was for an advert. It was for the Coke ad. And the lyrics were based around an idea they’d come up with. The advert is amazing. The track is cool but it didn’t go with the rest of the album, did it?

You know what else doesn’t go? “Burns Night.” It stands out as being different.
[Laughs] I know a guy called Burns. He’s a DJ. He’s coming over here. He’s touring with Deadmau5 in a couple months. You’ll probably see him in New York.

You’re better than Deadmau5.
Thank you. Burns is better than both of us put together. The song is basically just a dedication to him, the chaos that he brings. If you ever meet him, you’ll know what I mean. I’m sure you’ll meet him at some point.

So what’s your take on commercial commissions like the Coke “advert”?
It’s good when you don’t have to do something that you hate. [The Coke advert] was good because they wanted someone that sounded like me. It felt quite natural to do. Obviously the thirty-second edit thing was always going to be a compromise, but I was fully aware of that. It was something I was entirely comfortable with. There didn’t seem to be a downside. It’s an opportunity to reach people that I might not otherwise be able.

Anything behind the video for “I’m Not Alone”?
That is my favorite video that we’ve done. It was just really nice. Not really my idea. We knew this guy was a really good director and he came up with the concept. I had a vague idea of keeping women in cages in a basement and he ran with that. It was great. It’s a bit creepy. It’s not like I’m living out a fantasy. Don’t get the wrong idea. It was just a bit of fun. And it looked good. I’ve done loads that look shit. That’s the only one that looks really good.

What’s a video you think is shit?
Any other ones I’ve ever done.

“Ready for the Weekend”?
It’s awful. I can’t watch it. The bits I’m in I can’t watch. It’s horrible. It makes me want to die.

You’re okay watching yourself in “I’m Not Alone”?
Yeah. It looks less like me. I’m in a lab coat and I’ve got the big [fly eye] glasses on, so you can’t see much of my face. It looks good. I like that video.

Are you in most tracks on the new album? Your voice can get really high and really low.
I can get high, I can get low, I can get medium, in between those two. I don’t know why, but I do have quite a good falsetto. Listened to Prince records. Low I get because I’m quite tall. Tall people have a low voice.

How tall are you?
Six-foot-five.

Is it true you “get all the girls”?
No. That’s fictional. That song I wrote when I was 21, four years ago, living with my mum and dad, working in a shit shop, no mates, apart for him [nodding to bandmate Mark, on the bed] and no girlfriend. Basically, no life. So, I wrote a song called “The Girls,” in kind of an ironic “HA!” fashion. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

This is going back in time, but Dragonette remixed “The Girls;” did you like what they did with it?
Well they just replayed it and sang “the boys” instead of “the girls.” What I found funny about that whole thing was they actually asked for a percentage of the publishing because they changed “girls” to “boys.” We told them to fuck off.

Right on. It said in your press release that you want to play stadiums.
When I was making some of the songs that are on this record –- and I’m not saying this because I’m in America -– I had in my head a baseball game. A guy was hitting a home run, whatever they call the baseball guys -– one of those guys who play baseball -– and the ball goes out of the stadium. Everyone goes crazy. I had it in my head some of these tracks would work for this purpose. [Not] me playing stadiums. I don’t hold that ambition. I’m a realistic guy. I didn’t have that in my head. It was more the thought of that scene, that image. It kind of helped.

Interesting. So, who do you like working with?
I like working with big pop stars. Big American pop stars. Big, scary entourage people. Like Madonna or Lady Gaga.

Didn’t you pass up working with Lady Gaga?
A song of hers was sent to me and it was not good. They wanted me to work on it. I didn’t want to work on a bad song. It’s the worst song on her album. If I’d done that, I would be able to say I worked on the worst song on Lady Gaga’s album. And that’s not something I want to say. I’m glad I didn’t do it.

So, what’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened during a performance?
I was playing a festival in Ireland when I caught a banana onstage. One of the craziest things that’s ever happened in my life! I caught a banana. Do you know how hard it is to catch a banana? We played over 400 gigs; never had a banana thrown. I caught it.

So you’re good at juggling produce.
It was the initial catch. It was spectacular. We were in a tent. How many people were in that tent? 15,000? Big tent. And this came from the middle of the tent. This banana was launched. I caught the banana! It was a double thing, wasn’t it? The fact that they had launched this banana at me, and that it had successfully made it so that I could catch it. Anyway I caught it, and then I peeled it, and then I took a bite out of the banana, just a bite, and then I launched it back into the crowd. And it was a moment I will probably never forget.