Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris was born Adam Richard Wiles in Dumfries, Scotland. Once he realized he wouldn't make it as a soccer player, he set his sights on music. In 2002, he released a 12" single, "Da Bongos," under the moniker Stouffer. He moved to London in 2003, but after a fruitless year, he had spent all of his money and moved back to Dumfries where he worked stocking produce in a grocery store. Thankfully, he continued making music and distributed it on MySpace under a new name: Calvin Harris. There, his music caught the ear of manager Mark Gillespie, who agreed to represent Harris after he scored a deal with EMI. He released his first album, I Created Disco, in 2007; the record was certified gold in the U.K. His second album, Ready for the Weekend, was released in 2009 and debuted at number 1 on the U.K. Albums Chart, and also went gold. Although he was known as a singer, Harris was more interested in songwriting and production, and his tastes dovetailed nicely with meteoric rise of electronic dance music. In 2012, 18 Months was released. On this record, Harris largely delegated the singing to others (Rihanna, Kelis, Ne-Yo, and others contributed vocals), and the result was an overwhelming success. 18 Months became the first album in history to have 9 singles make it into the top ten on the U.K. Singles Chart. It also produced a number of singles that reached Billboard Hot 100 in the US. The video for "We Found Love" (featuring Rihanna) won Video of the Year at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards. In 2013, Harris became the exclusive resident DJ at the MGM Grand's Hakkasan nightclub in Las Vegas. This, along with a touring schedule that packed in over 150 festival and club appearances in a 12 month span, put him at the top of Forbes list of top earning DJs of 2013, at almost $46 million.