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Stripped down: Dance music guru Mylo

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MYLO

THIS time last year no-one had heard of dance wizard MYLO - aka Isle Of Skye-born Myles MacInnes.

He has just embarked on his third UK tour, which takes in venues across the north of England, as well as Scotland, release the third single from his gold-selling album Destroy Rock & Roll and can count Elton John and MOBY among his many celebrity fans.

"It's all been very bizarre," says MYLO of his steady rise to success. "But good of course. At the beginning of last summer the album came out and, although it wasn't selling that much, me and my band got to do all these festivals, go to Europe, Ibiza, and generally rave."

"I suppose it was in September we realised it was going to keep going, so we kept going too. As far as we're concerned it's still summer 2004," he laughs.

It's down to good old word of mouth that MYLO can now count himself as one of the most popular dance acts in the country. When his single Drop The Pressure was released late last year it became an instant club hit, but it was Elton John's enthusiastic praise at the Q Awards ceremony - the same one where he lambasted Madonna - that really brought MYLO to people's attention.

Since then the 26-year-old has remixed Kylie Minogue, The Killers and MOBY and turned down the chance to do the same with Duran Duran, Ian Brown and U2, mainly because he's been so busy with his non-stop schedule of live shows, DJ sets and trips abroad.

To add to the sheer sense of achievement, MYLO has done all this without the help of a major record label - he released his album on his own label Breastfed. But now demand has got so much that the multi-instrumentalist has signed a lucrative deal with Sony BMG, which is re-releasing his album in May.

Not bad for a lad from an island whose previous most famous musical sons were Gaelic rock demi-gods Runrig. And, despite being such a success with dance music, it was actually soft rock that made up a lot of MYLO's early musical listening.

"Basically all we had to listen to was Atlantic 252," he laughs. "It was this kind of soft rock station on long-wave. We all believed it to be transmitted from a boat floating out in the mid-Atlantic. It probably wasn't true, I don't know who started that rumour."

His musical career began in a Stone Roses covers band at school (having to turn down the chance to remix Ian Brown last year was a particular blow). But music wasn't MYLO's only talent and he went to Oxford to study philosophy.

Once he'd graduated he spent a year in Los Angeles studying for a PhD at UCLA. It was there he started writing songs, though at first they were inspired by the local 70s rock radio stations he was listening to. Finding he was "rubbish" at that type of music, he decided to head back to Scotland to make a proper go of making music.

It was only at home, when he started listening to the likes of ROYKSOPP, early DAFT PUNK and FATBOY SLIM, that he started to develop his own take on dance music. His soft rock influences still shone through - his most talked-about track In Your Arms samples both Kim Carnes' Bette Davis Eyes and Boy Meets Girl's Waiting For A Star To Fall.

With In Your Arms set to be a massive hit, MYLO feels that these other tracks will only have affected him in a positive way. Instead he's more concerned with his May tour which he says is a "big deal" for him.

TOUR DATES

Saturday - Liverpool Carling Academy

Sunday - Middlesbrough Empire

Thursday May 12 - Glasgow Barrowlands

[ May 06, 2005 ]

Written by Wil Marlow

Courtesy of News & Star

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