The Definition of Being a Good DJ Has Changed w/ Cazes ✍️

On this episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast Cazes, Cream & Gary W Discuss:

• Transitioning to a new market can open new opportunities.
• The definition of a good DJ has evolved over the years.
• Open format DJing is changing, with fewer opportunities in traditional nightclub settings. DJs often need to adapt their sets based on the energy of the crowd.
• Collaboration with other artists can enhance creativity and accountability.
• The importance of taking time off to recharge and maintain creativity.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
• 1:59 Transitioning from Miami to Nashville
• 3:09 Building Connections in New Markets
• 4:47 The Evolution of DJing and Market Dynamics
• 6:40 The Importance of Personal Connections
• 8:40 From Local Gigs to National Recognition
• 10:59 The Changing Definition of a Good DJ
• 12:42 Creating a Strong Brand and Identity
• 14:49 Playing Festivals: Breakaway in Tampa
• 17:25 The Rise of Curated Experiences in Nightlife
• 20:11 The Shift Towards Experience-Driven Events
• 21:55 The Role of Marketing and Teamwork in Nightlife
• 26:07 The Importance of Quality Production in Venues
• 28:25 Shifting Music Production Focus Post-COVID
• 31:39 The Evolution of Edits and Remixes
• 33:50 Navigating the Open Format DJ Landscape
• 35:27 The Evolution of DJ Sets
• 41:19 The Challenge of Original Music Production
• 48:01 Collaboration in Music Production
• 49:36 Experiencing Live Music: Insights from Dom Dolla's Show
• 59:11 Professionalism in Online Presence

Transcript

0:41

Alright, what's up guys? Welcome to the hundred and seventy-seventh episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast. My name is Cream We have another guest today. We have DJ, producer, Headliner Music Club, exclusive editor. We got my man Kasey in the building. What's up, bro? What's up? Big intro. Wow. I appreciate it. I've like really blown out the intros lately, so I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to go insane on this one. Dude, thanks for jumping on, man. Yeah, absolutely. I told you I love the show. Obviously you're like 175 in or something you said now. So I'm glad to be here and do an episode with you guys. Yeah, it's wild, like, you blink and you're at 175 episodes. I know, like, same thing, I'm sure, with your mix show, where it's like, holy shit. Yeah, you start uploading them and you're like episode 200 and you're just like, how? I don't know. Yeah, it's like once you get the process and you like doing it and you just kind of get in the flow that you just pump them out. It's like repeat. It's repeat. Literally rinse and repeat the process and you're good. So we were talking a little off air. I know you're a little run down. You've lot of travel. I mean, you've been playing all over the place. Big move coming up to Nashville. What's happened like? Trying to deal with that. I'm excited about it. I was telling you, I think, well, a little bit about it, but I've been in Miami for like eight to nine years now. I think I've seen like all the cycles of it. Good, bad, before COVID, after COVID. All in all, I really do love Miami, but I'm excited for like a change of scenery, different market, all that. Not too much, I feel like, really changes for me just because, like I was saying, being on the road and stuff like that. But, you know, different home market and all of that is a little change. So I'm excited for it. feel like whenever you make a move like that, new doors will obviously open. mean, I know you're playing in Nashville anyway and you're traveling, you have your residencies all over the country, whenever you get reestablished in a new city, you're meeting new people and like I said, new doors will open and you'll find yourself in hopefully new rooms and better rooms and whatnot. was it like that when you moved to Miami? you kind of, what was that move like initially when you went to Miami? Yeah, so I started playing in Tallahassee at FSU. So that was like 2010, 2011. Graduated from there in 14. I stayed there another year and then I pretty much was just like, we're sending it. And I just, I came to Miami. I mean, I came to Fort Lauderdale first. I was in Fort Lauderdale for one year. I think my idea with Fort Lauderdale was like, oh, it's a little cheaper to be here or whatever. And I realized quickly it's not, and you're not in Miami. So it was kind of like very pointless. wish I would have just immediately did that, but that was why after that first year I was like, let's go. And yeah, I mean, I pretty much moved to Miami knowing some small connections, but definitely not much. A lot of real shitty opening type slots for very little money. And I think it's really just, for me with Miami, was kind of that just continuing to like be persistent type thing, like showing up, being in those rooms, being around the older guys that were playing good slots. And just, yeah, I mean, keep fostering those kinds of connections, but it definitely, took a minute. Like I tell people that all the time, I've definitely didn't show up here and just start playing crazy, like crazy rooms at all. It's a minute. is one of those places too, similar to like a New York where it's like one of the toughest markets I feel like, especially to break in where it's like if you're not a promoter DJ, it's really tough to sort of get your kind of your home bases and get a set group of places that you're playing. 100 % and also I think the era of when I did start here was kind of that promoter DJ era So luckily for me at that time I was like 22 years old so it was a little easier to do all of that stuff and I didn't mind it were like now I'm like, I don't want to do any of that but At that time that helped me so that that was good that was a weird era though also because it was just like These guys really didn't care York. No, it's not as bad for sure, but it does still exist. Yeah, I I feel like you have to be able to at least DJ a little bit now, where like that era back then was like they didn't care. They really did not care. really did. Cream and I actually, we were DJing in New York like quite a bit, I think. And we looked at each other one weekend. We're like, we're just getting out. We're not DJing in New York no more. Like we'll stay in Jersey. We'll play all the good spots in Jersey and frig New York. like these kids can't DJ. Like these guys can't DJ. Yeah, they could bring people out. Like at that point, I was already like 10 years into my DJ career. My friends didn't want to come see me DJ anymore. I was old news, you know? right. So yeah, we had like made a collective decision just like, nah, fuck New York. We're out for a couple of years. Yeah, it was interesting times, man. Definitely interesting. 22 and young like that though, like being able to bring people is sort of how you can help sell yourself, right? I think like you gotta be a good DJ, but if you are one of the better DJs and you could bring people, you're gonna grow really, really quickly. I agree. think it does. At that age, it definitely helps. 100%. I just think like it's weird now because that's kind of like what I learned like coming up. So now when younger people ask me like, what do I have to do to do this or to do that? I feel like there is no like straight path answer really anymore. And yeah, I mean, that's a hundred percent. There's a whole, I mean, you can go into all that with like marketing and all of that also. mean that Back then that was like required, but it was not required how it is now. Yeah, I actually got a quick story. So this weekend, I was playing at 310 Bowery in New York. And one of the DJs from our Discord messaged me was like, yo, Cream, I'm going to come pop out. I don't think I've met him before, maybe really quickly at one of our networking events. But like he just popped out, hung out with me the whole night, brought me a couple drinks. Like we hung out and talked for a while after the set. And like we went our separate ways. But it's like, all right, I know this person now. We had a good conversation. Sure, like I'm ready to give him an opportunity to come play something or open for me or whatever just because he went that little small extra step to make a personal connection and show a little bit of effort, you know? And like, it's a very simple thing. know 100 % I've talked about that too is being in the room and actually being with the person because it's like a lot of like these younger guys will just hit you up on Instagram and like that's great. It's good because you are in different cities but like if you're in this city and I'm playing or vice versa or whatever like you just said, come hang out, like come have a drink, come be in the bar, come in the club, whatever. Same thing with the bookers. Like they're just cold DMing these bookers and like not that that doesn't you know, occasionally work, but how many people do you think are doing that? Like so many people. And it's like the difference that sets you apart is you being in the room with that person. And I say that all the time. Yeah, it's great advice and it's such an easy thing, right? It takes no skill. It's just purely effort. Yeah, absolutely. So you talked a little about your first move from Tallahassee to Miami and how did you go from local Miami building your name to starting to travel and book some bigger gigs? And even in your home market, you just played live on Wednesday. So it's a long way from being a baby DJ in Miami, right? Yeah, no, no, no, absolutely. As far as the out of the market stuff, I feel like it's just like that brick by brick thing. what we were just talking about, there were certain cities I wanted to go play in and I've actually talked about this with, I think you guys have had Cass on the show before from Miami, right? okay. think you might know him though. were talking about, I remember me and him were talking about this and it's like, dude, there was a point where we were just like, going to these different cities, not even playing, like just flying there and trying to meet these DJs like that we would link up with and we'd go to the cities, we'd meet them, we'd meet the owner and it kind of would be like, okay, you can come back and next time you're here, you can play. So then it was like getting out there and being booked for like a real small fee. And then it was like getting booked for a real fee. And it just kind of is like that venue would then lead to that next venue. But there's no like... I don't have like the blueprint. Like I feel like people ask me that. Me and Rick have talked about that too. Cause Rick was like, I don't know how it went from like the two venues to the four venues, the eight venues. But I think that's how any kind of career is. DJ or not, you know, it's just. Yeah, I feel like the goal line has moved now over the years. Like the blueprint is going to draw. There's never really been a real blueprint, right? But like, think it's just evolutionary in kind of what we are expected upon us, you know, from the marketing standpoint, from, know, just having a look, if that's, you know, something as little as that, you know, having professional, any kind of professional video or coming out with a mix show or having a podcast or There's a million things you could do now to create some kind of name for yourself, to have some kind of stronghold in a spot in our crazy industry. Like I said, we have the podcast, there's mix shows. There's a million different things that you could do at this point. And that has changed so much from 10 years ago where it was like, you did just have to show up, meet people, still be a good DJ, distribute your mixes in whichever way you could do that or your tracks in whichever way can do that. So like, it's just... It's ever changing, right? You just have to stay with the times. Yeah, I even say I think the definition of just being a good DJ has changed over the years. I think, you know, even five years ago, 10 years ago, like, I'd look at guys that were crazy with scratching and all of this stuff. And I was like, like, that's so sick. And like, it still is cool. But the thing is the general public does not care about any of that stuff. So like what I tell younger people is like focus on other stuff that actually means something to your audience. And I think for me, a big thing where my whole career kind of changed in my mentality was before COVID, I really looked up to those type of DJs, like the DJs DJ. And I thought it was so cool and all of this. And it's hard to get traction with like a general audience with that. There are specific people that do it well, but there's only so many slots for that. So you have like your, you know, your conflicts and your A tracks and those type of people that they do resonate like with the general public, but there's only so many of those spots. So it's kind of like, what can I do that the general public's going to respond to? And I just tried to focus more on things that like the everyday person wanted to see, like not necessarily a DJ wanted to see from like performing live to like doing a mix show. And I think kind of finding that angle was like a big thing for me. That's where I noticed at least a lot of my venues started coming and stuff like that and having like a very like specific brand of what I do. Before that point, I definitely didn't have it. So I kind of found a direction after COVID with that. It's interesting. You have a lot of stuff going on, right? You do a lot. But each of those things brings awareness to you and your brand and what you do and who you are as a DJ. And people like you and others who are doing a lot are generally more successful than others. You just have to be doing a lot. Have your hands on a lot of things, whether it's music, like edits, remixes, mixed shows, podcasts. Whether if you're a booker, you know, like that's been really helpful for us to be able to connect with people because we do book a lot of DJs. So different levels of DJs we can connect with because we do need to book DJs too. So if you're listening, like you have to have something to bring to the table than just being a good DJ. Your value sometimes is like, I think about it this way. I always think about it like, how can I help this other person that I want to work with? And I want to bring value first, whether it's an owner or another DJ, like, yeah, come on the podcast. You know, let's promote this. Let's or be on my edit pack or what, however I can help someone. It's not that I expect to be helped in return, but it's just like putting good vibes out. And if you help enough people, people are going to want to help you kind of thing. Yeah, 100%. It's the mentality of just doing good and good will happen. Like you said, you're not doing it with the expectation of I'm doing this so I'm gonna get this back. I think when you start doing it that way, you get in trouble. But when you start thinking the way you just said, that's when good things happen without a doubt. That's in anything though. Not just DJing, but literally, that's just in life, 100%. People can see through that fakeness too if you're doing it just to get something. You could read right through those people and we don't wanna work with any of those people. Yeah, it's not hard to tell with that without a doubt. It's pretty easy to see it. So we'll get into some of the stuff, the content that you're creating and how you started doing and stuff. But let's continue with your journey here because I saw you just announced you're playing Breakaway in Tampa. Yeah, I'm doing the Tampa one in April. That's another big step, man. Congrats, first and foremost. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's exciting. It should be a lot of fun, actually. most DJs when you talk to them, one of their big goals is always like, I want to play a festival. So what was the feeling like when you got that news? I mean, were you super excited or and how did that come about? So I, throughout like the earlier years, I've done like a few real small like ones, but never like a touring one like that. I don't, you guys probably wouldn't even know I'm up in New Jersey and New York, but it was like spring weekend, life and color I've done a couple times. All smaller stuff, not like obviously like, I mean, at this point, like breakaway is like 15 a year or something, something crazy. Trying to think of exactly where it started, but I mean, long story short, I know the owner from my girlfriend and a couple other people were just kind of like in the same circle. And he always was telling me, hey, we want to get you on one of these. Let's make it happen. Send the dates. You can do it. their talent buyer ended up reaching out to me for the Tampa one and the date lined up. It was perfect. I had to already be in Florida that Friday. So I was like, you know, why not? And yeah, it's exciting. It's cool because it's obviously, it's an artist that you had to go do what you want. You're not playing for owners of a nightclub telling you what to do or anything like that. It's cool from that standpoint. Yeah, I actually attended the one in Charlotte with we went with Angelo and you know, we were there with the whole trio crew so he did it last year, right? I think he did Charlotte, yeah. Okay. past one, but we just went to hang out the previous year. Again, like I was just in town, like popping in. I have a night off. Like I'm gonna go hang out with Angelo and Eric and see what's going on and check out Trio Charlotte. And it was just one of those like go hang with my friends kind of weekends. Yeah, that's another group. Like we were talking a little earlier about the younger people kind of finally getting some of these slots. I mean, Breakaway is a great example of that. Everybody involved in that's like super young. Most of them are like from Ohio. And yeah, it's cool to see them like doing big things. Like, I mean, the talent they have on the lineups now are insane. Yeah, it's great. I love it. It's not one of these massive shows either where it's like, sometimes people get turned off by the four stages and a million people, you know? It's a little more, for someone that maybe has never been to a festival, it's a little easier to sort of your way into something like that, where it's still packed and super fun and great DJs, but it's not insane. kind of like where it's like enough people that they're able to like afford that talent and make it worth it. But it's not like a hundred thousand people running around going crazy where you're kind of like, if you've never seen it, I feel like I can throw you off a little bit. Yeah. Well, we were talking about like some of these younger groups, right? The breakaway group and the trio group and the bar stool group, the forward group. It's all younger people coming together and creating what younger people want to consume, you know? Like that's what's working right now. Those are the places that are consistently successful. 100%. I think it's groups that understand that. People also want like really curated stuff. I know we've talked a little bit about this. I know you just did the 360 thing, which I saw Rick did looked insane. Yeah, I mean that looked the videos from that were amazing. And I think that those type of events right now is like what's really, really, really doing well. Even venues that are really curating like, I don't know if you guys have seen like John Boy, that's one of the forward concepts. disco feel good, but really it's just stuff girls want. It's really just geared at making girls happy. And you go in that place and it's like every single person in there knows what they're getting from the minute they walk in. They're super happy. There's nobody in there that doesn't want to be in there because like if somebody goes in there and is like, Hey, we want bad bunny. We tell them like, you know, like, Hey, we don't do that here. And they don't, they don't come back and that's fine because you don't, you really want the people in there that want to be in there. And Those type of concepts are amazing. The party's doing it too. Like Luke with a Zer is insane. Everybody there knows the same thing. Like this is what you're coming for. This is what you're getting and you're going to have a great time if that's what you want. I think those types of things are doing well where a lot of these older guys are still really holding on to this like, you know, just straight nightclub. You don't know what you're getting. We're going to sell you a table. And I think that worked so long ago, but there's just so many options now that people can really go and do what they wanna do. And you don't have to have that like randomness of like, maybe I don't wanna hear those three house songs and I wanna only be at a hip hop party or I don't wanna hear those hip hop songs. But yeah, the young guys get it. I think we really, we realized that there was this shift in people wanting to go to an experience. Like two years ago, one of the bigger days of the year has become like SantaCon or like any of these cons that go on. And we were seeing this shift where Fridays and Saturdays were like, okay. And then like the Saturday of the con would come along and be thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And it was like, wow, well, these are now only becoming our biggest days of the year. And like that whole shift into experience really started like two years ago. But right now we're at a we're at like the peak of it, where even some of our like big shout out to one of our guys, Aldis, who threw a party at one of our spots, 626 last week. And he did like 600 tickets on like RSVP, which is crazy on a Thursday that like I'll go play there on this Thursday coming up. And I'll probably have like 70 people there. they have like 400 and like 600 RSVPs. Like it's just, it's just shifted so far that way that you have to think about it. You don't want to do it every weekend or every night, but like, I mean, you can, guess you could, you know, you get away with it in certain places where you, just have to establish a identity, right? And I think there are so many places that are afraid to just establish an identity because you're going to take a step backwards, especially if you're a place that has already been open. you're going to take a step backwards and then to take two steps forward. Let me ask you this question. If you're a nightclub and you're open, let's say just Fridays and Saturdays or Thursday, Friday, Saturday, like, do you almost have to take this approach with every night needs to be something that's like highly promoted and planned? Is that where we're going? Do you have to? I feel like that's kind of what spots did at one point or like spots that had like multiple things. So I kind of like think about back when here they still had story and live like Friday night at live was always hip hop Friday at story was always dance music and they counter programmed. It's hard because I think that if you do take that approach, like you said, you're stepping backwards first. So you have to really like believe in your product. And I, again, I always use John Boy's an example for this and they could probably talk about this more, but like when they opened it right away, it didn't explode. Like it took, it took a little while, but I mean, not one in Chicago now is hands down the best spot in that city. And that's because they really like stuck with that. and I think that's how all of these kinds of things are the curated things. I don't think they really explode right away. Like I think of like sunset sessions in Dallas also is like another great example similar to Luke's party. That one's weekly now. Like that's crazy. mean, it's crazy and they'll put a couple hundred people up there on a Sunday night, which is like, that's awesome. And I mean, it's every single week, but I don't know. That's, that's a hard question. Like if you're just a nightclub, like how do you do that? I don't really know. So I'll give you, know, I'm booking all the DJs at Birch here in Hoboken Jersey, and I'm sort of taking an approach where who are all the different groups that are doing these one-off parties, and how can I work with all of them? Like, I wanna have a party with each of them on my calendar for 2025, maybe quarterly, whatever it is, because not only do you get... your normal like nightlife crowd on the weekends that we normally get, but then you get to pull from these other groups of people that maybe they've never experienced Birch, right? Maybe they'd follow around whatever promotion group or group that throws these parties and they go to every one of those. And maybe they'll come to Birch for the first time because this other group that they do trust is throwing an event there. And I think if we have enough of those, we have my 360 party, we have that. Maybe we do like a bad bunny once a quarter or like whatever it is. If you have enough of those, you can sort of create this successful momentum. Yeah, I mean, you obviously have to find the proper people to do all those events, like you said, but I mean, when you think about it from that way, if you can create a whole calendar of parties for a club that are specific things that like we were saying, people want to go to their curator, whatever, I mean, that's obviously, I think that's the ultimate goal. It's just, that's obviously tough to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. gonna say, many, like, Krim, like, you're the entertainment director over there, right? Like, is that normal, or are just people having, do Nightlife Spaces have just managers that are expected to turn out a product? You know what I mean? Like, you're the entertainment director, yeah, you'll book the DJs, but then you can also think about this from the perspective of, okay, this is where Nightlife is going, I need to line up all of the right places, the right people, and put them in place for us to be successful. Does every venue have that? We have a team, right? And my 360 party has a team. talked about it last episode. Birch has a team. There's a group of people that create the content and on our marketing team and run ads and all that and come up with like party names and all that stuff that I'm not as involved in. And then we have promoters and we have like, it's a team effort. And if you're not, if you don't have a team, I think it's a lot harder to be successful in that way. For sure. Like, The younger places, have marketing teams, have promo teams, you know, like, it takes an army to be successful right now. And the places that don't have that are not, you just don't have as many people working on the events. Yeah, you can't just like open the doors anymore. It's not, it's not gonna happen. It costs money to make money. And people, especially older venue owners, they're afraid to spend money. Go ahead, Chris. groups that we work with that don't have an entertainment director or a host or like a marketing team. And we talk about them a lot because they're not as successful as they can be because they don't have those things in place. Yeah, mean, dude, like Gary said, it costs money to make money from a marketing standpoint, from any type of standpoint. And even sometimes I think about it with some of these venues, like they don't even have proper like sound and lighting. So it's like people go into these spots and it's similar to like the bad DJ, but they don't know why the DJ is bad. Like they go in, it sounds terrible. It looks terrible. They know it's not good. They can't tell you why, but they're not going to come back because they realize it. It's, you know, I always say it. I think I use the DJ more as the example than the sound or lighting, but it's the exact same thing with the DJ. You know, bad DJs in there. They hear it. They can't tell you why the DJ is bad. They just know the music's not good. The energy was a little off tonight, Cream. That's it, that's what you get. yeah, exactly Like the energy was a little weird and I mean, that's just it is what it is like That's the typical venue owner feedback that we get on Monday morning. The energy was a little off. It was a weird. Yeah. people that are going out and who want to come to nightclubs are going to all the they're going to see John Summit. They're going to see Dom Dahl at the garden. They're going to Brooklyn. They're going to live. They're going all these places where that sound and production is at the forefront. So if you're not providing that, why are people going to want to come to your place? 100%. I agree. Gary and I are like, should we just open a place? I know, especially in the last couple of weeks, it's like, Jesus, putting all this work in to make other people's places better, just open a place. Yeah. can end our little rant here on venues. Let's get into your music a little bit because I think you're now officially an exclusive editor on Headliner. So, shout to all the Headliner guys. I love that record pool. It's great pool. But I think in the last two years, I've really seen a shift in the music that you're making where it's really one specific style. And I know every single time I click on one of your edits, the vibe that it's gonna be. So obviously that was intentional, but what was the reasoning behind that and kind of what sparked that mind state? So that goes even back to what I was saying, the post COVID thing with the trying to appeal to like very specific type things. Before COVID, I was making everything. Like you can find a lot of it still, I don't know if it's still on HMC because they have to obviously like delete stuff. There's the rules and all that, but I mean. There's like dubstep edits. all, mean, any, there's like hip hop blends where like now I'm never gonna play a hip hop blend in my set. Like it's just not gonna happen. Yeah, every, everything. So I think what it really was was it was just kind of more the decision of like, this is what I like playing. This is what I wanna play. This is what I wanna be booked for. So how do I use that to my advantage and how do edits and remixes show that? and I kind of decided like I like the house stuff, I like the dance stuff and I just honestly focused in on that. I stopped making stuff that I wouldn't personally play. That was like a big kind of first step and I think that, you know, similar to Rick, me and Rick talk about this a lot also because he kind of did the same thing. I think that I wanted anytime somebody downloaded a Kase's edit to... be able to know which crate they were gonna put it in without even listening to it. And I think that's given me or gotten me a lot of help with these bigger producers playing my stuff too, because they know, you know, for instance, like a Diplo will play that edit because it fits into his set, but you're not gonna see, you know, I don't know, Excision playing a case of set it because it just isn't, it doesn't fit. So I think it's similar to this. Like you said, being able to like download that edit and know that it works here, it works here, not even having to listen to it. And, uh, yeah, I don't know. It was intentional for sure. That's without it. I mean, without a doubt. It's kind of funny because between you two and then also Rick, who obviously we just had on the show, like you guys have had a very similar production arc, you know, throughout your career where cream, you kind of did the same thing. Cream, were you like out of Covid to kind of like reposition to the the base house sounds? I was leaning more. My edits were always like high energy peak hour type stuff mostly. I think now more so in the last maybe one year, honestly, it's because of, it's because of these guys, because I see like this works and this is what I want to do. And it's the smart, it's just a smart way of positioning yourself. If you create the stuff you want to play, you're more likely to get booked for the stuff that you want to play. So Selfishly, I do it. I can still go and make stuff I know that'll go number one on DMP or do really well, but it doesn't fit into my set and I just don't want to put that out into the world anymore. So for me, it's more recently. it's kind of ironic though, but like where you started with making edits, you were making them for opening sets, you know what I mean? So you had like a specific, you had a specific sound like when you started and then obviously as you started to headline more and more like that would change a bit. But it's. I've started making edits so that I can play them in my set and be different. So I wasn't playing headline sets back then. So I had to make edits that fit into the stuff that I could play. Yeah, 100%, I think that's another thing too, when I was making these, like I said, if I'm not playing them, I'm not gonna make them. I mean, now when I look at like a history file from like one of my sets, depending on the room, I mean, it's like sometimes 50%. Like when I do like a sunset sessions, it's like 70%, it's like a lot. And it's cool because I think that it makes me different, it makes, you know. It gives you more of that like artist kind of thing, which like, think you can have that without, you know, putting out a ton of original music. You definitely, there's definitely people that have done it, but yeah, I think the going in the single direction with like your sound edit wise, remix wise is a lot of people have seen success doing it. Yeah, mean, definitely that is my strategy moving forward as well. I thank you guys for doing it, because it opened my eyes for sure. the parallels between this conversation and the last conversation, people just want to know what they're getting. Like that's really, it's the same thing. People just want to know what they're getting. 100 % absolutely. I think it's because like I said, there's just so many options now. Like even, you know, we were talking about it with venues, but look at record pools, right? Like there's so many different types of editors on these pools and I always talk about it. cause there's people that are amazing that do the opposite of what me and Rick Rick do. Like I think of like a DeVille who does everything, but there's only so many spots for that kind of editor. And he's, you know what I mean? He's taken one of them. So it's like, it's kind of like, if you're gonna go that route, you're going up against that. And that's, it's hard. I think also, know, DeVille now lives out, and he's in Vegas, right? So he's playing a lot of Vegas rooms. I'm sure where he's playing, he can kind of play that style too. So selfishly, he's making all these open format different styles because in Vegas, you play an open format party room and it's, people want a little bit of everything. And he's sort of creating music for himself, but also obviously for the pool. the old heads really hold down that open format. The little amount of slots that there are for big time open format DJs, all the old heads own it. You talked about DeVille, you talked about 8-Track, you talked about Conflict, Beatbreaker, could even, it's all the old heads that are established and they've established themselves in the timeframe where that was huge, that was the most popular, and it's kind of stuck for them. It's hard to break into that. Like when we talk to up and coming open format, true open format DJs, they're like, okay, well, what's my next step to make it, you know, to level up. And like you, like we said before, like there's no real blueprint. It's a very difficult space to grow into. I say it and like, feel like people hate on us for saying it and I just think that in a club environment, like there's very few places where like that is like thriving and like you said, Vegas is one where it does still work. But I think like open format, like in a nightclub is like just not, it's just dead because there's just too many options. There's too many things people want to hear and like they don't need to suffer through what they don't want to hear to hear what they want to hear. And I don't want to say open format's dead because it's not, it's thriving, it's some of these kinds of parties, like you're like R &B and ribs type parties and you're do-over parties, but the definition of like open format has changed to that. Like I don't think there's like that mixed with like big dance music, like it really is just Vegas, that's it. Yeah, like open format is hip hop, R &B, maybe a little bit of Latin. Yeah. It's that cool type of like, you know, that with a little pop, maybe cool dance mixed in. But like, when you think of like your big open format back in the day, it was exactly what we talk about with those guys who still kind of doing it some of those spots in Vegas. And DJs that want to do that, I just am like, I don't know what to tell you because I just don't think those spots exist. In your sets, are you playing like mini hip hop sets? And if so, like, do you drop down one time maybe throughout the night? to give you like kind of an idea, if I do like a Barstool Nashville type spot, yeah, two hour big, like bigger room, high energy, I will do like, I normally will go in like hard the first 15, like you like drop an intro, hit a bunch of those songs, couple sing alongs. At that like 15 minute mark, I kind of look like if they need like a breather. If they don't, I'll keep going in those rooms. Like I'll go another 15 minutes. Usually by 30, I'll have like a dropdown. So I'll just halftime it or transition track, whatever. But I'm just going to hit like no hands, like all that era of stuff. No, seriously, like that's, I'll hit all those. I'll hit the stuff that still works in some of those rooms too is like the new girl stuff, like the sexy reds, Glorillas. For new stuff, I'll hit that. And I mean, then it's kind of like, I'll hit maybe like seven or eight of those songs in like 10 minutes, like really, really, really quick. And then it's just like right back up and, you know, I'll do another 15 if they're still good, I'll take it another 15. And it's kind of just like when I need to give them a breather. Obviously there's times where like, you know, tables might need something and like, obviously I still cater and do all of that, but, I'm not looking to like go down. It's like, if I have to. I think those rooms want the rooms like there's just other things to do to to like give them breathers in those rooms like hit them with the Taylor Swift remix like that's what they want like they don't want. Right. is so everything all the mixing is so quick too. So if you just drop a song that has like a really long break and vocal that's a little slower like sometimes that suffices as a breather, you know, it's not a 10 minute. what it is, is like, you drop where you are, John Summit, right? Like, let the verse go. Like, you let it go for a second, and then you don't even have to bring it back up, because the song does it itself. Yeah. Right, or like let both verses play on a song and that's the breather. Let it breathe. 100%. Yeah. mean, I don't have, I don't know. I always, I feel like it's funny. I keep bringing Rick up because me and Rick have all these conversations like pretty much weekly at this point. And he'll be like, what are you playing that's new? Does this work? And I'm like, none of this works. Like none of it. Yeah, I would agree with that. If I don't have to go down, I don't want to go down. What I generally use to sort of break up to is I'll go to Jersey Club, right? Because around here, Jersey Club will definitely work. Or like even like a techno vibe. Sometimes I'll take like a 128 song and bump it to 140 and you get that like extra bounce on Since You've Been Gone, Kelly Clarkson or like something like that, where you get this little like bounce. those 140 ones that like aren't scary, you know what I mean? Like by the sound, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, actually ask Angelo for some of those sometimes, because he knows which ones like aren't scary. And that's what I call it. I don't really know how else to describe it. Like it's just kind of like the synth sounds that are like less aggressive, I guess. Because I feel like you hear like 140 BPM and you're just like, oh, it's like. techno crazy and it's like there's so many things in that genre that are fine like you can play them. I think I like every time we touch like that that Maurice West remix right like that's not scary at all and like that works great but every time. set. When you describe it like that, I think of like old dubstep because like there was like only like a handful of dubstep tracks that would have worked in like my in my sets for like the general population. was like scary was the best way to describe that for sure. I think like term-wise, aggressive is probably the best, but I just always call it scary. I've always said that. It's so hard right now, we talked about this recently too, it's like so hard to put a name on all these different genres because there's so many sub-genres, it's like I never know what to call anything, I just make up my own names. do you create stuff? Do you do by like venue and by set? Um, so I have like a larger sets where I'll do by like the I'll do a chunk like so January through March, like big room stuff January through March like tech house. And then I will create a folder sort of for every set, especially if it's like a bigger set that it's more artist driven, I'll kind of, you know, put 100 or 150 songs, you know, in a crate that I break down into sub genres. And like I switched over to sticks mostly now. So like, My organization's even changed since doing that because that's a new thing and I really want to be sort of not have big crates, you I want the crates to be pretty small. Yeah, no, absolutely. I was just wondering because you were saying like, it's hard to put John right of stuff and I agree with that 100%. So that's why I was just curious. Yeah. base house, is it whatever? It's sometimes harder to figure that out. that stuff you can play together and weave and, know, it's, yeah, it all works essentially. Yeah. So we were looking like in doing some research, right? We were checking Spotify, you released some original music a few years back. Is original music something that you want to focus on moving forward? Do you think the edits suffice for creating your unique sets? Or where's your head on that? So I had so much time like around that COVID, that COVID mark. That's when I really started like putting a few of those out. And I think I only maybe put like three or four out, but I've definitely finished more and have more than that. I do like doing it. I think the problem is, like, I always just sound so bad, but it has the lowest like return on investment for me. But personally I want to do it. So what I've done this year is like, I have set aside a lot more time to do it. I also think that collaborating with people is a good way to do it because it holds you more accountable. So like I finished up a song with one of my buddies, Zilla from here. Me and Rick have finished up a record. I have a few other ones and works with other people that aren't done, but we've been working on them. But it's just more of, I think if you have it like that, you're a little bit more like accountable for it because you're working with someone, someone's depending on you. We're like. For me, it's like between getting HMC stuff done, you know, getting all my marketing done, getting all of my sets prepped, booking my travel, like just like all of these things that you don't really think about. That's my whole week, right? Like that's, and then you gotta find time to rest in between there also. That's the other thing, like we're working on the weekend, so you gotta have some time to do something during the week. So I do wanna put more emphasis on it. I'm trying to make it more of a thing because I do enjoy doing it it does contribute to your sets and your brands and all of that, but it's it's time consuming. Yeah. You kind of almost can't think about the return on investment portion of it, right? Because that's really going to, that's going to block you from ever really sitting down and really wanting to invest time into it because you're like, well, I'm not really getting out of this. what the time that I'm putting in, like you said, like you work on the weekend and then we still kind of work Monday through Friday, like we're working real jobs, right? Because you have a day that maybe you're doing your marketing, a day that you're doing production, et cetera, et cetera, as we always talk about on the podcast here, you still need to build in a day off. like somewhere, whether that's Monday or Tuesday. But it's hard to... Being entrepreneurial, it's hard to sit down and do that and put that time on the side for yourself. But if you're going to go after the originals, yeah, you definitely can't think about it as this is not a good return on investment. you, you also have to like one of the other things I've said is like, you have to think about like it's, there is still like a return on investment. It's just not like initial. So similar to the podcast, like with you guys or rinse and repeat with me in the beginning, I never made money like initially off rinse and repeat, right? I was doing this every week, but it did build the brand of which then got me booked for this, this, this, and this. I have specific spots that I know like I got booked at because of that. So I do know that there is a return on it and I do think the music is the same thing. It's just, when you have the other things that are already giving you that return, it's kind of like, all right, I have to set time aside for this. And like you said, I always tell people too, I divide my week like the same way. It's like, know, this day you do all your marketing, this day I'm booking travel and all this, this day I'm doing rinse and repeat, this day fit radio, blah, blah. So you have to find that spot to like slide that in there. It's hard, I mean like you said too, you gotta have the day off, but like you see someone else doing something and you're like, I don't wanna take the day off. Yeah, or your phone is blowing up because bookers, maybe they're not taking the day off and it's like, hey, if you want to book this gig, you need to answer this person back in the next hour or whatever. 100%. Absolutely. Also with the original music too, it's like, because we are all doing so much stuff, it has to replace something. So if you're going to add that original music, what are you taking away that you're not doing kind of thing? I agree with you on the original. Yeah. The originals, it's fun for me. So I try not to look at it as much as like work. It's sort of like a hobby that I'm trying to grow that's actually bringing returns for me kind of thing. think that's why I enjoy the collab stuff, like I was saying. Because I think that it makes it more of a fun activity as opposed to another facet of your job or your career. Yeah, Perari, you know, he's kind of mentored and helped a lot of the producers here in Jersey, New York. And we sort of have this small crew now that are doing various collaborations with each other. And Solano has been kind of taking the lead on this, like, hey, guys, like these other people have these like producer camps where they help each other and they run ideas by each other and they collaborate with each other. And it just creates better producers and more music generally comes out from it. So We've been really trying to do that. I have a track, me and Solano are finishing up and he's such a great producer. Like he's a way better producer than I am. So it's great because he can sort of lead the charge and I can give my input. I can come up with some ideas. We can like collaborate. I can jump in and work on something that maybe he's not sure how to finish. So it does allow you to sort of pump music a little faster than if it was just you sitting there trying to finish the song, you know. Yeah, you learn a lot too. Like even just like with the stuff I was doing with Rick, Rick's a beast. Like I sent Rick like this vocal I found basic idea drew a baseline and added like super basic drums arrangement, like stuff that I'm like super that I know I'm like good at. and he sent back like pretty much like an 80 % finished record. And it's like from there, it's like, you know, me and him are nitpicking, we're adding this, we're adding that. And like, we kind of had this talk or it's just like, dude, we can sit here and keep adding stuff, but this is good. Like it's very, very good. And it's cool just like then being like, I really like how this sounds and being able to look on this project file. And I'm like, that's how Rick did this. And you, you learn from that, you know what I'm saying? And vice versa, where like, maybe I showed him something he didn't know. it's like, I think all of those things you get obviously from like that collaboration process. I also feel like dance music is like a little weird with that collaboration process because it's like, You know, they have this weird thing with ghost producing where it's like, you know, do you really think Diplo is sitting in a studio by himself making this record and no one's taught? Like people believe that though. And it's, it's like, there's so much behind the scenes collaboration that like, think it then gets mistaken for that, but it's like, I don't know. think like for people like us, especially you can learn a lot from like working with some of these other people. And that's kind of the main reason I've, I've wanted to do it. Yeah, I think DJs are scared to say that they needed help to create something. Yeah, I agree. 100%. Breaking down that stigma is... mean, we did it. Collaborating on a local DJ level was non-existent when Cream and I were coming up. And the minute that we started collaborating on things and trading gigs back and forth and doing things like that, it was just easy to grow after that. And I feel like just... Our whole business is built on collaboration. Why it's taken us this long for our guys to get together and produce together? You know, it is crazy to me, but it just made you do you just learn so much because like, for example, here, like in business, like creams taught me so so much just about business background, right? Where like I had a teaching background before this, you know, so I had no idea. So like it's the same thing like to your point, like the things that you're good at, you know, you can show the next person and your weaknesses you can you can pick up from from whoever you're collaborating with. It just makes the most sense. One other thing with collaboration too, know, like Solano and I have a track, right? We're going to release it. Instead of me just pushing a track out to my following, now we have two lanes. We can collaborate on a post on Instagram. We're both posting stuff on TikTok and you sort of double your reach instantly because it's not just one person. And then you're also finding people that maybe will become your fans because they don't know who you are, but they know Solano. So I just think the collaboration is a great way to grow and like we've been talking about, just learn and get better too. Yeah, no, absolutely. Oof. I'm excited for what? we didn't talk about this, right? But I do wanna jump back to the original topic that we had, because I do wanna talk about it on the pod, because you went to go see, can we just jump right into that? Cream went to go see Dom Dahl at Madison Square Garden over the weekend, and I didn't even know he was going, and then he popped up on my feed, and I was like, holy shit, he's at the show? I just wanna talk about it, because I feel like, mean, Dom Dalles is super, you know, super hot right now. The show looked incredible. And I was standing by the I don't want to go see a house music producer at an arena. was like, I was all in on that. And then I saw that I was like, OK, this looked ridiculous. So. it was amazing. I was really, really, really impressed. I'm sort of in the same boat of I'm not the biggest fan of going to arena shows for DJs. I thought I was booked for that day. had a miscommunication with a booker. So I ended up having a Saturday night off and I'm like, damn, what am I? I was like here, I was like cleaning my apartment. was prepping for, like I was cooking Sunday dinner, so was prepping for that. I see all the videos on TikTok from Friday night. I'm like, fuck, am I going to go to the show? And a bunch of our DJs were talking about it. So at like 6 PM, I'm like, fuck it, I'm buying a ticket and bought a ticket, went in, I met up with Dario Valley and James Yeager and we kind of hung out. It was great. I mean, he has such a great, he's just having, he has great music. His style is very similar to how I like to listen to music and play music. So I thought it was great, man. He was so excited to be there and he just kept getting on the mic being like, I can't wipe the smile off my face because this is so amazing. Because you just think about that moment, right? As a DJ, you just sold out Madison Square Garden for two nights in a row. And I just think if I was in that position, how I would feel, and you could just feel that energy from his set. And I think that really translated through his music. It was dope. Yeah, I think that's the coolest thing is like seeing videos of people on that level not knowing what to think and being so happy. I see the same, I think the same thing when I see like a lot of John Summit videos or he's like, I can't believe like, I'm sorry, can't believe I'm doing this right now. Like that's what they both look like. Like Dom Dalla looks so happy in every single video they posted. like, I also get what you guys were saying about the arena DJ thing. I think we just have to, we have to look at it more from like an everyday person point of view. And like, we have to not pay attention that like, obviously everything he's playing has to be pre-planned to work with everything that's being shown. And I think as soon as you get that out of your head and you just take it in and you're like, this is a sick show, it's cool. But I totally get what you're saying. It's just different from like the way we would DJ and. You know, it's like when people talk about the enema, the sphere thing, and they're just like, what is he even doing? It's like, it doesn't matter. Like, it just doesn't matter. I I loved, and I commented on this, and it was something that was so, so, so simple. texted Cream, I said that his table setup was sick, but it was so basic. But I'm like, what has taken any kind of stage production people so long to create something so basic, but so cool looking? Like, it was so effective, and the fact that it was so long. yeah, his whole setup, like what I saw on TikTok gave me like Swedish house mafia vibes. Everything was like really dark, black and white, like a little bit of red, but it was just like super minimal. Like everything was minimal. There was nothing crazy. Like it was kind of like the opposite of the Summit stuff, because Summit really went with like the Daft Punk kind of thing. And like Dom Dalla just had the huge table and like I also thought it was cool that the screen was like the vertical way. Cause I always feel like it's horizontal. So it was cool that it was like that single, single vertical screen. It was cool. His whole setup looks sick. Kind of jealous you went. It was awesome. I was so impressed. The energy of the people in the building was way crazier than I thought it was gonna be. I have videos of just like the whole place with their arms and like it was so dope. I was so happy I ended up going. I texted my girlfriend like, so glad I did this because it's been so much fun. I don't consume music like that as much as I used to anymore, you know? any of us, I mean none of us do, that's the problem. so refreshing to be able to go hear someone else play and hear music and honestly listen to the style of music he was playing. was, it was really, it was like dark techno and dark tech house and people loved it. And like, I'm going to take something away from that set to my sets moving forward. And I think that's so important for DJs to go hear other DJs. And we don't get to do that as much. And I know we talk about how important it is, but I just went and experienced it. And I wanted to talk about that because That was my biggest takeaway, like damn, I need to do this more often because it's gonna really influence my sets for the next few weeks for sure. Yeah. the last show that you went to prior to this? It's been a while, right? I don't know. I gotta think about that for a second. I mean, summer club stuff, the last few summers for sure. I forget who I saw. I think I saw Side Peace one night over there in Queens. But no big shows like that or festivals. Yeah. that. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was like, if I'm in town and like someone's at live that I know and I want to go see, I'll pop in and see them. But I mean, last year, like I saw like the Rufus tour was really good. I want to say it was last year, maybe two years ago when Swedish House Mafia did the tour. I saw that like at the arena here. That was sick too. But yeah, mostly like nightclub sets, not really stuff like that. Let me ask you this question. Would you rather go see Dom Dala or john summit if you had to choose one? Based on seeing the two things, because I saw what they looked like, I think I would prefer Dom Dalla. I like that style a little bit more. But I also would love to be in an arena with everyone singing, like, Where You Are and stuff. I think that would also be sick. they're both just different, I feel like. Gary, what about you? I feel like musical style wise, I lean probably more John Summit, but yeah. But I think like right now, like if I had to pick right now today, like I'd go see Dom Dalla because I'd be riding the train. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's tough. think they're different. I think it's also really cool how their setups are so different. That's what I'm saying because it's funny then they play together. You know what I mean? Like they're kind of the opposites, but like they still mesh. Like it's cool. I don't know the two of them right now. I mean everything they're doing is like great for dance music, so I'm here for it. Yeah, I agree. I'm a big fan of both. I think it'd be cool to experience like John Summit dropping like some dubstep. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah. That's like the wild card with him too. Like that whole thing is crazy. But yeah, I mean, it's really hard for me because I just saw Dom and it was so good, I won't, hold back on my call. But I would probably say Dom Dala just because I would say I DJ more in that style than in Summit style. Have you done, Casey, have you done many back to backs? No, I've done it with Luke twice. Me and him did a Xur and then we also did Sunset Sessions. Some like pop-up kind of stuff here and there, like just like hop on stuff obviously, but never like preset like that where we like actually organize some stuff. I like you and Luke have pretty similar styles in the music you make, so that seems like it's a good fit. Yeah, when we did a ZUR, it was, that was probably like my favorite set I did that year. That was like, I think that was like two years ago now, but, me and like Rick have talked about doing it cause it's similar also. It's really just finding spots to be able to do it at because I feel like it's more like you gotta be in the same city type of thing. Cause it's just like the rate getting it for people is hard and, and stuff like that. But, no, it's, it's a lot of fun, man. I think the crowd really like feeds on feeds on it also. I mean, yeah, we've been talking about trying to get you up here to do one at Birch. We're gonna figure that out and make that happen. But I bring it up because I've done a few of these in a row now and it's like I've never DJ'd with any of those three people for an extended period of time. And all three of our sets, we literally played song for song from the start of our set to the end. it like, all three of the sets were different and we played a little differently, but like they were seamless and they worked and it's... It's a challenge for me that at this point in my career, it's super fun to like, all right, how am gonna mesh with this DJ that we're bringing in? So it's been super fun. as long as you set up with the right people too, like obviously like who you've done it with or people that you're gonna play well with. Right, right, like selecting the right people I guess is half the battle. Man, Gar, what else do want to get into? Anything else here? I know, I think we've covered it all here. I actually I have one I have one more question. sorry. I have one more question I want to ask you because this is something I've been thinking about a lot too. When I went to your Instagram right we're doing a little homework on cases and you don't have a link tree you just have everything linked to your website. What's the reasoning behind that? Why did you go that route? Because I've been thinking about doing the same thing. I just think it looks better, man. I think you can just send everyone to one spot. I don't think there really was ever a reason. Again, it was intentional, like we've talked about with other stuff. I think I just saw a lot more bigger producer guys that just had a good website that had everything on it. From there, you can see video, can see rinse and repeat, you can link it to anything, you can contact me. Even when a venue hits me up and books me, like... You know a lot of people will send like a Google Drive. I have like a hidden part of my website That's like press materials tech writer everything so it's just super like professional Everything's right there I Just think it looks way better I think I'm gonna follow suit. I like it. I just like the way it presents it. presents very, very professional. No, absolutely. And you can go crazy and hire people to develop a website, but also with how good like Squarespace and some of these companies have gotten. Like that one I did is straight through Squarespace and they have integration with tons of stuff. It's super clean. Yeah, there's a lot of templates you could choose from that gives you like a great starting point. Yeah. And then obviously you just have to have the media to fill it. But I mean, all of you guys, you you obviously have all of that. Yeah, I just wanted to ask you about that, because I love that. It was a cool thing that I saw. All right, we like to ask all of our guests, what's one takeaway or one thing that you want the audience to come away from this with? One thing I want the audience to come away with, if you come to my set, you're gonna have fun. It's gonna be a lot of energy. You're probably gonna drink too much. It's gonna be fun. No, I mean, that's what I wanna always be known for is being able to DJ those rooms that you're gonna have a good time in and you wanna celebrate in and this high energy. You know what you're gonna get. Love that. Love that. Follow KZZ, check out what promo give what do want to promo? you can just head to kzestheDJ.com, pretty much everything's there. Also, that's the Instagram handle where everything's there too. I do rinse and repeat radio every week on Wednesday, have a bunch of guests on there. That's just all like house music mixes, stuff like that. And yeah, on the website's my schedule. So if I'm in your city, come say what's up and we'll have some fun. Love it. We will link to the website on all the promo materials here. Follow KZZ, check him out. Appreciate you jumping on, man. This is a great convo. Always, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you guys. Hell yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast. Peace out, guys. Peace guys.