People don't listen to terrestrial radio. They don't find their music that way. They don't get their news that way. They go to blogs. They go through Sirius/XM. They go through all these different places.
I DJ'd for years. I DJ'd in high school, and I think my parents thought it was a passing thing. And then when I was in my second year of college, I was like, 'Yeah, you guys don't need to send me money anymore. My DJ gigs are good enough. I'm selling music; I think I'm gonna have a record deal. I can pay my tuition.'
When I can control my own show, I want the price to be affordable so fans can actually see me. It's a challenge because I have to do a lot of navigating to make the production stellar but do it on a realistic budget.
I think that most people who hire me to do a remix just want it to work in a nightclub, whereas when I'm writing my own album, I don't have to worry so much about 2 A.M.
The art of DJing is sharing music with one another... The technology's definitely taking it into a new direction to where it's really becoming performance-based.
I have really fond memories of growing up in Chicago, and I always love going back. I still have a lot of really good friends from high school that I go to dinner with. It's kind of become a tradition when I go out there to do a show to give a few friends a call, tell some funny stories about high school and walk down memory lane.
