E127 Brian "Twist" Orr

This week's guest is DJ Twist, Brian Orr, who joins us from St. Petersburg, Florida. Twist has been DJing for a couple of decades now. We talked with him about his early years working at Barrs and Restaurants, how Twist got into DJing originally.

We talk about how his approach and outlook on performing has changed over the years, some of his favorite and notable places he's played. Twist is also currently an investment coach in real estate, and the final stage is now completing a book. You're a terrific interview with Twist, and make sure you check him out on the web at DJTwist.com or any social media site at DJTwist. Enjoy the show.

The industry podcast is supported by the Case for Wine. Your local agent for the Southwestern Ontario region is Rick Beringcelli. Rick lives in Waterloo and is happy to take care of all your wine needs, whether you're a wine buyer, food and beverage manager, some of the A or private individual. Rick will be happy to discuss your wine needs.

Act now and receive $25 off your first order by mentioning the industry podcast. That's this fucking podcast right here. How's it going Dan? I'm doing well.

I'm Kip. I'm your host Dan of course as a producer. That's right. What's new?

Not much actually, just frankly, well, feeling much better after the COVID-19 week. Just in time for you to get sent off Luxembourg. That's right. I'll trip you out.

See if I can get it again. So that's perfect. Yes. Yeah.

And you have the... Mayor O'Lill, Canada Sea Running. I'm running it, man. I'm doing it.

I'm campaigning. So don't forget if you live in the Waterloo region that you want to go out and vote on October 24th, everybody should vote municipal elections are the most important ones to your lives. As much as I'd appreciate you voting for me, as long as you go out and vote, I'll be happy. Perfect.

All right. In addition, I should mention that Babylon's sister's wine bar up town, Waterloo, is in full force. Only a few more weeks left to enjoy our lovely patio at the back, probably, for it goes from 30 degrees here to a minus 10. About two seasons somewhere in winter.

Yeah. So take advantage of that. Also, you'll want to check out sugarrun in any type of weather. We're in a basement.

It's a speakeasy. So that's in downtown Kitchener. And you're just going to have to find that one on your own. Okay.

We have a great guest as usual. We're going to be bringing in Brian Oren just a minute. But before we do, we should mention that if you're enjoying what we do here on the industry podcast, you should subscribe, rate and review the show. It helps tremendously.

If you want to be a guest on the show, two ways to hit us up, info at theindustrypodcast.club is the email address, or you can DM us directly at the industry podcast on Instagram. I did notice that those links are always posted in the show notes. Some of those bottom links, which usually refers to our show on iTunes, or Apple Podcasts. It was retrunkated now, so they don't have as much space.

But on Spotify, all of them show up. So Apple. What are they doing? That's Zack Hanna at Zack Hanna.co.

He does the artwork for the Instagram page. He's also doing all the artwork for my campaign. I saw some prints the other day. They look amazing.

So you'll get to be seeing those around town if you live in Waterloo, Ontario. But enough about us. Let's talk to Brian Oren, AKDJ Twist. How's it going?

Guys, what's up? How's everything going up North? Pretty good. I'm trying the last race of the summer.

Yeah. It's pretty hot here. But as we mentioned before, recording not nearly as hot as you got in St. Petersburg right now.

Right, right, right. It's wonderful down here. I can't complain about that. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for doing the show. Thanks for coming on the show. So let's start by talking about, I mean, you've got a sort of a long career doing a bunch of different things. Let's talk though, originally about your career in the service industry, as that's the focus of the show.

But I want to talk about your DJ career as well, obviously, because that's service related. So let's talk about how you broke into the service industry, where, when, how. So if you're not considering DJing from the service industry, right? So we're talking about like bartending from perspective.

Okay, so that's a much shorter conversation. I bartended in college at like a local college bar. And well, I guess, okay, how do I let's even back it up. I used to bar back in Brooklyn.

Yeah, just like, just like when I was a teenager, and you weren't allowed back there, but you know, it was different way back then. Pay cash, too. Yeah, everything was good. Well, you know, you can't get audited 25 years later.

Yeah, so basically, you know, I was I was bar back in Brooklyn way before college. And then when I got to college, you know, I was DJing through this whole run. But, you know, when I got to college, I bartended a little bit. And I didn't really know what to do.

I kind of people would ask for drinks and I would just be like, vodka's so cool. Like, and that was about it. And it was sort of like my fun little gimmicky thing, I guess, like, you I kind of just poured whatever I felt like born. And it was never really too much trouble.

It was a college bar. It was like, all right, there's liquor in it. Cool. I use that to trick myself in some at the nightclub I worked at somebody came up and heard it was zombie and I'm like, bottle Canadian at this.

So I actually then got a job bartending at this place called Flying Saucer, which was I think a franchise or a chain or something. And it was all beer. So I had to learn a lot about beer. I don't remember much about it.

But I didn't know this was college after all. Yeah. And then outside of college, I did actually go to bartending school in New York. I did that for like a week.

It was like a 40 hour course to try to learn how to actually make more than a vodka soda. And you know, I did that and I worked at a couple places down near Madison Square Garden. And that part of it, it just, oh, and I waited tables one day. I did that one day.

I did that as a diner in Brooklyn. And I worked one breakfast shift and I just it just wasn't for me. It was for me. A lot of stuff.

I was just fucking breakfast shift man. That's the worst. Oh my God. You can never refill the coffee enough times.

Yeah, you could do anything to make people happy. And I was like, it's a beautiful sunny morning, but nobody cared. And I was like, oh, this is tough. This is not really my thing.

Yeah, as far as service goes, that's about the extent of it from your guys. I mean, I did own a restaurant for a while. Yeah, it says on your, what do the pilots mean? I don't know where you use that on your, maybe on your webpage, but on failed restaurant tours.

So tell us. Absolutely. So from an investment side, I would consider it more failed. I invested in a restaurant in Madrid.

And we, I had a couple of partners, two of them, I knew one of them, I didn't know. And it just, it was early in my investing career. And I just didn't do my property diligence on what I was expecting to get out of the restaurant. It was a good concept.

It worked great. We, we had a lot of trouble. We were in Salamanca, which is like a little bit of a Ritzy area Madrid. And they didn't want us there.

Like the residential people didn't want us there. So Spain is very, very, very political. And we ended up getting hit like a week before opening with some noise ordinance nonsense where we had to actually strip the decor, strip everything and put in sound panels, like eight inch sound panels, because they said we were going to be too noisy. This is after we did the whole build out.

What was the concept of the place? Tacos, man. So, no, really. So here's, this is basically the, the concept was stupid Americans, more or less.

So like, so like when I used to, uh, traveling, this is all through my DJ years and I'd be out DJing in, in Spain and Americans like, Oh, you know, how are the tacos out there and that type of thing? I'm like, they don't make tacos. That's not, it's not the same thing. That's not what it is.

But people were constantly looking for tacos. So we decided to put a Mexican restaurant. That is pretty smart. Yeah.

So we put a Mexican restaurant right in the center of Madrid and it went well. You know, the problem was there were, I'm sorry. No, I was just going to say aside from the political balls. Right.

Exactly. So, so we, we started in a major hole having to go through the whole expense of tearing everything down and rebuilding it. And even with that, we sustained pretty well. We were like about two years running and then we ran into a management issue.

So, all three of the partners didn't live in Spain. Um, one of their part time, one of their full time, and the other two of us didn't. Right. That's hard though.

Yeah, it was really hard. So it was hard for us to keep, keep pace with everything. Were you, were you staying side of that point? Yeah, I was in the States.

I was in the States. You have the time difference in everything too. Yeah, everything was tough. And ultimately what it was, it was a small, I guess relatively small, like 72 seats.

And ultimately the downfall was the, the owner slash manager who was on site was getting in relationship stuff with our employees. Yeah. And that ended up resulting in a physical brawl. Um, that board that broke a table, poured out of the restaurant into the street into the glitzy, you know, super fancy, fancy neighborhood, imagery.

And, um, and that was it. That was kind of it. It was really hard to convince the neighbors after that one that we were on the up and up. So, you know, everything up until that point went great.

So, um, yeah, so we shut it down from there. And then, you know, that's about the extent of my service experience. All right. Well, I do want to talk about the DJ experience, because obviously that's sort of the biggest part of your life, it seems like.

But before we do that, let's talk about Sicilian winery, Tasket down Ntia is a special producer in the case for wine portfolio. Tasket is held in high regard, winning the 2019 European winery of the year by the Wine and Thusius magazine. Also, in 2021, they were awarded the prestigious Green emblem awarded by Robert Parker. 25 awards were presented worldwide, and only three were presented in Italy with Tasket being one of the recipients.

We have this wine at Babylon Sisters. I'm just going to do an list aside for that, and it is delicious. Their focus on sustainability is industry leading. And they have five vineyards in Sicily from high atop Mount Gettina to more inland and winter island to name three.

Tasket was the first winery in southern Italy to produce a single vineyard wine named Oroso del Conte for a full range of Sicilian wine in Cictasca from the bone drive Regalí, but they are Vianco also now available at Babylon Sisters, the bold Cabernet based Cygnus, and finally, Oroso del Conte. A running soon is the Regalí San Francisco Cabernet Solignon, and that is all available at the case for wine, your local rep in the case for a lot of the region is Rick Berencelli, rickethicaserwine.com. And back to you, DJ Twes, let's talk about this. What did you start getting into DJing and tell us where it took you?

Yes, so I started early in Brooklyn. I was, I don't know, 13 or 14, and my older sister just used to listen to the radio and dance all the time. And I started hearing the first that I'd heard of DJs like Bonk Masterflex and Red Alert and these classic hip-hop DJs in Cicapri, and I started listening to them manipulate the music, essentially scratching, manipulating the music on the radio, and I had never heard that before. So I was like, what are they doing with them, with the records?

And they were using doubles and I don't have to how sophisticated DJs wise you want to get here. But basically, they were scratching and it's simplest form manipulating the music. And my sister was very hyped up about what they were doing. And I was like, well, that's kind of cool.

They are controlling the music, and she's responding to it. So just that little thing, I was like, I want to do that. I want to control the music. And that's pretty much what got me started.

And I started finding local guys that were DJs. And just, you know, I guess you can call it pain your dues, but carrying their records and sitting around and showing up at gigs and bars and stuff. Again, this was in the 90s. It was very different.

You could be in a bar at 14 feet. And I was in nightclubs in the city of 15. And I just fell in love with the DJ booth idea, with the concept of being able to, I used to word manipulate, but in a way, it's manipulating the music, but the feeling is more so of empowerment to some extent of the crowd. You can play a song that somebody hasn't heard in 20 years and completely make their night.

Or you can play a song that somebody, it was their best friend who maybe even passed away. And it was just a great memory for them. And they're super happy. You have that power to be able to help people with, what's in that song?

They say, some dance to remember, some dance to forget. Forget what lyric, what song that is. I think that's Hotel California, actually. Yes, exactly.

It is Hotel California. So it was that. And I fell in love with that. And from that point, I just started collecting records.

And I guess the person that really gave me my first opportunity was a DJ called Tommy Tom in North Carolina. And I had moved down there to finish high school. And I would build his house and sit in his bedroom, it sounds weird. But we're all bedroom DJs like that's where everybody stayed.

And I would just sit there and just watch him. And he was phenomenal, phenomenal. Just everything that he did. And I would just watch him.

And he never let me touch his records. And I mean, like, more than a year, I was not allowed to touch his records. Now, nowadays you can't tell kids that there would never, there's no way that that would fly. But I was just not allowed to touch it.

He's like, you can touch it when you're ready. You're not ready. And one, like, when he would, you know, go answer his mom about something, of course, I would jump over on the turntables and start trying to turn the volume down so we didn't hear it. And he basically gave me my first gig opening for him.

And that was in like 95 or 96. And he was playing at the number one hip hop club in North Carolina. So I played shows with like Wu-Tang Clan, Jay-Z, all of these people in the Foxy Brown, like in the mid 90s that I would have never had access to. It was like, I had no business being there.

But you know, he kind of opened that door for me there. And again, I just continued to like fall in love. And from there, I just spent the next two decades, you know, playing all over the country. I've traveled many places around the world.

I've had a bunch of different TV appearances and you know, I've had a great success that came from that. So it's fantastic. I love it. And you're still actively doing it?

I am. All right. Fine. So I've retired.

I've retired three times already. I've retired from DJing three times already. When I moved down to St Pete, an old buddy of mine who I've known for many, many years had actually moved here. And I moved down here so I can, my other businesses, I'm a real estate investor.

So I moved down here so I can invest in real estate and sell and learn how to sell and spend time on the ocean. That was my plan. I was done. I had officially retired and I got down here for the third time.

And I officially, and I got down here and he was like, um, he's like, Oh man, you're in St Pete. So dope. Like what's going on? What, you know, are you working?

And I was like, no, I'm retired. You know, I even had my wife like I had my check, my last check and we were going to frame it and I was going to put it up for my kids to see. And he goes, you better throw that fucking check away, dude. He's like, you got to get to work.

So, you know, from that point last year to now, I have 22 gigs this month. So fuck. And yeah. And it's, yeah.

So I'm pretty bad. I'm back full force. I work, I work locally. One of the my deal was I was not going to travel anymore because I have two little kids and yeah, I've done a couple of like weekends here and there, but I used to travel a lot.

Like I used to be going for three weeks at a clip and that like my son's whole first year, I missed a massive portion of that being overseas. So I was like, fine, I'll do it, but I'm not traveling anywhere. So I don't travel. So I stay very local.

I think it's the bed. I go to work and I'm back in the morning. I'm not always happy when they wake me up in the morning, but I'm there, you know, I'm there. And I have a few other contracts here.

I work if you guys are baseball fans. I work for the Rays. I do, I see red socks add on. Yes.

I do some, I do some events for the Rays out at the stadium. So, you know, I'm still doing a couple of things like that. And just having fun. Awesome.

So how old were you when you first playing gig? 15? Yeah, maybe 15 or 16? I mean, it was probably like, I wish I could remember maybe like 50 bucks or 100 bucks.

But yeah, it was the first time that actually got paid to do it. Yeah. So we probably have a ton of questions for you about this between the two of us as we're both retired DJs. So are you really or you could say fail these days?

I'm an active restaurateur still. But yeah, so one of the questions I have when you're traveling all over the world, how much of a pain in the ass is to drag your records around on these? Like, or were you using Serato mostly or a tractor? Oh, I have a tractor story for you.

We when I was early traveling, carrying the records, it was a bit difficult. But you know, like cases, of course, your music was very limited. You can only play with that. That's a thing, right?

Like, and not to interrupt you. But like when I was playing was like, I would bring all like, I would only mostly DJ locally, right? But but I bring so much fucking shit because I never had a playing set list. I would just kind of like play what was moving the crowd at the time or what I was feeling at the time if there wasn't much of a crowd.

Like, I always wanted to have so much shit with me. So that was why I was thinking like, if you're on a plane, you are limited with what you could bring with you. Absolutely. So you're restricted to whatever flight cases you can basically drag through the airport and or in your car, depending on, you know, it's not always a flight, like especially in New York, you know, there's a lot of Philly, a lot of Jersey, a lot of that type of stuff.

But yeah, most of my overseas stuff happened after the technology, I guess, surgeons like the development of of Serato. That was so I was that was my second time that I was retired. I was retired. I was it was I took a few years off because I graduated college and I'm supposed to grow up.

And DJing DJing was not gonna be I couldn't DJ forever and nobody wants a 30 year old DJ in the club and all this stuff. I'm 43 and I'm still getting paid to DJ. So, you know, who mom, who whatever thing. So, you know, that was the second time I retired or maybe it was the first I forget.

I don't know. Anyway, I was I was in a long term relationship and I had just gotten out of that. And one of my buddies and it was like, I'm going out tonight. Come on.

Now, let's go hang. And I was like, all right, fine. I'll go out. I hadn't been out in a while.

You know, it's totally off the shelf. So I went out and to Manhattan and if you guys are old school DJs, you probably know the name like Brooklyn plan or DJ says, I had some I so all those guys from my neighborhood. So when I went out that night, it was a Tuesday and since it's like three years older than me, three or four years older than me. And that plays into the story a little bit.

So when I got to the club, I saw the laptop set up on the in front of the turntables. And I was like, what the hell is this? They're like, and it was only just the two like red vinyl records. And I was like, what the hell is this?

Maybe they were black. I don't remember the lights on. Anyway, it was just the two records. And I'm like, where's all the shit?

And they're like, no, we don't we don't break it out anymore. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, it's all right here. Look, look at this thing.

And says showed me Serato that night. And I was like, what? So now I walk into this place. I have DJs who are years older than me, who are still getting paid to do what they love, who don't have to carry shit anymore.

I'm like, this is fucking awesome, dude. I'm like, I think I'm coming out of retirement again. So that was it. So I discovered Serato.

And I think I guess that was around 2007, maybe. And that's when I really started kicking it back into gear. And that's when most of my travel, my overseas travel and all that really came into play. So it was very easy for me, because the library's on the computer.

The Serato is a real game changer. And I was sort of coming out around the time that I was starting to wind down. And I was just like, back in the day, though, we were always like, that's like fucking cheating. What are they doing there?

You got to bring the records. And then you realize they can all walk correctly. Yes, exactly. I was like, what's the big stuff back here, right?

Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Okay, tell us your tractor story. Okay, so tractor story, nothing against tractor whatsoever. So I was getting ready to do an episode of a live with Kelly.

I don't know if you're familiar with the show, Kelly, Rebecca, so they had a DJ week, a celebrity DJ week for it was like the only time they ever had DJs on the show. And they booked me to do the Friday and the other DJs were like Cassidy, Samantha Ronson, and a couple of other DJs and me for the Friday. So it was leading up to this that my publicist connected me with the tractor people and they wanted to sponsor me. So I was like, okay, you know, let's talk about this.

So we set up a sponsorship sort of deal where they were going to provide me all the gear and yada yada. So this ended up happening like the week of the show. That's going to make you nervous. Like you're not used to the equipment yet.

Well, you know what, if I had any foresight at the time, it would have, but this is where the problem comes. So I was like, honestly, I didn't even think about it. I was like, all right, it's technology. It's the same shit.

I've seen people use tractor. So I unboxed it the night before the show. That's something I would do. And I was like, I'll just bring it.

You know, what's the difference? So I had the vinyl, it had the box, whatever the control box or whatever it's called, the interface thing. So the car comes and picks me up. I go across town.

I'm setting up in for live TV, 1.3 million viewers or some shit like that. And it's, it's like 25 minutes before the show. And I take the interface and I plug in the USB and nothing happens. And I'm like, why isn't this working?

Right. So now I'm troubleshooting. I'm troubleshooting. And luckily for me, I had brought one of my like protege DJs was with me.

And so she's looking at it. I'm looking at it. We're going, what the fuck is wrong with this thing? Well, it turns out it, you need a plug, a power plug for it.

So I don't need a power plug. So I don't need a plug with the USB and a power, the computer power is it. Well, with tractor, you needed the power cord for it. Our cord was in the bottom of that box that I never fucking opened because I didn't know that you needed like I took, I got the interface and I was like, cool, interface check, put it in the bag records check, put it in the bag.

So we had to jump in the cargo all the way across Midtown Manhattan at like seven, eight, or I guess eight o'clock in the morning to try to get the plug for a tractor. Oh, man. Made it all the way back across town. I plugged in tractor for the first time ever about 45 seconds before, before we aired on live television.

Oh, man. And it was like, oh, we can talk about the lessons that I learned from that, which were, which are plentiful. But yeah, that's just, that's why only, and then I never used it after that. And it has nothing to do with tractor.

It has absolutely everything to do, which is my being so stupid. And then my experience with it. And I was just like, I'm just more comfortable with throttle. Yeah, it's funny.

Like, I used to play at this club. I won't mention the name, but they always had like very janky equipment all the time. And it's like, I knew every single fucking time I showed up there, something was not going to be working, but I never showed up early. Like, not one time.

I showed up early to see if I could figure out what wasn't going to be working by the time I got there. And it was always like the cold sweat panics when people are in the club. Yeah. So a quick question about your equipment.

What are you using for equipment now in terms of your mix or stuff like that? Yeah, so I don't do much mobile stuff anymore in terms like bringing gear out. I do keep, yeah, I do here and there. So I have an S9.

I still have my 1200s that I've had for 25 years. And I have those S9 and that's, and then whatever sounds, you know, I have a couple of cabinets, those little towers that they have now, you know, that you don't have to try pods up and all that. So I have that, but for the most part, when I can get it, I use turntables in the club. If not CDJs, that was never really my speed, but I'll use them if they're there.

And a lot of places have controllers now. Right. So, you know, it's just kind of plug and play and I just go in there and I play on controllers. I'm not doing any shows like I used to like, there's not crowds of people.

There's not, I'm doing bars and restaurants and clubs and that kind of thing. I'm tapered way, way down. That's kind of fun to go back to doing that sort of stuff though, right? Because it's like, it's sort of free.

I mean, to get to your level, you obviously got to a point where people were coming to see you so you could probably play pretty much what you wanted. But in those bigger shows, did you find that you had sort of more of an obligation to play to the crowd as opposed to when you're playing in a smaller space, you can kind of fuck around with a play more stuff that you like. So, you know, I kind of have an interesting idea about that. I think about that a lot.

And I talk about failures a lot. And I'm actually writing a book about that called Failing Your Way to Success. And good. I need to read that.

Yeah. As soon as that's done, I'll send you a copy. Exactly. Um, so it was actually a mindset thing for me because early on, I always used to play for myself always.

And I was an open format DJ from the very beginning. I learned as a hip hop DJ, but I was an open format DJ from the very beginning when I was first playing in college, like I had rated my family's record collection. I was playing like ACDC LPs with like Motown 45s with like an M&M single. Like, and it was just wide open.

And I always, that was, I don't know, I think that I always did good by the crowd. To some extent, I mean, this, the whatever success I did have, I think would reflect that. But it took me a long time to realize in my mind that I was actually there for the crowd. See, when I was young and when I was playing for a long time, and even in times when I was doing well, when I started playing for myself, it became like morphed into this ego thing.

And it always led to some type of failure, some type of, you know, not a rock bottom thing, but you know what I mean? Some type of like shit hits the fan and I'm like, fuck, like it's right. It's not about me. And when I really shifted the mindset from it, from it being about me to being about essentially the customers, the clients, and that includes not just the guests, but also the promoters, the nightclub owners, you know, the festival, whoever's putting on the show.

When I really realized that I was there to serve them, I think that's where most of my success came. Yeah, I took me a while to figure that one. I was like, wave deep into my career, almost ready to hang it up by the time I was like, wait, this isn't about you as well. Instead of just bitching about bad requests and like, yeah, okay, right.

So what they want, yeah, I still bitch about bad requests. I still do this whole thing. I don't know if you guys haven't there, but this whole on the phone with the requesting songs on. Oh, I haven't seen that.

Oh my God. We have him in doing it for a while, but yeah, just punch the right in the phone. Dude, it's fucking brutal. They roll up most.

First of all, bad money is like the most requested artist in the world right now. Nothing against him. His music's great. It's just the damn requests.

I can't fucking see much of the same shit. Yeah. So they type they type it on their phone in whichever way and they stand there and do this shit and fucking stare at you for an hour with a song. Just because there's audio, I'm just gonna say that twist is just holding the phone up to his forehead.

So he's saying it's like they're just holding the phone to their forehead with the request written on it. Like that's so obnoxious. So not just so not just so that has never it's always been and I feel like it always will be, you know, requesting. But even in that, right?

Even in that it's like, okay, but I'm serving the guests, yes, but I'm not here for you. Like I'm not here for just that girl who's doing that with her phone. Right. Right.

Right. You know, like, and she'll find out one way or the other because I'm not playing. And by the way, if anybody ever does that, you're never gonna hear that song. I promise you never hear that song.

That night, the next week, the following week, I'll never fucking play that song. Just like if you're fucking waving your cash at the end of the bar, you're not getting served. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. It's the same flag, right? The same red flag. So there is still the annoying request.

But when you realize that you're there for the other 200 people in the room, it's easy to push that far to away. You know, my favorite one was always when somebody would be requesting this artist. When you can play this and you're playing that artist at that moment. But it's not the song that I do.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. You know, it's great now too is unfortunately, a lot of times people do have access.

Like, it's not like when it used to be when we used to have security and, you know, like, no one's about stage on those. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, even in Manhattan, like it's pretty much designed like that.

But now people have a question. But the only good part about that is I can point at the screen and be like, asshole, it's right there. Right now, right? The second thing's spinning.

That's the one. Yes, that happens too. That happens all the time. It's just not that one song.

I know. It's brutal. I have a question back to your touring days when you're touring in Europe and stuff like that. So did you have like an agent that would get you these gigs or you're part of like a consortium stuff that they would just get you these gigs or to do it all yourself?

So I would never say that I did it myself because I certainly couldn't do any of it myself. I had helped along the way a thousand different ways. Yeah. One thing that I was very successful in was networking.

Yeah. I was, I look at everything as an opportunity to help people was always this way. But when I finally was able to kick the ego out, it took a lot of work. But when I was finally able to kick the ego out and realize that I had the opportunity and the blessings and the luxury to be able to help other people, when I started helping more people, more things just started happening.

And in a way, I look at that as networking because I would try to create opportunities for other people and then they would reciprocate and try to create opportunities for me. Also, when I would, you know, when I would do a show, just don't be an asshole. Like that also took me a long time to learn. But man, don't be an asshole.

Just fucking be cool. Like, doesn't it tell you a second book? Exactly. Exactly.

But just be cool. Like, like, you know, demanding drinks or, you know, demanding dance or demanding dad or like whatever it is, because I've done all of it. I'm not telling you guys anything that I haven't done. But once you once you change all that and you just start becoming cool, like just hanging out with people and making friends legitimately and honestly with integrity, then other things start to happen in that way.

So, so I can give you a very quick trail. Like, I was working in, in New York and there was a DJ with a young DJ and he was trying to come up in New York, he was a model and he was trying to come up with a New York scene and he came up to me during a gig. He might even have been opening for me. I don't really remember, but he was kind of like, you know, hanging over the shoulder and trying to, you know, learn what he could and whatever.

And I could have easily been like, asshole, you know, get out of the booth, right? Like, your set's over or you don't belong in the booth or whatever it is. But, you know, I just took a genuine interest in helping like a younger guy and I was like, yeah, you know, he was talking to me through the night. Like, well, why did you play that tracker?

He wasn't interrupting me. That would also be doing it in a professional respectful way. So if I'm, if I have a two minute track on and he's, you know, he's knows I'm not flipping to the next song. So why did you choose that?

Oh, that one went over really well, something like that. So it turns out from his model stuff, he had his, he had a bunch of connections in Europe. So he ended up being the one to connect me in Switzerland. And he was like, he's like, I have a DJ guy who runs an agency on Switzerland.

And he, you know, I think that you would do great with your style out there. So I'm going to connect you guys. So he's the one that connected me to Switzerland, the guy in Switzerland, I played out in Switzerland a bunch of times. The guy in Switzerland connected me to the promoter in Slovakia.

And because somehow or another they were connected, but because I went out to Switzerland, you have to do your job, right? You have to do well. So that's a person's format. You can't suck.

So you have to do well, your job, at least well enough, or at least well enough that that being cool can, can sort of like override even if you do suck, right? So you have to like do your job and be cool. And if you know, and then he was willing to put me forward to the promoter in Slovakia, the guy in Slovakia was the one that same guy that got me into Prague. So I did, brought us lava, I did Prague, I did all of that through, through him, but he was connected through Switzerland, Switzerland was connected through this San Diego model who just happened to be DJing opening for me one night in New York.

So it definitely wasn't, wasn't, myself in any way. But when you're a question about a manager representation, that type of thing, I tried that a couple of different times and it just never jived well for me. I didn't like the dynamic. And I kind of just wrote, wrote alone, you know, to that extent, but I certainly didn't do anything by myself.

What were your favorite cities to play in, whether it's just like to visit or the crowds or the type of music you got to play there, whatever. And then also, what was the craziest venue you play? Okay, so probably, hmm, in Cancun, there's a club called the city. And that was one of my first now I was there twice.

And I don't remember if it was called Bulldog. It was like, or it was the same venue or if it was different venues, I don't remember if it was through different venues. Right. It might have been the same venue.

I don't know what they were similar. I can't, yeah, it's been a long it's been a long road. It was one of those two. And it was the first time that I played like an arena style video.

So I was like, all the way up, elevated. And so like, when I first started DJ booths, we're not what they are now DJ booths were like in a crow's nest like tuck behind glass like they didn't want anybody to like know who the fuck the DJ was or whatever. And by the way, I'm completely fine with that. I don't want to be on the stage.

I liked it better in the crow's nest and I wish I could go back there. But but this one sort of qualifies to one of the coolest things and one of the craziest things because this was a new thing for me. And I was on this like big stage like hanging from the ceiling kind of thing. And it was this arena with like multiple levels, right?

And I don't know what the capacity was there, but it was fucking insane. Like just completely insane. Everything about it, everything that you might imagine looking down on like thousands of people on spring break in Cancun just going completely abesh it. And then like I'm standing there.

And like I just like thought back to that to my bedroom or my sisters, you know, that first time when I was like, I want to manipulate the music. Like I want to entertain the people. And I was like looking out and I'm like, holy fuck, like careful what you wish for because now I have to actually do stuff and they're all listening. And it's cool that you had the moment of self reflection there though at that time because I think that's the hardest fucking thing when you start getting successful at anything is like I heard somebody say the other day that one of the hardest things to do is to be the kind of guy who's always reaching for the brass ring, but also stop trying to stop and smell the roses.

And so if you can get that little moment of self reflection, where you can actually smell the roses while you're grabbing for the ring at the same time, that's just an awesome feeling. Yeah, it was and scary as shit too. Yes, I appreciate that. And I agree with you in that sentiment.

And so what's your favorite city that you went to or like whether it's just like you like to visit there the best or whether it was the crowd that you enjoyed entertaining? I think my probably my favorite city is Eric. Oh yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I've been there a bunch of times and every time I went, like the people are just so fantastic. They're so welcoming. Like, you know, my first time that I was ever there, I was in a hotel and the promoter was like, you know, what are you up to for like the day?

And I was like, I don't really know, I kind of just wait in the hotel until the until it's time to go to the show. He started because it's $1,500 a McDonald's there. Yes, exactly. I was like, I went, I just went to get a coffee by the way, and I have a baby yet.

So I don't know if I can afford being here. Like I didn't bring it up. So but he was like, you want to ride bikes? And I was like, are you serious?

He's like, yeah, I got an extra bike here. You want to go right around a lake? I'm like, fuck yeah, I want to ride around a lake. Like, how awesome is that?

Sure, I'll do that. And and that was one of that was one of the first times that I ever like talking about smelling the roses, right? Like it was always just, you know, playing or bus or train or hotel and gig and playing, you know, and when I was in the hotel, I would just sit there, like I would just sit there and work on music, watch movies and you know, and that was one of the first times where I was like, yeah, riding a bike around a lake would be fucking fantastic. And we got on bikes and we rode around the lake and he ran into a bunch of his buddies who were, you know, swimming that day.

So we parked the bikes that we all just jumped in the lake and hung out and spent the whole day hanging out there drinking beers and and just having fun. And every time since then, it only got better. Like, you know, people who I met randomly at one venue would come over and be like, Hey, come on, let's go get some burgers. And you know, let's do this.

Let's do that. And they were just so welcoming and really like I had a birthday there one year and they brought me to a restaurant. I had a bunch of people out for dinner that I didn't know. I did some of them, but you know, they had like a birthday cake for me and I had only been there maybe two or three times at that point.

And it was just like such such a welcoming city. So above all else, I mean, aside from the prices, you know, it's beautiful and it's and it's multicultural and it's just so much fun and the people are just so fantastic. Right. Well, that's awesome.

I got to tell you, man, this was a super fun conversation. We really appreciate you giving us the time. Let us know where they can follow what you do. Yes, my website is DJ Swiss calm.

I'm on almost all social media at DJ twist DJ TW ist and stay tuned. I hope you guys follow me on Instagram or Facebook or whatever your platform is. I do have that book coming out pretty soon that I'm writing. It's mostly based on real estate, which is something we didn't talk about.

But if you're interested in investing in real estate, feel free to give me a holler on that too. That's another that's my investing thing. I'm way better at investing in real estate than I am investing in restaurants. So let's just put that out there.

So you have much less to be afraid of. But yeah, just anywhere I teach West, hit me up. Perfect. I'll put links to that in the show.

No perfect. Oh, and if you're in St P, give a holler. I mean, absolutely. No joke.

Like if you're listening, if anyone's down here, just give a holler, we'll catch a game. Maybe we'll go ride bikes. Awesome. Perfect.

Yeah, you're not some dude. Thanks for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. That was super fun conversation.

And I'm glad you have not officially retired yet. Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. This is a lot of fun.

Thanks for giving me the chance to talk to you. Yeah, thanks.