Tell me a little about those early bands? What were those like?

Well, when I was 13 my first band was trying to do some punk-hardcore kind of stuff. At about 14 or 15 I got into learning old, classic rock songs, so I had this band of dudes and we learned a bunch of Beatles and Doors and Credence. At 16 I got back into wanting to be hardcore, and that even switched back at 18 or 19 when I kinda got into the jam band thing. I was really into both and kind of popping back and forth because I just always liked the music. I always felt a little musically schizophrenic which made DJing really appealing. I felt like I could apply a lot of different music without it seeming hokey and all. Like, if you see some cover band in a bar playing “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” it sounds so cheesy, but if a DJ pulls it out in the middle of a hip-hop set it’s really dope. I wanted to apply all the classic rock I know in a lot cooler and fresher ways than just being in a band that covers those songs.

So, when you’re doing mashups, how do you decide what songs you’re going to use? What’s that process like?

It kind of changes. Sometimes it’ll start with the hip-hop song, sometimes I might just be out somewhere. Like I was out playing pool one night and I heard the theme song to Grease come on and I thought “This song’s kind of the shit!” Some songs just kinda have that magic to em, you know? Then I just try to find other songs that are in that key and pretty close to that tempo. I don’t like to stretch or change things too much. I want to make it where if you’re already a fan of either of the songs, I don’t want to ruin it for you either. I feel like sometimes remix producers will take a song they don’t know very well or really love and they’ll tweak the shit out of it and it doesn’t bother them because they weren’t super familiar with or into it in the first place.