DJNY #1: Brad Miller

This is the opening installment in a series of interviews and profiles of New York-based DJ's. My first guest is Brad Miller.
 

You may know Brad if you've been out and about in the Big Apple at least once over the past couple years, as he has played many of the top clubs in the city , including Pacha, Love, and Sullivan Room. His podcast, Push The Night, is among the top 25 most popular music shows on iTunes, with his latest episode showcasing his picks for the top 20 tracks of 2009.

Earlier this week I had a chance to talk to Brad about his beginnings as a DJ, his experiences playing in New York, and his thoughts on the industry...

Where it all began… 

Binarysound: Where did you develop an interest in music as a child?

Brad Miller: I was in high school when I really started to get into music. I went to a lot of rock concerts back then- probably almost every weekend, to a place called the Roseland in Portland, Oregon, where I grew up. I just saw a ton of bands there including New Found Glory, Coldplay, and others.

But when I was out there, one weekend there weren't any good bands in town and I remember my buddy telling me "there's this guy BT in town", and I said "who's that?" So we went and saw BT live, and that was pretty much it…

Bsound: So that concert was where you got exposed to electronic dance music?

BM: Yea, definitely. That show was followed up by all the big guys at the time - Crystal Method, Moby, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, etc.

Bsound: Getting the equipment to become a DJ isn't cheap. What were you doing six years ago when you picked up your first set of turntables and how did you get them?

BM: I actually got my first turntables for Christmas, so I have to thank my parents for starting that off and giving me some faith [laughs]. I got two Newmark turntables and a Newmark mixer and then went out and bought my first vinyls at Platinum Records in Portland. I picked up Underworld's Cowgirl/Rez EP and Sasha's Xpander.
 

It's funny because back then [vinyls] were the more expensive part. These days everybody's saying "the equipment is so expensive", but back then, vinyls cost $10-15. You'd spend $100 or something dollars on ten tracks, and that's where the money problem really was. Getting started these days isn't really as hard because you can do a lot of stuff digitally. You only need about three hundred bucks for equipment and you're in business.

But at that time, I worked every stereotypical job- I've been a pizza delivery boy, a Christmas-tree salesman, a lifeguard, a clerk at a record store...

Bsound: How long did you practice in the bedroom before you played your first show?

BM: I spent probably six months in the bedroom trying to learn how to do it. DJing is something you never really ever master- you only get better at it. There's never a certain point where you say "ok I'm done practicing and I'm ready for everything".

I think with any gig no matter whether you're starting out with ten people or a club with a hundred, you still have to step up your game. You've got practice as much along the lines as you do when you're trying to get your first gig.

Bsound: Where did you play your first show and how nervous were you?

BM: I'm always nervous. I'm nervous before I get to the club, when I'm driving to the gig or in the cab, and then minutes before I go on I'm a complete wreck. But when I get actually behind the decks I forget about all that. I don't know how that works exactly, but at some point you have to embrace it and realize that being nervous is a good thing because it means you're stepping up to a new level. Anytime you play a gig out of your comfort zone it means you're moving forward. 

My first gig I played was this college party in somebody's dorm room for about 20 people. It's tough when you play your first gig because you're playing for maybe 10 or 20 people and it's hard to get a room of that size to rock. The people in attendance might be there to dance or just to relax, but unless you play hip-hop or something that everybody is going to love, it's scary to come into a house party and drop underground tech-house [laughs].
 

For that reason I think it can be better to play more commercial stuff at first to get people into it. It's invaluable to play those small rooms to learn how to react to the crowd, because by the time you get to a bigger room, you'll know how to rock it.

Bsound: Can you talk about your experience playing some of the bigger clubs in the Northwest as your career progressed?

BM: I love the scene in Seattle and I really got into it in college. At the time they had a really strong progressive scene, but now it's turned into a more trancier crowd. It's got a real community feel to it- you see a lot of the same people, everybody knows each other, and everyone is pretty friendly over there. A lot of the club owners will go to the afterhours spots and have drinks together.

When I play there, it's always a little bit more of a party as opposed to anywhere else- people  just want to have a great time and listen to stuff they can rock to. And there's some great clubs out there- Last Supper Club usually brings in a lot more of the underground stuff, and Trinity is one of the bigger clubs in the city, but they do electronic stuff as well. They were key to helping me get started- I worked there first as one of the lighting guys then started playing there on the weekends which was a lot of fun.

Coming to New York…

Bsound: So how did you end up in New York City from the Northwest?

BM: If you want to be in the music industry, you pretty much have to move to Los Angeles, London, or New York. When I was graduated college, I wanted to break into it somehow, so I sent out no less than 100 resumes to every nightclub or record label in the world that I could get an address for. The only one I heard back from was Crobar in New York, who offered me an unpaid internship.

So I packed up my bags, threw them in the car, and drove off the next week and came into the city knowing absolutely nobody. I slept on the floor of my friends', roommates', uncles', cousins', brother or something like that [laughs]. I basically watched my bank account get to zero over the next six months, but in life, you've got to make those decisions. You can either play it safe and stay at home or chase after your dreams. It's cliché I know, but why not?

Bsound: How did you get your name out here locally when you first got arrived?

BM: It was a little bit of luck, a little bit knowing the right people, and a lot of hard work. At the time I was working with Crobar and I did get some good slots there from DJ's arriving late to shows and whatnot (so always keep your CD's with you at a nightclub [laughs]). But what really helped kick things off was the help I got from both flawless and Massive Event.  All of us had worked pretty close together at Crobar over the years, and towards the end as they started to branch out they helped get me my first gigs in the city. At the time the gigs were still on more of a here-and-these basis though, and I knew if I wanted to make an impact I would have to work hard to build my own fanbase outside of the club, which is when I started my podcast and email list.

You also have to have a crowd before you can play to get a crowd. It's always this chicken and egg problem. After those first few gigs I was really focusing on trying to build my network so I could come to them again and say "hey look I can bring you a lot of people that really like my sound, give me a shot in the main room". After I convinced them I was ready, flawless gave me an opening slot for BT and Massive gave me an opening spot for Randy Boyer and Breakfast which really set things in motion.

Bsound: Can you talk about some of the upcoming shows you have here?

BM: Right now I've got two shows coming up- one on February 19 with Sultan and Ned Shepard at Quo and one with Cosmic Gate and Richard Durand at Webster Hall on March 20. I'm also working to kick off the Push The Night parties this year as well, so definitely keep an eye out for them.

Bsound: Over the past year, local electronic dance music shows have been popping up at new venues such as the Nokia Theatre and Electric Zoo Festival on Randall's Island. How do you feel about the recent growth of the scene here?

BM: I think it's really exciting - I think we're finally starting to see dance music become much more accepted here in America as it has been in Europe. While I know there are some that are afraid of dance music becoming too big and losing it's underground roots - in the end I think it really benefits all of us. Now more than ever I've seen a lot more of the smaller underground DJs getting the chance to come play in America - some of which I never thought I'd see over here.

Any weekend out here in New York City you can go see a top-level DJ or an underground, left-field sound. You can pretty much can hear anything you want and I think a lot of times people forget that. You just don't get that in a lot of other cities.

Bsound: It seems like there are a million DJ's out there making free mix podcasts each week for listeners to download. What would you say is unique about your podcast, Push The Night, that makes it stand out from countless others?

BM: There are several key differences. One is that I don't crank out mixes every week on purpose. Push The Night is not about the last 10 tracks that came out this week. They come out when they're ready and are meant to be experienced more than once.

Each episode is also something I put a lot of time into personally, because almost every single track on them is a re-edit or has been changed in some way. I change the keys in a lot of the songs, I mash them up, I restructure them- every mix is really a collection of my favorite tracks put in the best possible order I can make. The episodes are meant to be more about the mix as a whole rather than just the songs by themselves. I mix different styles not as a gimmick, but because I like to explore other genres of electronic music. I think Push The Night is one of the very few podcasts you can listen to that explores new and familiar territories in different ways.

It comes down to music in the end, and every day I spend a lot of time looking for new songs. If I make one trance set a year there are probably thousands of trance tracks I listened to just to find 20 of them that I think are worthy. To me, less is more, and I think that's important because people have so many podcasts to pick from. You have A State of Trance each week, Trance Around the World, Dance Department, the Essential Mix- people have way too much to listen to. If you want to stand out these days it needs to come from the quality. 

[Image credit: Brad Miller]