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After reflecting on an almost 15 year DJ career, there's so many things I wish knew before starting this journey.
In this newsletter, I'm going to break down 3 things I wish I knew before becoming a full time professional DJ. I've made a lot of mistakes and wish I had more mentors around me. Lucky for you guys I can do that here for you ;)
1. Your career will fluctuate and nothing will be in a straight line. When you first start out progress can feel slow and linear, but as you start to gain momentum and start to break through the rollercoaster ride starts. The style you make can lose momentum, money can come and go, sometimes you don't know if you'll have gigs in a month. I knew being a professional musician would have its risks but I felt like I wasn't truly prepared. I had 3-4 weekly local DJ gigs and did that for years but making the jump to touring DJ was a lot different. I was not prepared when bigroom (the style I started in) started to decline after 2015, and was forced to evolve my project. Musicians can get really focused in the current projects, and can find it hard to look out 2-3 years. Looking back I wish I had better business skills before I started and had a longer time horizon on my planning.
2. Your team is VERY important, agent and manager are key. When I got signed to a big mgmt and agent in 2013, I didn't realize how much of my touring was correlated to this. I was suddenly playing big festivals and flying all over the world in what felt like a snap of a finger. Working with a top industry team can really help you put the pieces together. Obviously I did a lot of the hard work by making the music and breaking through, but my team really allowed me to take this to the next level and I didn't realize this til many years in. Do everything in your power to meet and get connected to the top teams in the industry. This can make the difference.
3. You need to be quick to pivot. Genres emerge at the speed of light, social media and tech trends appear week to week. It's a crazy game. You really have to adopt new trends in tech and culture without hesitating sometimes. I have found this to be super helpful over the years, but still managed to miss some big trends. 2020 tik tok was an enormous opportunity for those that capitalized fast, it launched many new careers. I was 2 years late to this because I sat around comfortable on instagram. Sometimes big success can be a quick pivot away. Same goes in the genres you make, many artists hit it big after becoming inspired with a new sound and pivoting fast vs. waiting around for a year and being too slow. Keep an eye out for new opportunities and maintain a sense of curiosity and open mindedness at all times.
See you guys next week!
-Henry
PS, whenever you are ready I teach electronic artists how to take their careers to the next level in my 1-on-1 artist mentoring and development program.
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