TheClub App
- May 16, 2021
- 26 min read

EP. 076 - DJ Cast (My DJ Story Podcast)

Name: Erick Castillo

DJ Name: DJ Cast

Website: linktr.ee/djcast_

Instagram: @djcast_

Primary Genre: EDM

Other Genres: Hip Hop, House, R&B, Reggae, Latin, Pop

Transcript

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Darrel Frater, TheClub CEO: what's going on everybody Darrel Frater TheClub CEO here and we have another amazing episode of the My DJ Story Podcast brought to you by TheClub App.

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Darrel Frater, TheClub CEO: The number one online Community for DJ we can build your career online and today we have my brother, DJ cascade as tell his DJ story brother, can you please introduce yourself to the people who you are and where you're from.

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Erick Castillo: A they're out, thank you for that great introduction, my name is Erica co bye good bye name of DJ cast and i'm over here in Los Angeles California.

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Darrel Frater, TheClub CEO: Wonderful brother so we're super excited to hear your story know take us to the beginning tell us you know what brought your interest to DJ and how you got started.

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Erick Castillo: um what got my interest in teaching was going to my first ever electronic music festival, so my biggest mistake that I did was my biggest ever festival was etc 2015.

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Erick Castillo: So from there on going to that seeing how all these DJ is we're making the crowd move everyone was.

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Erick Castillo: jumping having a good time that kind of motivated me and then the one DJ stood out to me and blew my mind was Calvin Harris and.

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Erick Castillo: And during my college days, because I was still three years in three I needed three more years to graduate so I joined the radio station.

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Erick Castillo: Like I always like if you're having an interest in music, you would pursue something that is related to that, so why not join the schools, radio and then there was DJ is there and then I started.

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Erick Castillo: hanging out with the more they started telling me downloads Rato DJ so I started doing that I didn't have a mixer so I spent hours just getting familiar with the software adding cue points.

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Erick Castillo: And, by the time, one of the DJ was selling their mixture I bought it, it was like the s6 to back then that's extreme didn't come out, so I got it for steel 500 bucks only thing was that the.

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Erick Castillo: jog wheels screen was kind of crack but that thing I mean through so many gigs like when I had to upgrade to another went to upgrade to s3 I kind of teared up a little bit because I just remembered all the gigs I did with the but from there on I just started like.

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Erick Castillo: Learning I will lock myself in my room like maybe.

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Erick Castillo: Five or six hours a day and i'll just learn how to transition makes do everything by ear and not rely on the screen as much.

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Erick Castillo: And then from there on I kind of met my DJ buddy Jesse where he's going by he goes by the name of Jesse works and then he's a turntable list so.

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Erick Castillo: He would DJ on turntables and then our first gig together, like my first ever gig like this was like one month into like hardcore like five six hours a day, one month of just teaching.

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Erick Castillo: Just by myself, like knowing no come in, you just see me with headphones just like messing around we played at the 66 night market which is like a little.

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Erick Castillo: Food and based so beer, but mainly food, where you go and try out different foods and they have a little side stage and that's what I did that I did.

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Erick Castillo: I performance side stage and then me and Jesse just switch back and forth, and he started taking me on more of his gigs because he was a mobile DJ and then.

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Erick Castillo: Back then, I was just hardcore electronic music that's like no i'm just going to edm edm but then he taught me that no you got to be open format, where you know how to play.

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Erick Castillo: hip hop music you got to know how to play it I get done you got to know how to play like rockin spaniel because most of our gigs.

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Erick Castillo: Whereas we're mainly Hispanics where we did keen says we did wedding so.

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Erick Castillo: That kind of branch me out of like you know what I can just stick to edm I started branching out to different genres like I already knew like fun crock because of my dad.

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Erick Castillo: Right get done because of my sisters like are we are we was hearing out already so that kind of like made me like Okay, I know how to I know the astronomers, how can I make my sets interesting.

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Erick Castillo: And we started going to beat junkies which is some people aren't familiar with beat junkies these guys were like famous turntable list in the 90s like they competed in a dmc as I know.

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Erick Castillo: They were affiliated with DJ craze a track DJ one of my instructors was DJ chuck and he was known for being a power 106 so.

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Erick Castillo: This is all within a year, where I was basically a bedroom DJ within a year, I DJ at a.

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Erick Castillo: Food festival, and I started doing mobile DJ thing I started getting into scratching and then back to the food festival at the 66.

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Erick Castillo: They started having a main stage and we got on.

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Erick Castillo: And that's the kind of motivated me more that my ideal goal when I started teaching is, I want to be like Calvin Harris playing these festivals, but in reality, you got to know people to be doing that.

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Erick Castillo: So I started branching out to different things doing mobile DJ where i'm like Let me try playing clubs and bars, which I did, but I got out of it, because at the end of the day, they just want.

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Erick Castillo: Sales they don't care about the music, where I actually like bringing different sounds I like scratching I like keeping things interesting and then, once I graduated from.

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Erick Castillo: My college and cut and here in California called Casa la I took a year off just.

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Erick Castillo: Focusing on music production, even though I got a bachelor's in kinesiology which I wanted to do physical therapy it's just how this physical therapy music correlate it's like well.

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Erick Castillo: All my life I played music i've been a trumpet player, I was a guitar player and then going into college I just stuck to DJ.

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Erick Castillo: And then kinesiology is always been a part of me where i've always played sports I wanted I got into it, because.

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Erick Castillo: How do you help athletes recovering from an injury, I want to do that and by music i'm never going to give it up like it's always been a part of me so that year that I graduated in 2018 I spent a whole year.

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Erick Castillo: Just focusing on on engineering and then I went to a school called symmetry which one of their big students.

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Erick Castillo: She was used to be the girlfriend of my loomer emoluments a famous very good don't artists or her name is Natalia I forget her last name but.

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Erick Castillo: yeah and that's one of our students, that is, that came out of that program and another one called marvel.

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Erick Castillo: he's affiliated with arman's army van buren label, so you can see, like some of the students coming out of even ricky ricky song is played etc and other festivals as well.

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Erick Castillo: So I joined that school and having no music production background, all I knew was just using my ear and just mixing in key basically and.

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Erick Castillo: Through that I started doing music production and I formed this group called just cuz like I even have the hat were in the shirt where it's like Why is why is your name JESSICA is.

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