On the Scene with DJ Scene

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Hailing from Seattle, DJ Scene has worked his way from local nightclubs to the biggest pool parties on the Vegas strip. From radio shows to hundreds of thousands of podcast downloads, Scene is definitely making his mark in the world of DJs. He’s performed with artists the likes of 50 Cent, Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Common, and even Sir Mix-A-Lot!

Settled into his home in Las Vegas in between gigs on his current nationwide tour, Scene shared with us how he got his start, why he loves his life in Vegas, and what he’s working on next!

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YH: How did you get into DJing?

DJS: I started DJing for b-boys back in the day, and DJing for break dancers, kind of like Jabbawockeez and stuff that’s on TV now. That’s how I came up – was doing community centers and just interacting with those guys and from there just worked my way through clubs and commercial radio… been doing commercial radio for 9 years now.

YH: Did you have a moment when you first thought, “Okay, I can do this for a living”?

DJS: I never thought that I could it for a living until I had a day job and I had to go in on a Monday morning after my residency on a Sunday night, and I’d just be dead, dead, dead tired, like falling asleep at my desk, so tired from DJing the night before, drunk and hungover, and that was the last day job that I had. I can’t do it anymore. And all I had was Sunday night and I was making more money doing one Sunday than working all week at a day job, and I think that’s when I realized, “I should just do this for a career right now.”

YH: How’d you come up with the idea for 2080s?

DJS: That CD, I was sitting back and I wanted to make something actually for my parents, ‘cause I wanted them to know what I was doing, ‘cause obviously they don’t know new music. If I was playing a bunch of stuff they didn’t know, it wouldn’t click, so I wanted to do something that they would be familiar with but flip it in a way so that they knew I was changing it and doing something creative. And it just kind of grew from there, and, I mean, now we’re thousands and thousands of downloads into it and it’s gotten around pretty good, so I was happy with that. And the Pt. 2 was kind of more for the people that appreciate rock music, so that was like the rock version of the ‘80s. I wanted to zero in on just that genre. That was a fun project and I still love listening to it.

YH: Can we be expecting a Pt. 3 coming up soon?

DJS: Yeah, absolutely. I definitely want to do a third part, and I was going to wait a little bit to do a few things before starting on that, but that’s definitely in the plans.

YH: You’re originally from Seattle, but now you’re based out of Las Vegas, so what’s it like having a steady gig and living there as opposed to Seattle?

DJS: [laughs] Let me tell you, first and foremost… it’s sunny and it’s warm, so I’m happy. But Vegas is, it’s a whole other beat; it’s unlike Seattle, it’s unlike any other city, it’s just nonstop. I mean, it really is a party every single day, every single night. There’s always something going on, so, I’m just very fortunate to be out here and do the residencies that I have and having a good time.

YH: So, you’re on tour right now all across the country, and in a few days you’re actually heading to Switzerland?

DJS: Yeah, I’ve been up there a few times, and I had a residency last year at a club called Indochine, so that went really well. And then once those resident DJs and the people that were putting that party on moved to a different club, they’ve asked me to come out and do their one-year anniversary, which is this weekend, so I’m going to head out there and do that. I’ll stick around and hangout and do some radio stuff and then head back home for Labor Day.

YH: You have your radio show and podcast that you do every week. Is that actually that you go back every week and do it, or you record them and send them in?

DJS: I record the radio show and then I send it via email to San Francisco, and then they air the show every Saturday night. I started podcasting it cause I was kind of getting frustrated with doing all this work and recording it every single week and then it was just played once on the radio and then you didn’t hear anything about it again. So, I started that collection of shows through the podcast so that people outside of San Francisco and anywhere around the world would be able to download it. And since I put it up, it’s grown well over 150,000 subscribers and just every single week people downloading it, passing it on, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

YH: Congratulations, you were just named Vegas Pool DJ of the Year! How’d that come about?

DJS: Thank you. Yeah, they invited everybody to come to the awards ceremony, and I’m like, “Oh, thank you for the invitation, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it,” so the girl’s like, “I think you should go because I’m pretty sure you won one of the categories.” I’m like, “Really? That’s so cool.” So, we showed up and then sure enough I had won Best Pool DJ, which is cool ‘cause I started Wet Republic when that opened the first season and then moved over to Ditch Friday’s the next season after that over at the Palm, and then this year I’m at Liquid Pool at the Aria, so there’s a real good presence as far as the pool parties go in Vegas. I’ve been doing them for a few years now, so it was nice to be recognized for that. It was very, very cool.

YH: Anyone you haven’t collaborated with yet that’s definitely on your list for the future?

DJS: I think Drake would be fun to do a show with or try to do something with. He came out of nowhere and just took over, so that was very cool to see him blow up so fast.

YH: Are there any artists out there right now that you’d say are your favorite, you tend to play their tracks more, ones that you feel are really hot right now?

DJS: Outside of the Top 40 rule, I personally like a lot of the stuff that Laidback Luke is doing. Obviously everyone knows about David Guetta; he’s really crossed over. But I think Laidback Luke, and Afrojack, some of those guys like Chuckie and stuff are really setting the bar high, and they’re setting the new trend for music right now.

YH: You’re touring through September, but what can we see from you next?

DJS: We have a bunch of stuff already on the calendar for November/December, right?

Scene’s co-Manager: Scene has a new mix CD that comes out [August 31] called Epic Shine that’s a little bit more like summer, pool-friendly. More like, I guess, what would you say, Scene, more like house-oriented?

DJS: Yeah, it’s definitely up-tempo house.

SCM: And we’re going to be touring that from middle September on probably through November; it looks like maybe even closer to Black Friday depending on how things shape up.

DJS: We have this new CD and it’s dropping, we’re going to be pushing it digitally and the CDs are being mailed out this week and everything, but that’s kind of like the new project that we’ll really be pushing. I’m going to post it on my website; that’ll be up. And it’ll also be on the podcast, so if anyone subscribes to the podcast, it’ll be on there as well.

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It was a pleasure to catch up on what Scene is up to and we’re sure we’ll be seeing many more projects from him in the future.

Take a listen to his latest mix CD, Epic Shine, below!

- Nicole Yatsonsky, YH Staff