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Ahead of her UK stadium dates with her friend Lady GaGa this weekend, we asked Lady Starlight if she had any advice she could impart, and this is what she fired back...
My career could be described as a case study on how to fail commercially. While I personally believe that I've always done the absolute right thing, my bank account raises some serious objections.
I've spent my whole life collecting records. Once I discovered the joys of nightlife, I realized it was an option to party and play my records at the same time... and make money doing so. So there it was: I was a DJ.
My life dramatically changed when I met a woman you may have heard of... Lady GaGa.
We met on the nightlife scene, became best friends and started collaborating as Lady GaGa and the Starlight Revue. She performed her pop songs and I supplied abrasive heavy metal records in between songs. It was the best show almost no one ever saw. As it happens, she went ahead and became the biggest pop star in the world and took me along for the ride. I opened up her 2010 World tour DJing classic and thrash metal.
Being a successful money making DJ spinning anything other than dance music is nearly impossible. Being a successful money making metal/hard rock DJ is an exercise in sheer will and determination. I thought I'd share my sometimes harrowing DJ experiences as a possible blueprint for how not to build a successful DJ career.
All are based on actual events.
10 Ways to Fail as a Mainstream DJ
1) Start with an awkward transition away from the genre of music the previous DJ is playing, especially if the crowd is really digging it.
2) Increase the chances of technical difficulites by spinning original vinyl.
3) Consider taking poor care of your vinyl records to ensure skips and pops.
4) Definitely go heavy on the low end to get some annoying feedback. And maybe fiddle with the ground wire if you need to really pump it up.
5) Make sure several selected tracks have a long downtempo section, like Whitesnake 'In the Still of the Night' and Zeppelin's 'Whole lot of Love'.
6) Include at least one Rush track. Possibly more if the first one doesn't go down poorly enough.
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7) Vary tempos so the crowd have plenty of opportunities to sit down.
8) Seek an agent who is solely motivated by money to create more opportunities for bookings in inappropriate venues.
9) Be a heavy metal/rock DJ who often get booked because of his/her major pop star best friend. Thus, creating an expectation of dance music that results in maximum crowd dissatisfaction.
10) If, for some reason, people start to catch on to what you are doing, make sure to move onto something else before it becomes profitable.
See Lady Starlight DJing in the UK, supporting Lady Gaga and The Darkness at the following shows:
September 2012
Sat 8th Twickenham Stadium (onstage at 6pm)
Sun 9th Twickenham Stadium (onstage at 6pm)
Tue 11th Manchester Arena
Sat 15th Dublin Aviva Stadium
