Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to DRMAGDN. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
DRMAGDN, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
The most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on was evolving from a professional session musician, producer and music director for other artists and bands to finally being able to express myself totally as DRMAGDN: Cyborg Drummer / DJ.
As a drummer by trade, I have always been in the back of stage helping drive and support live performances and on records. I was always happy to make a living for many years in NYC and touring the world with artists and bands in all genres. But then I got a very specific call about a decade ago that change the course of my life forever.
The call was to play for a Warner Brothers Records multi-platinum artist with active hits on the radio. Up to this point I was mainly dealing with acoustic instruments as a Drummer, Music Director & Producer and always wanted to learn electronic instruments / drums but never got around to it. This call involved me being asked to be a “Cyborg Drummer” for this artist simultaneously playing backing tracks, electronics, drum pads, singing backup, hyping the crowd on the mic and DJing all while playing the acoustic drums.
When a gig this large calls, you don’t turn it down, so I quickly accepted. I remember hanging up the phone and immediately rushing to the music store and to buy a ton of electronics gear that hopefully would work. I spent the full week without any sleep and read manuals and watched YouTube videos to hopefully be ready for the first rehearsal.
I successfully got through the first rehearsal, the second rehearsal and the warmup gig at a NYC college. Then came the first big gig in front of management and the label while opening for Bon Jovi at the Bamboozle Festival in NJ.
All went great and I continued to tour with this artist for a couple years and then realized that I could just be a solo artist myself by writing my own hit songs, getting my own singers on my tracks and releasing them myself with my own promo. That’s the birth of the most meaningful project I’ve ever undertaken: DRMAGDN: Cyborg Drummer / DJ.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My start in music was at a very young age. I was 6 when I played tambourine with the band at my older sister’s wedding and then started drums in school when I was 7. I did everything I could related to music over my school years including choirs, jazz bands, indoor percussion, rock bands and graduating from Drew University as a Music Major. I even was accepted into NYU for Graduate Jazz Drumset Studies but didn’t attend and went pro instead.
I wound up having to struggle to make connections in the New York City jazz, pop, rock, classic rock and progressive metal scenes for many years before I started to get gigs that paid well enough to make a living. But being a social and extroverted person and continuing to get better honing my craft as a drummer allowed me to finally make enough money to buy my own house and succeed as a touring and recording session musician.
From there the next logical step was to music direct, bandlead and produce artists / bands in leadership positions. That helped me be able to schedule gigs that wouldn’t conflict as much and allow me to stack more gigs together to be able to make enough money to cover my bills. I found that as I continued to hone my craft in drumming, music directing and producing, the work increased. It was a total blast being responsible for the entire musical event experiences in addition to the drumming. When I stepped up my image with the mohawk, I got a ton more work too.
I started the DRMAGDN: Cyborg Drummer / DJ project for fun to do between other gigs and tourdates. I always had a love for EDM (Electronic Dance Music), Pop and Remixes and it was a blast to just get up onstage by myself and DJ while Drumming nonstop to keep people dancing and having fun all night long.
When the global shutdown happened, it was all I could do online since New York was hit so hard and completely shutdown. I went super hard on digital marketing, social media and promotion of DRMAGDN on socials & wound up going viral on multiple platforms. It was a combination of my specific branded look of the red mohawk/sunglasses and the seamless integration of DJing and Drumming done simultaneously that really stood out to a wide audience.
At this point, I have 25+ Million Total Plays / Views, 750k+ Verified Followers, am on 250+ Records and get 100k+ Peak Livestream Viewers per session. From there I signed a deal with Major Label BMG, Officially Remixed The Beatles “Something” and am signed to the #1 TikTok Influencer Talent Agency in the world: ClicksTalent. I am also sponsored by GLOW WATER with Kylie Jenner and have tons of endorsements.
It’s surreal to finally have a successful project of my own after all these years. But from all the notoriety I was gaining online, tons of brands, businesses, artists, bands and friends came through the woodwork wanting me to help them go viral, get verified blue checks and help promote them. So I wound up starting my own digital marketing agency called The DRM Alliance NYC and now we have 100+ Million Total Plays / Views For Clients Worldwide.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Social media has played a huge part of my success as DRMAGDN. Again, I blew up during the shutdown and what I learned was that authenticity, value, quality, uniqueness, consistency, patience and luck all are how you grow on social media platforms in today’s day and age.
1) Authenticity: Eveyrone’s BS meter is at an all time high both in person and online with all the content and stimuli we get screaming at us every day. The more authentically you speak, act and actually are on and off camera, the better. That humanity is what has consistently been winning online especially with the advent of AI becoming more popular.
2) Value: Everything in life is 100% about relationships. Whether it’s career, romantic, friends/family or fans, you have an unspoken value exchange of you and your skills for monetary compensation or getting views/likes for the entertainment you actually provide. So whatever you do online, do it with your audience in mind first & not your ego.
3) Quality: If you record everything on a potato, then you’ll get potato quality returns. Make sure you have decent and solid equipment whether it’s microphones, lighting and Iphones/Andriods./DSLRs to record your content. If the quality is not at least over the quality bar, you get no algorithmic reach & not many will want to watch your content.
4) Uniqueness: Do what you do but skew it slightly differently to be unique. Ed Sheeran is not just a singer/songwriter who is an amazing song-smith and lyricist, but he is also came up performing as a busking musician in the subway of London for years. He is able to reconstruct his fully arranged album versions of his tunes using loop pedals by himself.
5) Consistency: Digital Marketing and Social Media are a marathon and not a sprint. Think of the rabbit and the hare story here. It’s better to go slower consistently over time and have a really excited and vibrant community around you that really loves what you do rather than a quick couple flashes of viral success without a lot of substance.
6) Patience: The journey of becoming an adept social media artist is a long, grueling and intense process. Give yourself some grace and patience not only to make mistakes to learn from but 10x your timeline to really run that marathon until you win. Don’t just chase viral success to feed your ego. Do the real work to create community overall.
7) Luck: Success in life does come with a bit of luck. But each time you have another at bat for trying to hit a home run and hit a single or double on the field, you move your life in the right direction. The people who have more tries and at bats on social media create more luck for themselves over their digital marketing journey. Good luck & Godspeed.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Everything I do as a person and as an artist revolves around creating community and happiness that transcends the sum of the parts. If you read the crowd correctly as a DJ and spin the right original tracks and remixes, you can have the dancefloor packed the whole night with smiling faces all over the world. It’s a really amazing collective positivity that I feel very fortunate to encourage and curate at all my DRMAGDN live show and in my online presence.
I write EDM Pop anthems and remix tracks to be anthemic and neo-nostalgic since I grew up performing the biggest hits of all time my entire career. I love the feeling of having groups of people lose themselves in their favorite songs, reinventions of new songs and my own original tracks. It becomes less about a band, artist or DJ being onstage performing for a static crowd and more of a symbiotic collective immersive musical experience like Woodstock.
That same positivity found in these group community musical experiences is what I try to do in all my relationships leaving people slightly better than they were before me and inspiring them to be more positive in life after me. That’s why I give to a couple charities every single DRMAGDN release I have put out. So my mission is collective positivity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.DRMAGDN.com
- Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/DRMAGDN
- Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/DRMAGDN/
- Linkedin: https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/CharlieZeleny
- Twitter: https://www.Twitter.com/DRMAGDN
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/DRMAGDN
- Soundcloud: https://SoundCloud.com/DRMAGDN
- Other: https://www.TikTok.com/@DRMAGDNhttps://open.spotify.com/artist/43AwQ5ynwG6ENTn26MJ1Bz?si=XQckRuLZTEe4JxGchLZKfA&nd=1
https://www.Amazon.com/shop/DRMAGDN
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/drmagdn/1107099750
https://www.SnapChat.com/add/DRMAGDN
https://DRMAGDN-Shop.FourthWall.com
https://www.TheDRMAlliance.com
Image Credits
All images by Biruta Freimane / JADELUXPHOTO / Manish Gosalia / Tim Shahady / Nicole Denise Lioi