We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Desiree & Brandon Ragoza. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Desiree & Brandon below.

Desiree & Brandon, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

We currently work full-time together doing what we love together. Our concept started at a time where it seemed like it would’ve been impossible to make a full-time living with everything shutting down (2020). Both of us had a numerous amount of years of experience under our belts in our profession of being a DJ and guitarist, Once the lockdowns began, that was when we had decided to play together and just see where it would take us. And luckily, with the accessibility of the internet, it made it easier to showcase our concept together to the world, even though we couldn’t physically be around people at that time. From there, we utilized that time perfecting our craft together, forming the shape of what we were about to be, and became the power couple hybrid performance duo that we are known as, “Team Ragoza”. Currently, we travel around the country performing state to state, create online content, as well as run a DJ school known as EvolveDJs.

Desiree & Brandon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As individual artists, both of us have had many years of experience in our craft, despite growing up in country towns that had no real culture for the professions.

Desiree Ragoza has started playing guitar at the age of 3 and has performed with many notable artists throughout the years such as Ted Nugent, Living Colour, Dickey Betts, Barry Goudreau (formerly of Boston), Jeff “Skunk’ Baxter, Devon Allman, Sammy Hagar, Foghat, Jennifer Batten, Vinnie Moore, and Marshall Tucker just to name a few as well as opening for Slash at the G-Taranaki Festival in New Zealand in 2010. She has also performed for 3 years (2011 – 2014) with Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson IMMORTAL World Tour as the lead guitarist. She has also been a part of a few local bands for a few years, but has diligently been performing as a solo artist and has done other tours such as “Jane Zhang’s “Bang The World Tour” in 2015, The Blue Moon European Tour with Linley Marthe, Stacey Lamont Sydnor and herself (2015), and The Legacy ” ft William Hall (2016-2017). Desiree currently has 3 albums under belt with some singles being released over time.

Brandon Ragoza (DJ Ragoza) started DJing at the age of 14 years old. He would DJ at house parties and events for family and friends throughout high school before catching the attention of local Hip Hop and R&B artists where he would soon be booked as a show DJ. His reputation as a DJ continued to grow steadily as he played at countless nightclubs, bars, concerts and private events throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. Later on, he began to post videos of his mini sets and routines on social media and these videos began to circulate rapidly which opened up opportunities for him to DJ in many different states across the country. He is well known for his 3 regional wins in DMC as well as his 2nd place win in the US Finals of the 2022 DMC. But, he is especially well known for his edits and mashups that are being used and recognized all across the globe, his radio mixes, and his high energy style of mixing.

With our combined experience, we try to provide entertainment in a way that hasn’t been done before. We try to give our audience a performance that not only takes them on an emotional journey with a high energy vibe, but also to give them something that is relatable by showing them the power of what it feels like to be in a loving, supportive, and caring marriage and how much joy we feel being able to enjoy what we love to do together.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

We hope to be able to share our passions together with the entire world, travel the world together, and make people happy by taking them on the biggest emotional musical journey that they’ll remember for all of their lifetime. We both have no plans in stopping with our passion in music, it’s so deeply rooted in us that it’s one of the things in life we can’t live without besides each other.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding thing of being artists is simply just the fulfillment, freedom and joy of being able to express ourselves while also being able to make others feel happy. We love what we do so much and we are so grateful to be able to take what we do and be able to do it together. We don’t have anything that ties us down to prevent us from doing what we want and live for in life because we are willing to do any and all of what it takes to be able to do the very things we are known for together.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.teamragoza.com
• Instagram: TeamRagoza
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/teamragoza
• Youtube: Team Ragoza

Image Credits
Banga Booth Photos Michael Birdman Phillip Van Nostrand AGrace Photography Amy Young Photograhy