We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dennis Aguilar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Dennis thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

They say the best way to learn is by getting out and doing it… over and over again. Most of the time, you’ll start off and be pretty terrible, until one day you aren’t. Repetition and patience is key.

I’ve been fortunate to pick up a lot of skills by putting myself in the position to be hands on with whatever I’m trying to learn, and surrounding myself with good company. Sometimes I was driven by pure passion of whatever has captured my interest and resonated with me, whereas other times I was driven by the pure necessity to figure out how to overcome a roadblock that was consistently throwing me for loops.

I feel like I accelerated my learning curve by simply watching other people who were better than I was at the time, and finding people who were already doing what I wanted to be doing in a greater capacity than I was. I’d surround myself around people like that and just become a sponge.
Asking questions. I’d start picking up on minute details and practices of others while trying to keep ego aside. I’d say it’s hard to rush this process, but if you keep yourself in a learning environment, you’ll stay growing. Just remember, always be a student,

Being in the entertainment industry a lot of times you find yourself wearing a lot of hats. The most essential skills I’ve acquired range from audio engineering live events in the scene, creating my own sounds in the studio, producing a long standing community events with my team from the ground up, and learning how to connect with new people.

The biggest obstacles I’ve ran into in terms of learning seemed like to always been encountered from within. Sometimes there is passion to want to learn and be great at something, however there are sacrifices that one has to make in order to reach that point — and a lot of times that isn’t a comfortable feeling. If you want to be exceptional at something, you’re going to have to learn how to deal with being uncomfortable, at least for a certain period of time.

Dennis, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hey ya’ll, my names Dennis Aguilar, I’m an artist and producer of an EDM group named Xhale Ghost (comprised of Myself, Brandon and Mike) and an owner of an event promotion and production company called Subphonic Events. We’re based out of Sacramento, in Northern CA.

I’ve been captivated with music and story telling since I was young. I can recall some of the earliest days putting on headphones listening to Sugar Ray on a Sony Walkman CD player, or discovering my first metal band “Avenged Sevenfold” at my local Borders bookstore back in the day. Eventually I wanted to get more involved with music, picking up instruments and skills like the drums, guitar, singing/songwriting, and producing my own music and events.

I think the initial driver was just a love and appreciation for the craft, hearing sounds that just spoke to me and could literally listen to over and over again. When I started wanting to perform and take a more focused approach to music, I quickly realized that their was not a whole lot of opportunities for us to go out and play shows. We didn’t have many connections into the scene at all, nor much money or make it happen. After little success doing all the typical things like: reaching out local promoters, entering competitions for opening events, open mics and the like, I somehow landed on the idea that we we’re going to do this ourselves. So it was then around 2018, our inner circle of friends banded together and formed our own event company, which is now called Subphonic Events. If we weren’t going to get booked by other promoters, we were going to make it happen our own way. Little did we know it was at that moment we were signing up for a full time job and a half (lol) and an unending labor of love.

As Xhale Ghost, we played a lot of amazing events, working our way up from barely getting opening slots in our city, to performing with acts such as Subtronics, Svdden Death, NGHTMRE, and more. We’re currently working on honing in our own sound and bringing that to the mainstage in the EDM festival world. I think one of the things that makes us unique is, as a group, we have a lot of different musical background and experience that we incorporate into our sets, such as live guitar and drums elements layered on top of a high energy dubstep set. It’s pretty unique and I can only really compare it to acts such as Illenium, Chainsmokers, Odesza, Dabin, etc… but very raw and unfiltered. It’s definitely an experience.

As Subphonic Events, we create unforgettable moments in the live event space, fostering a home for up and coming local names and international/national acts alike. With infrastructure like music venues limited in Sacramento, we’ve become very proficient in starting with an empty space, and designing a concept for a show from the ground up. From how the audio is supposed to sound, to the design of the lighting, the vibe of the visuals, to how the operations of the event will unfold, our team is very well rounded in the skills we all bring to the table. We’ve had the ability to grow together as a team, from doing small 300 person capacity shows in bars, consistently hosting 600 capacity touring acts in theatres, and even putting together festival sized events with over 2000 attendees. One thing we’ve learned to do as a team, is see something that people may initially see little value in, like an empty parking lot, and come together and turn it into a mind blowing experience that the community will always remember.

I’d say we have a knack for consistently setting a high bar and not cutting corners when it comes to the look and feel of our shows. Lately, we have helped curate experiences like this with festivals such as Wobbleland 2024, where we provided a second stage consisting of LED Video Walls and lighting production and operation for Vital Events, Bassrush, and Another Planet Entertainment at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, alongside with our A/V partner at CTM Sound. It’s very exciting for us to enter the festival space and we’re very much looking forward to more action on that front.

Another exciting feat for us recently was providing the Production Management and Event Logistics for NGHTMRE’s DRMVRSE Tour last year in April 2023. It was by far our biggest challenge to date, NGHTMRE’s show was very technically demanding, calling for large scale audio and lighting systems, insane special fx such as pyrotechnics, lasers, c02, and a custom stage design to bring it all together. That was an incredible event and definitely a full circle moment to be able to see in person, and even perform at the show! Not too long ago it seemed like I was listening to NGHTMRE’S remix of “Limelight” for my first on Soundcloud the other day, and here we are putting together his Sacramento Tour stop at a raceway we’ve commissioned as a venue space in the boonies of Marysville. Iconic to say the least. Hats off to all the teams (Synthetic Era, CTM, Four Four, and all the subcontracted individuals) also involved on that one, it’s certainly not a one man job to pull something off of that size. If you have an idea for an event, or would like to get into contact with us, you can reach me personally at [email protected]! I’m always down to discuss solutions we can offer for your business.

Overall I’m very proud in our ability to keep growing and stay active as the years go by. It’s been especially difficult with economical challenges and the damage from the COVID 19 era still hanging around, but I have very exciting long term plans for us and won’t give that up easily. Adapt and overcome!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think the ability to capture an audience with the music, lighting, visuals, all perfectly timed to create a picturesque moment that becomes almost imprinted in someone’s brain is a powerful and amazing thing. It’s life changing, I can recall countless amount of these moments, being in the crowd, and it really inspired me to give this same feeling to others. It can evoke a lot of emotions, and that can become a core part of someone’s being.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Oh man, when I first thought about getting into being a DJ/Producer, I had A LOT of people telling me that it wasn’t a good idea, I wouldn’t be good at it, etc. It was a little disheartening but I just learned to ignore those voices, because after all it was what I wanted and that’s what mattered to me. To be fair, I definitely wasn’t good at all when I first started haha, however I just kept going and eventually just for the love of the journey, and not the end game. I’d get small wins here and there that would validate all the hard work I was putting in, and renew my excitement. This kind of thing would pop up CONTINUALLY, whether it was in the creative side of things, or the event side. You’ll find a lot of nay sayers no matter what field you pursuit. I think the objective is to take that with a grain of salt, and don’t let your inner voice put you down either. You’re definitely going to want to try and empower yourself, try to create habits that reinforce your goals and stick to it. It may seem like a risk investing in yourself, but I’ve always found it fulfilling at the end of the day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.subphonicevents.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/subphonicevents/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Subphonic
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/xhaleghost
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/xhaleghost/