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

Alright, Waves thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. 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?

I’ve been DJing for 11 years now, but only took the risk to start pursuing it professionally in 2019 and quit all of my day jobs. My first year as a full-time DJ was amazing. I finally devoted every free moment that I had to the one thing I loved the most and it lit me up like never before. Then the pandemic happened and my industry was the first to go and last to come back. I struggled for about a year or so, wondering if I had just made the biggest mistake of my life by starting to DJ full-time. I didn’t know if I’d ever work again, or what the music industry would be like on the other side. As terrifying as it was, it was also just what I needed to really lean into my business and take it more seriously than ever before. If the world was going to end, then I wanted to go out doing something I loved, and things have now started to level out in terms of work flow. In 2022 I DJ’d 110 gigs, and I’m on track to pass that number this year, especially since I’ve started to grow my business in the U.S.A. by getting an artist visa. Toronto has been amazing over the past decade but I’m ready for new challenges and new environments. It’ll always be home, and I’ll keep some major clients here, but I’m ready to shake things up for myself so that I can continue growing personally and professionally. Trying to grow my business in a new country is quite the experience though; I feel like I’m starting from scratch in a way, but I have the knowledge and experience I’ve gained from the past 11 years of DJing and event planning in Toronto. I’m now in a position where I know my worth, the value I bring, and what I’m looking for in an ideal client/creative partnership. I’m also getting better at budgeting and sourcing gigs for myself so that I have a constant cash flow and can sustain my lifestyle even when there are slow periods. It’s a never-ending learning process though. Being your own boss requires grit, adaptability, faith in the unknown, and passion above all else. I firmly believe that if you love what you do, you will never NOT work a day in your life because it will be all consuming (but so worth it!).

Waves, 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?

To put it simply, I’m just a music nerd. But my elevator pitch is that I’m a DJ, curator, and event planner. Over the years I’ve grown my love of music to allow me multiple creative outlets and avenues for my business. At the core of it all, I’m a DJ who specializes in concerts and events. I’ve been working with Live Nation for 9+ years to provide pre + post show parties for concerts in Toronto and the USA, and as of 2022 I became the official DJ of the Toronto Marlies Hockey Team (AHL affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs). My passion for live music led me to start throwing my own parties that include me booking bands, burlesque dancers, as well as guest DJs to hold down the night with me.
On the flip side, I’m also often working a lot of corporate gigs for clients that can include Harley Davidson Motorcycles, Michael Kors, ADDIAS, or The ACE Hotel, to name a few. I also curate playlists for brands and retail spaces that need a musical touch, which has also given an extremely open-mind when it comes to music because I have to truly dig and find things that are both familiar feeling, but also fresh and exciting.
I love the variety that DJing can give me by having me do everything from a dive bar to a star-studded event. I believe in honing your craft and having a specialty–but I never want to be pigeonholed. I want to constantly be learning, growing, and connecting with different communities to stay inspired by what other creatives are doing. I’ve become extremely good at being an “event” DJ, rather than focusing all my time on just producing beats or being more of an artist/DJ. It’s taught me a lot about playing to different crowds, being open-minded, and staying sharp. That being said, I do now feel that after 11 years of putting events first, it’s time for me to take everything I’ve learned and try my hand at actually being an artist and creating my own music. I’ve spent years seeing first-hand at my gigs what people respond to the most, and growing my knowledge, so now I’m excited to translate it into my own music.

I owe a lot (if not all) to the mentor I had when I started because he really instilled the fact that I need to play for the crowd and not myself. That was a major turning point in my learning, because once I got over my ego and realized that ___ song was going to make the crowd go wild (even if I hated it or the artist) then I realized what it truly meant to be a DJ. As cheesy as that sounds, it’s an energy exchange. It’s the job of a good DJ to not only connect with the crowd, but to take them on a journey. I originally learned to DJ with vinyl and only moved to Serato after almost a year, and tried to be as open to all genres as possible so that I could confidently play anything. Starting with vinyl really made me get to know the music and even when I spin a digital set, there’s plenty of skills that come in handy. Vinyl means it’s classic, bare bones, and no nonsense. I had to learn to really train my ear to listen for beat-matching, the key of a song, and even just the structure of it because you can’t read waveforms on a screen or see a timer telling you how many seconds are left before the song ends. Having a musical background from years of guitar, piano, and theory lessons is also a major help, because I feel like I approach songs with a deeper thought process than someone who might not know music theory.
The longer I’m in this industry, the more I realize how important knowledge of the music that you’re playing is. It’s one thing to passively hit play on a song, but it’s another to know a thing or two about it (know the artist, know the sample, know the side-projects that the producer has done, etc) because then you have so many different ways to connect that song to others in the DJ set-and ways to connect to the crowd. You don’t need a massive library of music and to constantly be playing the hottest tracks. All you need is music that you know inside and out, and that you know will connect with your specific crowd. DJing is one of few times when judging a book by its cover is a good thing. You want to look at a fan and go “I know exactly what songs are gonna make you lose your mind right now”.
I really pride myself on being open-format and trying to stay as open-minded as possible to all genres and scenes. I get to play the soundtrack to people’s lives and seeing people positively react to hearing their favourite song, or watching a group of friends sing-a-long together, or feeling the energy in the room buzz as the songs I play build on each other is the best fucking (wait, can I swear?) feeling in the world. I know how good I feel when I listen to my favourite song, so the fact that I get to give that feeling to strangers is pretty neat, and never gets old.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I feel that non-creatives look at artists and think we’re just skipping through life without much direction or that we live a life of glamour and excess. The truth is, we’re always ON and doing work in some way. It could be networking at influencer events, making business deals over dinners with a client, or answering emails on your phone while at the beach. Creatives look at, approach, and process everything in life differently because we often aren’t bound by the typical 9-5 life or even by the structure of a boss and co-workers. I for example am my own manager, booker, marketer, accountant, social media manager…I do it all. And I often wonder if I’m on track or doing things the best way, but I’ve also gained a lot of knowledge about many things and have become confident in ways that a non-creative job had never given me before. The creative life is admittedly (often) better looking because people don’t really see the side of it that includes emailing, Zoom meeting, or cold-calling clients and getting shot down 99% of the time. Instead, it’s that 1% that gets shown. I’m not saying it’s fake, but that there is so much more to it that often goes unseen. There’s a lot of mental exercise that happens to be able to keep yourself on track to grow your business, stay accountable, and have the confidence to literally build something from nothing. It seems crazy a lot of the time, but the fact that a creative journey is so unconventional is thrilling and addictive because it means that every day is different, and the possibilities are endless.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

So much of who I am is influenced by David Lynch, Anthony Bourdain, and Hunter S. Thompson. Yes, I’m attracted to the aesthetics of their works, but also to their processes and lust for life. Lynch just has the best eye for turning the mundane into beauty. I often watch interviews with him because he always looks at things from an unconventional angle, and has such a unique way of plucking ideas and turning them into tangible things.
Bourdain has taught me the importance of community, and learning about/from others. It’s important to me that I’m taking the time to connect with others in music-especially females because it’s such a male dominated industry-and try to make it easier for the people coming after me. I want to learn and grow, but also share those insights along the way and be able to leave the scene better than I found it.
Any time I feel lost or unsure in life I find myself re-reading “Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life”. As a creative, it’s extremely comforting to hear his thoughts about breaking out of societies conventions and pursuing what sets your soul on fire.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.djwaves.ca
• Instagram: @dj.waves
• Other: bookings@djwaves.ca