We are very happy to introduce you to Joe Wang, for this week's episode of DJ Spotlight!
Joe picked for us a delicate ballad for this week's song!
1. Welcome to DJ Spotlight! How did you first discover West Coast Swing, and what drew you to become a West Coast Swing DJ?
I first started with Modern Jive (Ceroc/Leroc) through a student society while I was at University. After doing that dance for a while, I wanted to find videos of modern jive to watch, which led me to a video of Jordan and Tat performing More. After watching that video, I was hooked.
I have to credit Justin Petersen for becoming a WCS DJ. I imagine, like all dancers, I have a huge interest in music, amassing large playlists of songs that I like and would like to dance to. But it wasn’t until speaking with Justin, and listening to how many intricacies go into DJing, that really made me become interested in being a DJ.
2. Give us a glimpse into your musical library! Which styles influence your taste the most?
My library is full of random stuff, from rock, to pop, to Broadway. If I had to pick one style, though, I would say it’s Chinese pop ballads. A lot of the popular Chinese music when I was growing up was often quite sad, soulful pop music (Lin Jun Jie, Wang Li Hong). I think that shaped me to really have a preference to the most slow, emotional and often acoustic type of music.
3. Can you share a particularly memorable or interesting experience you've had as a West Coast Swing DJ, and how did you handle it?
One interesting experience was when I was DJing for a show. I was under instructions from the event director to create one continuous show with the show music fade into each other, but this format was not clearly communicated with one of the pros. So it meant for this particular pro, I started playing their song before they were in place ready to perform because they were used to the standard format where the song stops, people clap, and then the next couple gets on stage. That pro later came up to the DJ booth to let me know how unhappy he was with what I did to their pro show.
While it wasn’t technically ‘my’ fault, I thought it was better to apologise than try to throw another member of the staff under the bus. Blaming people can’t retroactively fix the pro show. The event director did hear about the situation later and explained the situation to the pro, and everything in the end did get cleared up.
For myself, after this event, I started to develop a more consistent habit of always checking with the pros about the format of their show. e.g. How they want to start, how long they want to dance for, whether they prefer fade out or spin out etc.
4. What advice would you give to someone who's just starting out as a West Coast Swing DJ?
For somebody starting out, my personal advice would be to ‘play it safe’. As a DJ, I can completely understand wanting to share all these cool and fun songs that you listen to with everybody. But as someone who’s starting out, the event director and the head DJ are taking a chance on you. If you start off with a reputation for playing bad sets, that reputation can stick with you. So play it safe, once you build a reputation and start getting hired, then you can play it more risky with your sets. And if you are someone who’s worried that ‘safe’ sets are boring, just remember that you are playing for the people dancing, not for yourself.
5. Outside of West Coast Swing DJing, what are some of your other interests or hobbies that help inspire your music selection or style?
I sometimes listen to high tempo rap music while rock climbing. While I haven’t really incorporated that into my DJing, it may happen one day.
6. Lastly, share with us any upcoming events or projects that you're excited about!
I will be DJing at Milan Modern Swing, so excited for that.