Bill Hendrickson on the Untold Origin of DJ Lovers Club

Transcript

Red: All right, listen — in all-time history, there is no other way. Let me tell you something: unless you've been living under a rock for the last couple of years, you understand that dance music is at the forefront of culture. The man sitting next to me is very much responsible for that. Reigning supreme from none other than the greatest state in the union — that is New Jersey — co-founder and CEO of DJ Lovers Club, Bill Hendrickson. How we doing, brother?

Bill: Good, good. Thank you for having me.

Red: Let's go. So this is a little inverse here — we had Bobby on, but there were audio issues, couldn't put out the episode. Hit him up, he said he's going to be traveling this weekend. We're down here for the Baronichi show, of course. I said, "Let's see if Bill can do it." Bill says he's down — that's it, one-word answer, down. Monday night, lights, an hour and fifty minutes after our forecasted start, but we made it. How we feeling?

Bill: Good, dude. It's good to have you guys.

Red: Yeah, this is awesome. I'm excited to be here, excited to get the story — this is going to be a very good perspective on everything you guys have done, from something I haven't seen. I haven't seen all the backend stuff, all the behind-the-scenes stuff that you've done. And of course I got to hear Bobby's story of it, so I know a little bit on that front, but your perspective is going to be something I'm very interested to hear about. So when Bobby told me all about DJ Lovers Club and how it came to be, what I remember about the start of all this was — well, obviously we all grew up together in the same area.

Bill: Powerful.

Red: Very powerful. Jersey. Great state in the union — as I said in the intro, come on now, it's automatic. But as I remember it starting, it was back as the Electric Cult, which was, I think, near that pandemic era. And I remember seeing that and getting excited and fired up, because I always love the social media aspect of things and seeing him go after that and seeing what was going on. But come to find out, years later now, it has transpired into what you guys have today — DJ Lovers Club. And there's a very big story behind that. So I guess, to start off, just take me to where you come into the picture on all of it, and where it kind of shifted into the DJ Lovers Club thing.

Family Beginnings

Bill: Yeah. So it really all started when we were kids. My dad, my mom — they grew up on disco, and when we'd go to family parties, my aunts, my grandmas, good disco songs would come on and whether or not they had bad knees or bad backs, they'd get up and dance. At the time I was a little confused, I was like, what's going on here? But we grew to love it more and more. And then I remember vividly, I was in the car as a kid and I heard Daft Punk's "One More Time" come on the radio, and I was like — why is there not more of this everywhere right now? And here we are, like twenty years later, and it's pretty much taken over.

Red: The scene, as it's leveled up over the last couple of years, is crazy. I guess our era — when I think of EDM, obviously house is big right now, but when I think of that 2012-to-2019 era, that's kind of what we were raised on — the Avicii, the Alesso, Swedish House Mafia, making anthems. And where it has evolved to now, because those were a lot of festival-type music being made, and vocals were very big back then. The groove has kind of taken over now, although I'd say the vocals are probably coming back now with these big drops. There seem to be a lot of vocals going in. But how have you noticed the change in dance music since that era when you got into it, and now?

Bill: Yeah, I mean, that is still my favorite era. Back when we were at Rutgers and Swedish House Mafia was pretty much bringing this entire sound to the US — it was epic. I remember vividly hearing "Levels" come on, and I looked around my frat house — we were having a party — and I saw everyone's reaction to a song without lyrics, and I was like, that's it, this guy did it. He bridged the gap from the underground to the mainstream for dance music with that sound. And just backing it up a bit — we were bringing Bob up to Rutgers when he was in high school, so he had four years of college before he even went to college, and that's why he is the way he is. He was listening to this music, we were surrounded by these big Guidos from Jersey, and Jersey was holding it down for this scene in the States — before electronic music was really permeating through the rest of the country, these Jersey kids loved this stuff. We were putting it on at our parties and all that. So Bob was coming up, he was listening to this, and it was like, this is electric — I was watching all my friends have the time of their lives to this stuff. And it was really, from there, like, where's this scene going? And now, looking at it today, it's like — do they listen to anything else at colleges, or is it just dance music now?

Red: Those songs still hit. The dance music scene was there when Reds was open at Rutgers — Reds New Brunswick, of course. What a time. Dance music was very big, it was a lot of house, it had taken over. "Do It to It" had really brought the scene back, because everything was down during the pandemic — right, and then when that hit, it was over. And obviously the sound kind of grew from there. But I remember that song specifically being the biggest song at the time, on the comeback, when everything was back to a hundred percent — that song played, everybody went nuts. And at a college you have the open-format part of it, where they have to play different types of sing-alongs, hip-hop and different genres, but the dance music was the most prevalent, and the house scene of course, and it was exciting. That was when Reds really blew up — hundreds of kids in line, hundreds of kids in the building, everyone partying, and it was a lot of dance music.

Bill: So was Reds playing the most dance music of all the bars?

Red: A hundred percent — you guys were pushing the culture. It was a club — it got turned, and I was sort of forced into making it solely a club because the pandemic put us in that position, right? But it had originally started, we wanted to do the lunch scene, happy hour, dinner, and then have a nightlife after hours, ten to two a.m. That was our goal. Pandemic hits, everything gets wiped out, we shut down for six months. We come back — only people around are Rutgers kids, all the seniors who couldn't get out of their leases, living off campus. I originally thought we were dead in the water, but it ended up being a blessing, because they didn't have class, no one wanted to do any work, it was all online, so all they had to do was party. And we had a spot that was 7,500 square feet, and we had some good music because my Spotify playlist was playing at that time.

Bill: There it is. And when it blew up, that playlist was mostly made up of that golden-era EDM.

Red: That's where it started — the stuff I heard at DJs when I was going out. Who are your favorites?

Bill: Oh man, my top three songs of all time — I'll give you this, they stand out to me — it's "Levels," "One More Time," and "Calling." I would have to have those. If I was picking the greatest — come on, brother.

Red: That's top three for me on their own. "Runaway" is obviously in there somewhere. One of my personal favorites is the Audien remix of "Pompeii." That drop, to me, is my favorite drop — it's just emotional, and you cannot hear that in the Iron Paradise, three hundred milligrams of caffeine deep, and not get one of the greatest workouts you've ever had. That was like my favorite. What about you — was that around?

Bill: Dude, you're all over it. All the Swedish House Mafia stuff at the time as well — it's still stuck in my spine, literally.

Red: They know songs that last ten years, decades. You could play them at any time. That's a difference I want to get into — the music being made today versus that. But taking it back to you at Rutgers — when you were getting ready to graduate, was this in the plans, doing all this?

Building DJ Lovers Club

Bill: Not so much. I had my eye toward general business, building brands and storytelling — which comes into play for DJ Lovers Club later. So I went out to Vegas, and then Los Angeles, worked on some filmmaking stuff, refined my ability to compress stories and tell them succinctly so people get interested. All the while my little brother was at ASU, and he kept doing more and more music stuff, because he already had four years of college at Rutgers, basically, and then he had four more at ASU. He knew the playbook — put on dope house songs, get everyone's energy up, this is how it goes. So he did all that. I was doing filmmaking stuff, and I was watching the filmmaking world get weird — indie film, how the industry was going. We took a big step back during the pandemic and were like, what do we really want to do? And Bobby had gone to a show of a friend of ours — his name's Noizu.

Red: Couple of bangers for sure. Jacob.

Bill: Yeah — and he was at Noizu's set, and after the show people were coming up to Bob, like, "Great set, dude." And something clicked — these people don't even know whose sets they're going to. They don't know what they look like, they don't know any of their characteristics. Meanwhile in hip-hop, everyone knows what Migos wore last week. So we were like, there's a bridge we can gap here. Bob and I decided we'd take my skills with filmmaking and storytelling and his skills as a great personality, and start to bridge the gap between artists and fans in the dance music world. That's how the premise started, and where the Electric Cult started.

Red: Well, when he was doing the Electric Cult, I remember you guys had those dance contests.

Bill: Yeah — that was the first of the shuffle contests, where we were all sitting at home and needed something, and just found a way to innovate and make something people could be a part of. You had to comment who you thought had the best shuffle, all that. That was a pivot — we were originally going to go straight with artists. We were going to come down here for Music Week — we're in Miami now, we were in Jersey and New York at the time — and we were going to do a bunch of artist interviews. The pandemic hit and we were like, we need to pivot. And pivoting has been a big skill set of Bob's and mine ever since — we just continue to pivot and give people what they want, as well as what we want to do. So we pivoted and did this online shuffle competition, because it was trending at the time, and it became a hit — it was this thing that coagulated culture and made people really happy when they were at home, watching people dance or taking part with rewards and stuff.

Red: Yeah, I remember seeing it and I was so hyped that we had something to do at that time — and of course I saw you guys were leading the charge on it. Kind of like the Electric Cult, going — come on now, bozos! So then, where does it turn into the DJ Lovers Club part of it?

Bill: Yeah, so at some point we were like, we need to get back to the core mission, which is making it about the music and the artists. We'd gone a little adjacent because everything was really messed up with the pandemic. Then we started to push on the DJ Lovers Club thing, and me and Bob started to learn about the internet and how to create good content, learning from our friends over at Rap TV and a few other organizations. We were like, okay, let's model off our boys and apply it to dance music, because hip-hop is generally five, ten years ahead. So we took some of those formats and delivered them to the dance music audience. We kept doing that and found success, and just kept peeling off more and more layers.

Red: Well, what you say about hip-hop — in terms of culture, high school kids, we were always listening to hip-hop. Wiz Khalifa was my guy back in the day — me and Terrence were bumping Wiz Khalifa all the time. And Mac Miller, of course, and so many more from that era. I always liked Big K.R.I.T. as well — that was the underground scene, the guys who came up in my high school years. Hip-hop was always so big for that demographic and age group. Now it's completely flipped, and I'm talking to these kids who are all in high school, because they all train at Condan's, the baseball facility. Just to get an idea of what people are listening to — what's the read on it?

Bill: It's all dance music. They're all DJs.

Red: The kids are all DJs. And who do they like — what are the artists that these kids are into?

Bill: I mean, we've talked about Subtronics before, which is obviously huge, but they know all the big ones — John Summit, Dom Dolla, all these guys who've helped bring dance music to the forefront of culture, because those guys are the biggest in the game right now.

Red: And then I try to get into the weeds, talking about the Chase West and the Belrans and all those guys —

Bill: They're there for some of it, and I think it's just because at this time they're all gravitating toward that culture.

Red: It's getting — back in the day, the hip-hop scene, you had the major artists, Lil Wayne, Eminem was big at that time, obviously, still in the early 2000s, Young Money was huge, Good Music, all of those guys were the biggest. Then you had the underground guys. And I feel like you see that same kind of comparison in dance music now, too, but I don't think they've caught on to the guys who were like the Wiz Khalifas and the Mac Millers of that time — obviously Belran and Chase West are huge now.

Bill: In college, I think they're onto it, though — they're booking underground artists, and their shows are just off the charts.

Red: So now you see the levels that are on it. But you ask these kids, and half of them are trying to make music now, dance music, and they're DJs. One kid's like, "I'm bringing my decks to college." He's going to be a freshman at Susquehanna, where I went, and he plays baseball too. But let me tell you something — I went to my alumni game this year, and it's over. I'm off for the next ten years, I'm going back, juiced to the gills, and I'm dropping bombs ten years from now.

Bill: Oh, Barry Bonds.

Red: So it's been interesting to see, trying to get a grasp on it — because when we were in high school, were you listening to hip-hop?

Bill: I mean, dude, yeah, because it was out there, but we were messing around with some deadmau5, some Benny Benassi.

Red: Yeah, baby.

Bill: We were tapped in a little bit, and I was yearning for more and more of it, but at the time we were getting pushed hip-hop. But dude, there was also "September" — "Cry for You" — there were some things bubbling up that had these dance music elements to them that we were onto.

In-Flight Sessions

Red: Yeah. And it's interesting to see now — we were just talking about Sidepiece, who's been remixing a lot of those and putting their own spin on it. But obviously house and tech house have really taken off — it's crazy, because with social media, I feel like all the genres and subgenres of dance music are so popular, you could find whoever you want. You've got Sara Landry leading the charge on techno, dropping absolute nuclear missiles. And what I like about the social media aspect — obviously you guys are it, that's what DJ Lovers Club is, how it has grown and what it is now — it's a social media page that just blew up. In terms of the consistency of what you guys were putting out at the beginning, what were the types of content you were putting out at that time? Because obviously now we have the virality of clips that has changed the game in terms of social media, but I think when you guys were starting, the virality and the TikTok stuff, the algorithm was not really a thing. So what was your main mission in terms of content back then?

Bill: Yeah, it's always adapting — it's crazy how much it changes. In the beginning it was DJ clips, some memes, pretty light, nothing crazy. But as time's gone on, we've really evolved into more and more storytelling, where we're trying to go deep on what's truly happening — whether it's a lineup dropping or an artist story around an event. An example would be our friend Omnom, who we help with a bunch of marketing stuff — they lost his luggage at the airport before EDC, and he showed up in his sweatpants. That's a whole story, it's culture. Our job is to consistently bring stories to the forefront, to keep making the culture stickier and get people more engaged in what's happening across all elements of dance music.

Red: Yeah, well, it's covered coast to coast — you see it from the big festivals to the small things, and now you guys are also starting to put on events. Is that something you've started recently, or was that always in the plans?

Bill: We said we'd never do that. But then one day it was like, all right, we have this capability — and just so you know, we do this within our platform, but we'll also get reached out to by record labels or management companies, and we'll help curate content across all of the dance music media. We work with all these other channels, and if there's a new Calvin Harris record or a Chris Lake record, we'll help get it curated and the story told correctly all over dance music media on behalf of the artist or the record label. That's what our day-to-day looks like. So we learned how to tell these stories and make things compelling around live clips and whatever's happening, and one day we were like, let's try something different in the live show space. We looked at New York, which is a pretty grungy scene — warehouses and ketamine and stuff — and we were like, let's bring something a bit more elevated. We came up with a theme around the golden era of travel, like '70s vintage, back when travel was an experience people loved to take part in, it was like a party. We built an airplane stage and themed out the whole experience, people got passports — it's called In-Flight Sessions, and we did it at Superior Ingredients for three shows: Shipwrek, Biscits, and OddMob, this year. And it crushed. It smashed.

The New York Scene

Red: So I suppose we have to do more of these. Well, you see the clips from those shows and it's absolutely juiced, the entire place is packed. The New York scene — it's interesting you bring that up, I was just talking to somebody about this the other day at a Liv show. Did you ever go out in New York City in that era, when you were in Jersey, still after Rutgers or during Rutgers?

Bill: Yeah, dude, I used to go to Webster Hall, watch Tommy Trash. Used to go to Pacha.

Red: Yeah, baby.

Bill: That was the real deal.

Red: See, like Hardwell and like —

Bill: Yeah. Sometimes I didn't even know who we were watching, but yeah, we'd take a train up from New Brunswick and go watch these shows and do some terrible things. It was a great time.

Red: We were in it. Because after the pandemic, the New York City scene has changed, but the dance music scene in New York City is massive right now. I look at it from the perspective of nightlife, because that's what I'm in, and hospitality — it's completely flipped. I'll be talking to people, like, "Man, New York City's dead," but then you look at dance music events in New York City and they're huge.

Bill: Brooklyn, of course, holds it down. It's unbelievable, the venues they have now. It's a shame Brooklyn Mirage had to close.

Red: It's okay though — we experienced it last summer, that's when we made our entry. Yeah, the Mirage fell apart, and most people would default to going to the Mirage, but there's such a strong culture in New York City that people were like, what else? There's a million places they can go. There's incredible venues everywhere and every type of music you could want in New York, it's a really diverse scene — you can just get what you want.

Bill: Yeah, and there was — when I saw you guys started doing it, I was like, this is perfect, because I felt like it needed it too. I felt like it needed some type of event like that to help bring that energy back to New York City, where it was kind of up and down for a bit, and now you see all these events going on, particularly in dance music, and it's crushing. It's cool to see that. I remember Jake Shaw played at Superior Ingredients, and since the pandemic, and the way things have gone — watching people socialize out at bars and nightlife, it's totally different than when we were going out. We'd go out to these spots — Jenks, where I'm working, slinging drinks like an absolute animal. Saturday night on the beach, you cannot defeat me, I am unmatched in all-time history. D'Jais — you'd walk in, go to one of these bars and you're ordering twenty-five shots, passing them around, all the different squads would kind of unite at these places. And it's cool in Jersey, because again, it's not like there are tables for bottle service and stuff — Headliner did it when they were around, they actually just closed this year.

Bill: That's crazy.

Jersey Shore Nightlife

Red: That's part of what I'm saying, the nightlife has changed. After the pandemic there was one big summer where nightlife was on steroids — 2021 was unfathomable to the common man, what went down at the Jersey Shore. I think 2018, 2019 was more pure for the Jersey Shore, but 2021 was a different level — everyone was cooped up for so long, and when they released it, it was —

Bill: Did you see anything wild?

Red: Every night, every place was juiced, and that was right when Reds took off. I was getting texts every day from the kids who had turned 21 the summer before and couldn't go out, and all the kids who turned 21 throughout the year while Reds was open, saying, "Red, you got to come out." There was something going on every night, you couldn't miss anywhere you went. Since then it has started to — I don't want to say decline, because there are places still popping, but it's almost like every place has their night, whereas back in the day you could pick any spot any night and just jump back and forth. And that's a beautiful thing about our area — you go from Manasquan to Sea Girt over to Parker House. I never take part in that, but you could.

Bill: Neither did I. Never.

Red: Listen — the pastels, the polos, white tees, that's not my scene. I'm the fist-pumps —

Bill: Spring? I couldn't do it, dude, I couldn't do it.

Red: I say it every time — give me a Bar Anticipation run, I'll take it and then I'm out, I'll take one, that's it. I'm not a live band guy — house music, EDM, tech, no fist pumps. Never. It's a hard rule for me. Are you with me?

Bill: It's tough when I'm on the inside of Jenks and I'm with the live bands, I have to listen — they're great, but it's not my vibe.

Red: No, but if there are people who enjoy it — and there are thousands of people who love it —

Bill: They love it. I don't get it.

Red: And that's what Parker House is every night. Good thing about Jenks is you've got both — you've got the live inside, you've got Encore dropping absolute nuclear missiles on the beach. It's great. But the way I've seen it change — again, you guys weren't around for all this change — back when we were going, it was always the same, it was such a good vibe where people felt united in the places they went. Whatever your spot was, you'd feel united when you walked in. I feel like now more squads are just staying to themselves, and it doesn't feel like it's one big night out — it feels like everybody's kind of sticking to their own crew, which is interesting, because back in the day you'd buy the shots, pass them out, make friends in nightlife, start seeing them out every night and form relationships like that. It's not that that isn't still possible or happening, it's just happening at a much less rate, and you had so many places to go — you see it with Headliner closing, just over the last couple of years people were not going there, people were picking their spots and sticking to them.

Bill: Crazy.

Red: It is. It's very interesting to watch how it's developed over the last couple of years.

Bill: Wow.

Expanding To New Markets

Red: And again, I'm used to going out and having all these people all over — now if you go to Jenks on a Saturday night, you're going to be like, what is this guy talking about, there are thousands of people here and everyone's having a great time. But if you see the inner workings of it — you guys have lived in Miami for a while, from the outside looking in it probably looks like everything's popping, but I'm sure there are spots that have their nights, places that are busy on certain nights and then fade. Are you guys looking to do — I know obviously like Miami Music Week, we went to the rooftop, you had it at Cleveland, you had it with 1001Tracklist, of course — are you guys looking to do more events in the Miami area as well?

Bill: Yeah.

Red: And you guys also do the waterways, correct?

Bill: Yeah, in Amsterdam and Miami.

Red: So how has it been, going to these different events throughout the years? Over the last couple of years, as DJ Lovers Club has gained in popularity — I mean it's almost at 2 million right now, right? How has it been going to these different places throughout the years — has it changed at all as you've gone, or has the energy been the same?

Bill: Yeah, these different places have different feelings to them. Amsterdam is pure magic during ADE — it's a totally different scene. To bring it back to Jersey — in Jersey, those are my people, I love them, but if you bump into a dude the wrong way, things can get a little wild. In Amsterdam, everyone's super chill, they're there for the music, they're locked in on the music, and it's beautiful, and it's old, and it's historic — it's in large part a major dance music hub even before it existed in the States, so that's incredible. Down here in Miami, the scene's different, there's a lot more minimal sounds. In every market there are their own unique preferences and distinctions, and because of that there are unique opportunities to go into those markets and bring something new. In New York we brought an elevated experience that would normally go down on the West Coast, but people on the East Coast got down with it, and it worked. In every market there are little pockets of things that are missing that people would think are dope. So that's where we're at — looking around and asking, what can we bring to these cultures and these cities that adds value and gets people hyped up and more coagulated around the scene.

Red: And in terms of finding out what you can bring to those cities, how are you going about that — boots on the ground?

Bill: Yeah, boots. I was in New York, we know New York, bro, we were there. I know what New Yorkers need — you know, Jenny, she works at JP Morgan, her dad loves the Giants, she loves the Giants. In Miami it's Trisha, and she's on OnlyFans, but she likes Club Space — totally different, dude, way different. And in Miami, things are changing rapidly — there's conflict between Club Space and the Insomniac people, they had a partnership. We're just observing what's happening in Miami and seeing who we're going to partner with to bring something new and special to the market. Just observing right now, but we'll probably have something in place by the end of the year.

The Trial By Fire Story

Red: Yeah, well — boots on the ground. And I wanted to make sure I say this — the term "trial by fire" was brought into existence by Bill Hendrickson. I don't know if you remember, but you guys were out to dinner — my father had just left the golf club, and he got hired to run Waypoint. That first summer we were running it, you guys came out for dinner, I saw you were there, so I took the table, and I was explaining how everything — you were like, "How's it been going?" I explained that my dad and my uncle were running the place for the guy who bought it, and I was telling you how crazy it was, opening a bar, any restaurant — this was a spot on the water, the demographic coming, parking their boats and coming up, wealthy people, you've got to stay on it. We opened for Memorial Day weekend that year and we got smoked. And it's like, you're never really ready, you can never be a hundred percent ready, you just have to go for it — I think that's a common theme in anything you're doing. But I remember talking to you about it, telling you how we got our asses kicked, and you said, "I love it — trial by fire." And that was the first time I ever heard that term, and I've been using it ever since.

Bill: No way.

Red: Yeah, it's all-time, I'm telling you, it's an absolute fact, I've never been wrong. But when we were doing that, I remember you bringing that into existence, and I feel like everything you do is boots on the ground, trial by fire — no matter what you're going to do, you're never going to be ready, and if you jump right into it, that's what gets you prepared, and that's how you learn from it. There's no way to learn unless you're making the mistakes along the way while doing these things.

Bill: Agreed, dude, I agree wholeheartedly. Actually, I'm at a stage where people are telling me, in particular, to just slow down and use some more foresight, because for so long, me, Bob, and a few members of my team, we just pivot so fast — we're just passion, pivot, passion, pivot, try things, see what sticks, and just keep going. But now I think we're at a phase, just like in our company, given how much influence we have, where I can't be so much of a psychopath and have to look around and calculate this and maybe reverse-engineer some things. So it's a different kind of trial by fire, but with patience.

Red: It's insane, it's always something — that's the one term that always applies to anything, the minute you think you have it figured out, something else new is going to happen, and you have to learn from it. And it's cool once you hit kind of a flow state — because I remember, with Reds in particular, it took so long for me to build it to the point where it could operate, maybe to the point where I actually didn't have to be there. Now, if I learned anything from my family about being in this business — the restaurants and the bars — it's you've got to be there every day. But you get to a point where these things start operating on their own, and then something else new happens, and that's where you get it. When you can enjoy that flow state and ride it out, it's the greatest, because I almost feel like, at some point that's going to end and you're going to have to invent something new. And that's actually with content too, what you were just saying — that has to be the toughest, I guess, because it's always evolving.

Bill: It is. But it's fun — this is in my zone of genius, and in Bob's zone of genius, and our team's. There are other things that are less fun. But dude, I have a model for this too — when you're not in a flow state, it's a never-ending journey of trials by fire, but the way I think of it is like this "4C" model — commitment, courage, capability, and confidence. You start by committing to something wholeheartedly, then you go through a period of courage, which never feels good, it's a lot of anxiety and worry, and then you pick up the capability, you level up, and then you get confidence — and then you restart that journey, never-ending for the entirety of your lifetime. So it's never like, oh, we're in green paradise, there's no more going through any courage — no, it's never-ending, it's a never-ending loop of going through this four-C process. And that helps me at times where it's like, oh god, oh Jesus, feels like everything's falling apart.

Red: It is crazy how, when things feel like they're falling apart — if you can take a step back and remember that — I've never heard that before, that's fire.

Bill: Yeah, it's helpful.

Red: But if you can take a step back and realize, okay, it's just a never-ending cycle, it's going to come back — it's very hard, when you're riding the highs and the lows, to take a step back and see the other perspective at that time, but it's probably the most important thing when you're running a business.

Bill: Yeah, periods of courage suck, because you don't know what's going to happen.

Red: Yeah, well, you can reasonably expect that you're going to get some kind of capability if you learn.

Bill: Yeah, and that leads to confidence.

Red: So this mindset — listen, over the last couple of years, Bob has told me, and Drews and all these guys, by the way, the Fantastic Four that I see — you, Bobby, Drews, Eddie — I mean that's the Fantastic Four. And I want to say, I see what you guys are doing all the time, and it has continually inspired me to keep going. It's pretty cool. I remember when I was just getting ready to open Reds at Rutgers, I was texting you guys pictures of the fields, getting ready to go, because I knew you had gone there. Over time, you guys continue to inspire — just seeing what you guys have done and are doing currently is pretty cool.

Bill: Thank you.

Wellness Routines

Red: But I know you're a little bit spiritual — do you have a daily process, where in the morning you're waking up, meditating, doing things like this? What does your day-to-day look like in that sense?

Bill: All the time. It changes depending on what's going on, but meditation is a constant — I do all kinds of weird forms of meditation, it's just evolved. I've been doing it since I was eighteen, so fifteen years now, I've got thousands and thousands of hours under my belt. But yeah, I'm always doing meditation and learning new skills, new routines that make me a sane human being in spite of so much uncertainty and so much changing.

Red: It's tough to say sane when you've got a lot going on and there's always something. What I've realized over the last couple of years is developing that kind of process that starts your day, or maybe ends your day — for me, I'm waking up, Folgers for soldiers, immediately.

Bill: Wait, what do you do?

Red: Folgers coffee. Folgers Gourmet Supreme — they should be paying me for whatever they're getting. But I wake up, it's already made the night before, all I do is click the button, and in about ten minutes it's ready to go. So that's number one. Then we go to the glutathione, which I was telling you about —

Bill: You were telling me this — all right, what's going on here?

Red: This is why I was asking you about the spiritual — the holistic health journey I'm on right now is absolutely unmatched. I'm in it, and it's never-ending. Every morning, when I'm drinking that Folgers, I try to watch one video about some type of antioxidant, some type of supplement, something for holistic health that I could learn about.

Bill: What are you on right now? What's the thing going on?

Red: I'll tell you. In the morning, once I hit that Folgers, I've got a stack of anti-inflammatories, I call them — NAC, N-acetylcysteine, glycine, glutamine. Those are the tripeptide that makes up glutathione, the body's master antioxidant.

Bill: Oh, we're dialed. NAC's all-time. Are you messing with peptides and stuff like this?

Red: No — you know what, I haven't gotten into the peptide stuff. Those are pretty serious things, if you want to get into those I'd recommend really looking at side effects, because I know a lot of people are just diving in. So I'm not — what have you got going?

Bill: Uh, it's something called Sermorelin, and then BPC-157, TB-500 — they call it the Wolverine stack.

Red: Those are more of the studied ones for sure. When you say peptides, I've seen a lot of lately — GHK-Cu, the Retatrutide, which — you've already gone beyond my knowledge base —

Bill: That's like Ozempic, tirzepatide, essentially.

Red: Get it — the results people are getting, crazy.

Bill: And then they're doing MT-1, MT-2, so those are things I'm diving into now. I'm the type of guy who has to really know about it.

Red: This is why I say I'm never wrong, because I never argue anything I don't know — if I don't know the answer, I'm going to tell you I don't know, and if I know the answer, I'm not going to let you try to correct me, because I know it's correct. That's just automatic, it's a Red-ism, 101.

Bill: It's a good attitude. But I'm on that stuff, I do all the standard multivitamin, vitamin D3, looking at the amount of international units you should be taking. I've been into fitness and nutrition for a very long time — around the time and age you got into meditation, I was getting into the gym very seriously, because I played baseball in college.

Red: I wanted to drop nuclear missiles.

Bill: Yeah, you wanted to be Barry. I was 150 going in, got up to 185, then got up to 210. There it is. And then after college ended, I did the shred, I got absolutely jacked.

Red: Yeah, you were young, baby, we were locked in — all-time, brother.

Bill: And then, as time went on, sometimes you're going less per week, sometimes more, when you have the time, but it's pretty much stayed consistent all the way through. I've done some deep research into all these supplements and whatnot, and that's part of my process — making sure I have all those, and I don't miss. We travel — in Miami, I've got them all in Ziploc bags.

Red: Oh, you're done. Absolutely.

Bill: I don't miss.

Red: Travel can really mess that up. You know, with the music and whatnot, I see Habib's going every day, every weekend he's somewhere else, and I'm a consistency guy — I like showing up to the same place every day, knowing what I'm going to do, getting after it, and understanding that after consistency over time, you're probably going to get the results. But you have to stay consistent through the times where nothing's happening.

Bill: So you don't like to travel a lot and be off your routine?

Red: If I travel, I like to move places for a while — immersion, and just be there, and talking boots on the ground, that's how you find out.

Bill: Yeah. Terrence lived in Hawaii for a while, over a decade. One summer I went to Hawaii and just lived there for the summer, and Terrence had been there so long, he took me through all what the locals do there, and you're seeing the things that most people who go to these places aren't getting to experience, when you do it like that — that's how I like to travel. But when you have big events, like Mikey Baronichi making his debut at Liv, you've got to take the weekend, you've got to go.

Red: What'd you get from the Hawaii experience — what was the thing you pulled from this?

Bill: That place is magical, I call it the Promised Land. The first time I went was on winter break, when Reds — no, when Reds was on its come-up, and it was during that pandemic timeframe, limited capacity, and I was getting my ass kicked every day. The police were coming in, counting tables, making sure people were ten feet apart — that whole thing, it was a very big headache.

Red: Brutal.

Bill: It was a weird situation. I try to explain it to people, because at that time it was a weird situation — we were growing in popularity that year, but it was limited capacity, so more and more people wanted to come, and that means we had to keep more and more people out, which is the complete opposite of hospitality — you want to welcome everybody you can. So it was a weird situation, a lot of headaches. Went to Hawaii for about three weeks over winter break.

Red: That's what you want.

Bill: Magical. It was the breath of fresh air I needed. When you see what that place is, the natural beauty of it, you can't not open your perspective. I think it gave me a lot of perspective — we grew up in Jersey, there's a lot of the same type of person there, it's very fast-paced, go-go-go, a lot of attitude, "how you doing," they walk by, give you a head nod, might not say anything. But Hawaii is a totally different animal — it's much more laid-back, you get a whole different perspective on life. And that's why when I go places, I like to stay there.

Red: Me too. And going different places gives you different experiences. But bringing it back to the Jersey thing — a lot of the values we learned growing up in New Jersey, like community, respect, and giving people love —

Jersey Values

Bill: We bring those to the dance music scene, and that's been one of the distinctions that's set us apart. We're just giving love everywhere — this is a homie, this is a homie, this is what they're doing. Our goal is to put people on and make a big community. And in music — less so in electronic music, but the music industry in general — people get really insecure and comparative, trying to tear each other down. Part of our cheat code was doing the literal opposite: adding as much value, not withholding anything or trying to corner value to ourselves, giving as much value and as much love as we could to the community, to the people making the music, putting on the shows. That's what's helped us gain traction in the space — doing the opposite, doing what we learned in Jersey.

Red: And you know, Jersey gets a bad rep — I always talk about it being the greatest state in the union. From the outside it has the bad rep, but if you're in it and understand what you just talked about, it's one of the greatest places on earth. And the people who give the best kind of hospitality — that's the industry I'm in, but hospitality outside of a restaurant is just treating people with respect and being welcoming. And that's what I love about dance music, it's a genre that's welcoming to all different types of people — you have these different types of shows, you go to the EDCs and see that crowd, you're like, oh my god, this is insane, you could do whatever you want and everyone will cheer you on. And then you go to these smaller underground parties and it's a different type of vibe. That's the one thing I love about dance music. But music is also an industry that gets a rep for having a lot of rats in it — people who will stab you in the back. It's kind of true.

Bill: It's definitely —

Red: I think, if you take people who have those core values you were just talking about, that's what ends up separating you. We don't even need to think about it — it's proof, what you guys have done and accomplished so far is the proof, that's all we need.

Bill: Yeah, but to be fair, me and Bob have had to surround ourselves with people who are a bit more protective, because we're so willing to give and contribute, and people are always — especially now — asking for favors, asking for things. Now we have people on our team, thank god, who are like, "No, you can't do this, guys," and they protect the fort. We have a couple of sharks in our own camp to protect things in case me or Bob try to over-deliver too much, or give too much.

Red: Yeah, that's a problem I ran into with the restaurant too — trying to be too open, and at some point it has to be cut off. And I think surrounding yourself with people who can do that is definitely the best way to go about it.

Bill: It's helpful.

Red: It's cool, you can pass the blame along, not have to be the person.

Bill: You put up a wedge, you're like, "Got to be somebody else."

Red: Exactly. And it does get tough — you guys have built such a powerful brand outside. Reds was interesting because it was my brand, our family business, obviously my dad and uncle have been in it forever, but I was the Red of Reds, so it was a very attached brand. You have to tread lightly when you do that, and I've always been along the mindset of what you just said — I'm very welcoming to people, trying to give as much as I can. You'll see how that can bite you and come back around, but I think over the long term it's better.

Bill: Over the long term —

Red: I'm just going to ask you, what do you think?

Bill: It is, in my opinion, one hundred percent the best way to —

Red: Way better.

Bill: A hundred percent.

Red: Way better.

Bill: A hundred percent.

Red: Yeah, it's not even close — giving without expectation, and the amount of times you're going to get bitten from doing that does not outweigh how good it is in the long term, and the relationships you can form. And to me, the relationships have always been number one. I say that about Reds all the time, because we had to close, unfortunately, because of the pandemic — we've got the other two that are still in operation — but the relationships I made at that place, and the amount of people I met. What I came to realize in later years was that having that mentality was what made it so successful, because the impact I had on people was something I didn't even realize I was doing at the time. I had an idea that people had nowhere to go, and I wanted to create a place of unity, bring people together.

Bill: Simple.

Red: I had my opinions on what the pandemic was, and I wanted —

Bill: We probably share them.

Red: Yeah, of course, I would imagine we do — I'm going to shut up about it. But I just wanted to create a place where people could come, and then you see the impact that having that mentality has in the long run. I still have people coming up to me today, talking about it, being like, "Dude, what you did at that time — we needed that." And I think having that mentality, where you put yourself out there like that and try to take care of other people more than anything, in the long term, it's always going to pay off.

Bill: It comes back around.

The 1001Tracklist Partnership

Red: It always comes back around. So, switching gears — I want to go back into your relationship with 1001Tracklist. Obviously they're a similar type of company, they do a lot of numbers, a lot of reporting. Where did the relationship form with them, did it come naturally, or —

Bill: My goodness. So Bob had met Jacob, who's basically like the face of 1001Tracklist — a little different than Bob — and we all connected on a call, and decided one day, okay, let's put our brands together and do some fun stuff. We found out we work extraordinarily well together, and unlike a lot of people, when we say we're going to do something, we deliver, we get it done, so we work really hard. And they historically had really good relationships with artists, always putting on new talent and helping them develop, putting the scene on, and Bob and I are a little lighter-hearted, more fun about it, a little more slapstick, or frankly just goofing around most of the time, and 1001Tracklist takes a serious approach, very serious about the music. So when we brought our two brands together, our two teams together, it all just fit beautifully. And now it's evolved to the point where — they used to just tell all the statistics about who the top songs are, whatever, and now we're like, great, let's have Bob report it, let's use DJ Lovers Club style content to report on all this valuable data that people can get their hands on, get insights from, and we just amplify all their information. It's going to be a never-ending journey of collaborating with those guys.

Red: The process you guys have for putting out that content — and watching it in real time now, seeing what you just talked about — Bobby sits down, does the reporting, he's the face on camera, and then you see the collabs with 1001Tracklist and all that. Was that just a natural fit into the way you guys develop content? Because on the back end of things, Cisnerero did a collab with 1001Tracklist too, so that was one form of the content, and then you have the other form, which is the reporting — was that a natural progression, how it all came together?

Bill: Yeah, it's just, we're always looking around and asking, what is the information that's already out there that people aren't presenting in a way that would be super entertaining? We were like, great, this is simple, we love these people, let's take this information and get it out to people through Bobby being just like Bobby — it's simple, it just comes to you. We're constantly thinking about how to deliver new stories, new information, in new formats, so people are getting fresh info and getting educated on what's going on in dance music.

Red: And now do you have a team on the back end that you're constantly running ideas through, thinking, hey, maybe we should try this, maybe we should do that — how do you end up deciding? Just throw it to the wind and see if it works, or make an educated guess?

Bill: A lot of testing. And in some cases you just have to look around — I firmly believe in modeling, looking at what other people are doing successfully and applying it to your own vertical. Like I said earlier, we looked at the Rap TV guys, saw how they were doing some of their storytelling, and were like, let's bring this to dance music, this doesn't exist. So we did that, and it helped blow things up, and we're constantly getting a feel for how storytelling styles are changing, and how we can bring that back to dance music culture, so people can get stories in the way that's currently popular, and the way that people learn.

Social Media Growth

Red: Well, talking to Bobby on the episode we never got to release, I was asking him about that, and he said, "You know, there's the low-hanging fruit — you have the Dom Dolla, the John Summits, those clips you could report on and post. Then you have the more underground stuff, and then you have the DJs or producers that people may not know, and they could put their music out and that helps them get it out there." It's interesting, because the way content has developed over the last couple of years — it's been developing for a long time. I think back to Facebook, when I was in college that was the thing, I haven't been on Facebook in years.

Bill: Dude, people are on there.

Red: I know.

Bill: Yeah, they are on Facebook. Boomers — but there's people in different countries, our age, really in the thick of it. When you see the numbers of people on those platforms, you realize how many people are actually in the world, because I don't know a single person on Facebook right now, and then you're like, wait, there's that many people.

Red: Are you guys across all platforms, on there too?

Bill: Yeah, basically, we're there. Dude, it's like auto-posting on there and we just gained like 30,000 followers in the past 28 days or something, it just happens.

Red: Have you noticed any specific types of content that helped you grow significantly at certain periods in time?

Bill: Yes — nostalgic content was a huge cheat code for the past year and a half, when people weren't addressing some of the music that you and I grew up on, and even earlier, and weren't giving credit where credit was due for the pioneers. We took it upon ourselves to do that. People used to call Tiësto a sellout — that was the narrative of the time — and I was like, this is an insane thing, that people are calling the guy who built a massive portion of this scene this. So we started to give artists like him, and others who were treated similarly, their flowers, and be like, respect where this all came from. It worked incredibly well, and it was also something I personally wanted to do — I wanted to set the record straight and give the legends what they deserved.

Music Then And Now

Red: Well, what I'll say now — this could lead into the conversation between the music then and the music now — how has it all developed, what are your opinions on the difference between the music then and now?

Bill: Okay, let me be clear — every day, me and my team are helping market all of the new music, pretty much top to bottom, people come to us and say, help me get the word out on this music, this show, whatever it is. So I get a little lost in the sauce, and I have my favorites because I work with them all the time, but I don't know, dude — some songs smash, but it's tough to compare to some of the golden-era songs we were raised on. I don't know, it's evolving, there are so many different sounds, so many different pockets, that's the beauty. All these subgenres are arising, and there are cult fan bases for each one of them.

Red: Well, talking to 4B about it — obviously 4B is a legend, and Jersey, great state in the union — when he was explaining it, one of my favorite clips of that podcast is him talking about the difference. He even said it's not comparable — the music people were making back at that time, he feels, are songs you could play for decades, that will last forever. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but the clip kind of gives the feeling that a lot of the songs being made now —

Bill: Trends are trends.

Red: And I think that's true, and —

Bill: Genre trends, bro, you saw what happened with Afro house, and now melodic techno — six-month waves of things, people getting obsessed with things and then literally throwing it in the trash.

Red: Yes. And honestly, I know a lot of people like to pick sides on this, but it's cool to see how people now, when we mentioned the Sidepiece thing, the way they're making edits of those songs that were big dance music songs at that time — that also helps, because you might not have known that was the song. And I think that goes back to what you were saying, how you want to pay homage to these people, report on this, make sure people know the impact Tiësto made, we can't let people call him a sellout. I think that era of music was so powerful, and I think people aren't so willing to accept the music happening now. Especially — everyone always talks about the TikTok effect, how you could have one good drop and the song doesn't tell a story. I think that's true. But I think the best artists, no matter what, it may take longer, but they're still going to rise to the top.

Bill: Yeah, give it ten years, maybe we'll look back on some of these songs and say —

Red: Those were the classics.

Bill: Yeah.

Red: You know what, I think people coming up in this era right now are going to look back and say that — I think it's just, as you continue going, the old heads of that era, it's good, but it kind of goes against dance music, it's such a welcoming genre, that I feel like — and listen, there are so many songs being made right now that I have never gotten so hyped in the Iron Paradise, when those drops hit —

Bill: It's a never-ending stream of bangers. It's a very competitive space, there is so much good music, and there are a lot of people making it.

Red: Oh my god, dude.

Bill: There are so many talented people that we don't even know about right now.

Red: And now robots are making it too.

Bill: It's — what do you think about this whole AI effect on music?

Red: Oh man, I've got to be careful with what I say.

Bill: Yeah.

Red: I mean, it's probably inevitable that robots are going to take more and more part in the entire process of making music, and even creating the content, throwing the events. I think it's going to be more and more integrated with technology, and we can fight it, and it will be fought, and there will be some lines that need to be parsed, over who owns what — can you use their creatives without permission? Some things need to be set straight, but at some point the technology is slowly figuring out how to help make bangers, or make bangers on its own. It's unstoppable at this point.

Bill: Just talking about a recent thing with that — that song, "I Run."

Red: Yeah. I mean, you've seen what's going on with that — I couldn't even follow it, there was so much going on, but I got the general scope of it. The first version that was released had AI vocals, correct?

Bill: Yeah, yeah.

Red: And then there was a girl who actually did the vocals, and there was a difference, and that sparked an entire debate on what's going on — it's a hot topic right now.

Bill: It's really hot right now.

What's Next For DJ Lovers Club

Red: So what's next for you guys, then, for DJ Lovers Club — what's on the forefront, what's going on in the upcoming future?

Bill: Honestly, we've just been doing really fun stuff — we just had the Sidepiece boys in Brooklyn to do a pizza shop pop-up, did the same thing with Craze. We're just going to keep doing this all over the place — create our own ecosystems and environments for people to come together to listen to music. Probably going to do more and more long-form style storytelling, get Bob to sit down with some artists and really go deep on some things. On the events side, it's really a matter of selecting where we want to go next — we're getting asked left and right, and it's like everyone's telling me, pump the brakes, let's measure and analyze where we want to go, because once we go, it's trial by fire, and we're going to throw it all down. So it's just consistent growth, and consistently doing the things we're already doing, but creating more pockets in culture. We're going to create more and more moments, and of course we use those to help our clients — we're literally curating, like, okay, cool, we're going to do a pop-up here, get a bunch of your songs pre-saved, get you a bunch of data so that when you do your next show in the market, you're going to have that data. Then we're going to market this specific song, maybe get the artist who performed it at the pop-up, and then get that content everywhere. So we're going to use these little pockets of culture we're creating, or already covering, to help push the artists, the labels, and the managers who are like, help us.

Red: Well, it's been amazing to see what has happened so far, and just hearing what the plans are for the future — I'm excited to see what's next. What about for you? You've been so into this, the music, as of late — what's this been, your vibe?

Bill: This says — I kind of just follow the energy, I'm a big energy guy. Walking human form of pure lightning — that's what, if people ask me who I am, what I am, that's what I am.

Red's Origin Story

Red: I think when Reds New Brunswick took off, I naturally connected with a lot of DJs. We had two that were the residents, and they played every week, and at that time dance music was obviously on the rise heavy — I was always into it, as we've talked about on this podcast a lot. So as I — I originally started this podcast to get regulars at Rutgers, the people that were coming to Reds, the athletes from Rutgers — Gio Baker was the first episode, he was one of the best players in the all-time history of Rutgers basketball, he's an amazing guy, and he was the first episode. So, the Rutgers athletes, regulars from the bar, my friends — once Reds closed, I had to pivot, I had to be like, okay, it's not going to be as many people in that vicinity, so what could I do, let me go talk to my friends. People had seen what happened with Reds, and that connected me — my energy fits well with dance music, right? No lie. So just like Bobby, it goes hand in hand — a lot of DJs in the New Jersey scene who led the charge on making New Jersey what it was, and the Jersey Shore, saw that through Reds New Brunswick, and I connected with them, and one by one I was connecting with more DJs, and that led to a connection with Mikey Baronichi down here in Miami. Then I connected with 4B through that episode, because he commented on one of the clips, and he had made songs with Mikey Baronichi. He saw the content, and naturally, I think the energy gravitated me toward this type of music — I've always been into it, but actually being part of it now, doing this podcast, reporting on it, getting the inside stories from people who've influenced it, I think it just naturally took it that way. I was doing it full-time, trying to do one episode a week and firing clips every day, and then I took a step back and thought about what I really wanted. Reds New Brunswick was everything I ever wanted to do, that was my dream. I watched my grandpa growing up, who was the original Red, and we would go anywhere, it didn't matter, we were down in Florida, people would say, "Hey Red, how you doing?" And I was like that as a young kid — you see that, and you're like, this is so cool, everybody knows him. I always wanted to be Red, I wanted people to say, "What's up, Red, how you doing?" I'm the only grandson with red hair, so I feel like it was my destiny. And when my dad and my uncle gave me a chance to run the show in New Brunswick, I was like, I'm not going to let this go to waste, I'm going to really charge this. And then we had to pivot, I had to make it my own, and it took off and became everything I ever wanted. Then it closed because of the pandemic, which was a major hit to me. I said, you know what, I've got the Reddcast, which I started there, I'm connecting with more and more people, I think this is a good way for me to take a step back now and just do this, connect with different types of people and hear their stories. And I realize, talking to people is very natural — as if you just came in, and we were the only people at the restaurant, I was bartending, you sat down, and I was trying to learn your story, right? It's very natural for me to talk to people like that, and I feel in some sense the podcast is like that — I'm hearing people's stories, and I'm someone they could talk to and tell their story to, and I think that's what the bartender relationship has always been to people, and it's something I always enjoyed. So connecting with more and more people in the dance music scene, I just felt like the energy coincided, and I've been connecting with bigger and bigger people in that space, right? And so I decided, you know what, I'm going to follow that, and now that I'm taking a step back from it and not doing it as much, let me connect with the people I've really wanted to get on here for a while, and whatever connections come from those — most of the time now I'm getting to connect with people who have had more success than me in the music industry and what I'm doing, so that's cool, because now I get to learn from them. Like this whole episode, I'm just learning everything you went through, and it's given me a new perspective. But I also would like to do something else along the lines of what I did at Reds New Brunswick, and hopefully open my own place again.

Bill: No way. That's something you really want to do?

Red: I think what I'd love to do when it comes to hospitality is a beautiful dinner spot, where people can come in, have a nice dinner, enjoy time with your friends and just talk and have a great time — create a nice ambiance, create a nice landscape for people to come in and enjoy themselves and make them feel welcome, you know, Reds' slogan, where friends spend time together. I feel like we're losing a lot of places like that, a lot of places where people want to go to be together, and it can unite people. I think that's one skill I've become very good at — or maybe it's just something I've always been natural at — bringing people together, and I saw that with Reds New Brunswick, right? And so, now that I'm just bartending — I mean, Jenks, it's one of the most fun things I could ever do, it's so much fun. All I have to do is show up and bartend.

Bill: Yeah.

Red: It's like, you're getting your ass kicked for hours and you're making great money, but it's great because I don't have to run the show — that's Joe Ro's job, night manager, baby, and PJ. But I get to show up and just bartend. Something in me wants to go back to creating what I created at Reds New Brunswick, so I think in the long term, trying to find somewhere I could go and do that again — that's my ultimate goal. I just started the search of looking where I could do that again, it's very early phases. And the thing is, I'm very happy doing what I'm doing right now — still get to help out my family business, there's a lot of history there with what happened at Reds New Brunswick. And bartending at Jenks was everything I could have ever imagined, it's the most fun I've ever had bartending. Pop.

Bill: That's peak.

Red: That's peak. It can't top — new Reds New Brunswick is my own spot.

Bill: Right. But you talk about bartending, I was born for it —

Back To The Jersey Shore

Red: All right, you've got to get him back to Jenks next.

Bill: Oh, you've got to come this summer.

Red: I know, dude, I haven't been back to the Jersey Shore in —

Bill: You've got to come on a Saturday night. I've abandoned my home, it's really sad, you've got to drag me back.

Red: Come on, you haven't abandoned it, the roots are always there no matter what. Are you planning any visits, or is it just kind of when it takes you there?

Bill: You know, all my friends are having kids and stuff, so I've got to go see them — Kev just had a kid, so I've got to go back. But summer was my time, and it was busy in Brooklyn, so next summer I've got to just, like, Marco —

Red: You guys come on a Saturday night to Jenks on that beach, you'll be like, what is going on? Because again, we never went over the bridge when we were going out at that time.

Bill: That was too far.

Red: Point wasn't where we would go — I was at D'Jais every night, Thursday through Sunday, I never missed.

Bill: How's D'Jais doing now?

Red: They're good, it's not as crazy as it used to be.

Bill: It doesn't have the juice like that.

Red: No — they still play "Calling" like every 40 minutes.

Bill: Oh yeah, that has never faded. But when you watch a video, there's a TikTok that's like a 2016 D'Jais TikTok, and you watch the scene in 2016 when "Calling" was played —

Red: Yeah. That's why I say 2018, 2019 was the most pure for me, because although there were bigger numbers in '21, and it's kind of died a little bit since, the energy that was created at that time was just unmatched.

Bill: Wow.

Red: So it's changed a lot, obviously, and that's just the natural progression of things. But alluding to what I was saying before, about Jenks on a Saturday night — every place has their spot. Jenks is a spot where, if it's nice out, people are going to be there, but Saturday night it's like, okay, we're going to Jenks. Whereas you could bounce around and go to any different places anytime — and D'Jais is still juice, don't get me wrong.

Bill: Yeah.

Red: We went on a Friday night this summer, I had one Friday night off, we went, and you can move around — and that is not what I'm used to.

Bill: That is not good, that's not the way it used to be. We were thinking about doing something there, like bringing an artist in and doing a D'Jais takeover — we should probably do that still.

Red: If you watch Jenks now and see what it is, it's a massive rave on the beach.

Bill: Wait, so you think Jenks is something we should come back and do, like, a proper show?

Red: If they'd be willing to do it, you should do it at Jenks — it's a rave on the beach, I'm telling you. Mikey Baronichi came, and I said, "Listen, I'm just trying to prep you for this, you've never seen anything like this." Working there this summer, I got to see it firsthand, and I was like, what they've done here is unbelievable, it's not even close, it's the best place. And it's unmatched, the vibe on a Saturday night out on that beach.

Bill: Is there a DJ booth there? Would it be good for a proper set, with a big crowd in front of them?

Red: Thousands, bro — on Memorial Day weekend, they'll clock 10,000 people in and out of that place, you fit 5,000 in there at a time, it's insane.

Bill: It's indoor?

Red: It's outdoor, on the beach. Totally outdoor. And I should explain why it changed — they built makeshift bars on the beach and roped it off. It used to go all the way down, the beach was just down, and it was a bit of an older crowd, consistent throughout the years. After the pandemic they fenced it off, built three makeshift bars — everyone's on the sand, temporary structures, three bars out there, twenty-seven bartenders serving thousands of kids out there.

Bill: Do any artists come Friday and Saturday night — do they book artists?

Red: No, they don't do it like that, they don't need to — Encore holds it down, he's the guy every Saturday night, him and High Def. High Def will bring people in for Friday nights.

Bill: Got it. But they're not into bringing in a big-name artist, they haven't done that historically?

Red: Is that something that should be done?

Bill: It's a hundred percent something that should be done.

Red: Okay, got it. I don't even know if I've mentioned that to Joe Ro, but I've thought it many times.

Bill: You should mention it to him and see — I would love to do something like that.

Red: We are making this happen — I'm talking to Joe Ro and PJ. Joe Ro, the night manager, runs the show, PJ's the owner, with his family.

Bill: And we will make it happen. Summer 2026.

Red: Yeah. And it will be unfathomable — we can get all the homies, get proper artists, make it a thing. How many people fit on the beach?

Bill: Thousands, dude, I'm telling you.

Red: But can you make it bigger if we needed to — bigger than Superior Ingredients? It'll be —

Bill: What was the question you asked?

Red: How many thousands of people can fit?

Bill: I mean, it's insane, it's a massive rave right now, and they just enter — it's non-ticketed, right, everyone just goes in and drinks?

Sealing The Jenks Show

Red: Bennies, as people in Miami would say — that's the Jersey Shore in general. Headliner had the tables, of course, but there's none of that here, everybody's one, which is what I love about the Jersey Shore, you go into the trenches — it's insane. So inside at Jenks is the live band, they have all those people in there, and then you've got the beach — whenever I'm working South Beach, I'm like, god damn. But you've got to rotate, you've got to pay your dues, and when you get out on that beach it's a completely different vibe, and the demographic of the kids is different — when I work the beach versus when I work inside, I'll see all the kids who used to come to Reds New Brunswick and everyone connected to them, versus when I'm inside, I won't see half of those people. It's insane. So it was funny — one bartender said to me, I got a chance to work the beach, the best bar, which is Tiki, on Saturday of Labor Day weekend, head-to-head, myself and Casey LaBosta and Jordan, Kobe, to see who would be the greatest of all time. She's one of the greatest I've ever seen, that's why I call her Jordan — and she had beaten me twice before that, so I made this narrative that we were going head-to-head, because there are only two bartenders at that bar.

Bill: Wait, so how do you measure that — who's winning?

Red: You look at the sales at the end of the day, who punched the most into the register. And for me, it wasn't even about beating her, it was about putting myself against the people I view as some of the greatest bartenders to ever do it — the bartenders at Jenks, the people who've done it at D'Jais, all these places, even the Jersey Shore in general, it's a master class. And I have a true appreciation for it, because I'm in that industry.

Bill: Is Bar A still a thing?

Red: Bar A is still just Tuesdays, they've kind of faded on the weekends, it's not the same as it used to be. They used to be packed Tuesdays and jumping on the weekend nights too, as you remember if you ever went out there — but they still do Beat the Clock on Tuesdays, still jumping.

Bill: Maybe we set up some kind of artist pop-up or a proper show at Jenks — if you were to do a show at Jenks, and it was marketed for a while, and you brought in a big artist, it would be insane.

Red: It's totally possible, a hundred percent possible, we could definitely make it happen.

Bill: All right, you just have to clear it with the guys.

Red: I'll push it — I'm not Joe Ro, he runs the show, I push it off to Joe Ro. You make a show at Jenks, it's one big rave out there — when Mikey came, I said, "You're not ready for this," I was trying to explain to him what it is, him being in dance, playing all these shows before, and I said, "Just wait." And he said, "Dude, that was unbelievable."

Bill: Cool.

Red: Completely different than anything he'd ever seen. We could film like a proper set — have the drones flying over Jenks, watch a sea of people on the beach.

Bill: There's no problem with that. I think Encore and High Def would love to do that, and I think they'd love to be part of it, because Encore is dropping — he's like the resident DJ there, every Saturday night it's the beach party with Encore, and he's dropping nuclear missiles.

Red: Wow. And it's unbelievable — when you put me at South Beach, the bar directly in front of the DJ booth, you have all those kids and that music firing, and I'm five hundred milligrams of caffeine deep, and I'm just slinging, you have no time to think, you just point at someone, make the drink, onto the next, punch the register, put the cash in, give them the change, onto the next. You go 35% faster, statistically speaking, than if I was inside listening to a live band.

Bill: Right.

Red: There's no measurable data that shows that, but I promise you it's a minimum 35% faster.

Bill: 35.

Red: And if you guys were to put on an event there, it would be one of the greatest nights, the energy would be unbelievable, it'd be an amazing collaboration.

Bill: Okay, cool, let's make it happen.

Red: So if anything comes from this episode of the Reddcast, we're going to have DJ Lovers Club at Jenks.

Bill: Yeah, that's what we should do.

Red: It's all-time. I've got to go home, bro — let's create an excuse.

Bill: Bring you back to Jersey.

Red: Yeah — great state in the union, where you're from, reigning supreme. Let's make it happen.

Bill: All right, let's do it.

Red: Wow, we are on a mission after this episode. Let's go, dog, damn, I'm fired up. Anything else you want to talk about, in the future, for you guys, or what's going on with you?

Bill: No, man — listen, our mission is really simple, we're constantly trying to be the best in the world at creating a culture, in whatever form it is, and we're trying to innovate and bring more people into the culture we think is representative of the dance music community, and then learn from others and grow it and grow it and grow it. We're just trying to be the best at that in the world, all the time, and we've never stopped pushing for that.

Red: Let's go, all-time. Dude, thank you for taking the time, thank you for your patience, waiting for us, hosting us — studio looks amazing.

Bill: So much fun.

Red: This was a blast, dude, and I'm glad I got to learn the story. We'll get Bob in the chair next — no other way, it's automatic, back-to-back Hendrickson, very simple.

Bill: Done.

Red: No other way. And we're out, baby, let's go — appreciate you, dog.

Bill: No other way, let's go.

Red: All-time. That place is [...] juice.