{"id":16,"date":"2015-10-13T22:13:29","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T22:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/?p=16"},"modified":"2015-10-13T22:13:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T22:13:29","slug":"andrew-eppen-the-life-of-a-student-dj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/2015\/10\/13\/andrew-eppen-the-life-of-a-student-dj\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Eppen: The life of a student DJ"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Kimberly Wethal<\/p>\n

Sept. 23, 2015<\/p>\n

You know him on stage as \u201cMcCoy\u2019s Boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, that is.<\/p>\n

Originally choosing a name based off a love for \u201cStar Trek\u201d and the show\u2019s character Leonard McCoy, DJ and UW-Whitewater senior Andrew Eppen is looking to rebrand himself as a professional performer as he strives to reach new heights in an ideal music career.<\/p>\n

Opening for Timeflies at UW-W\u2019s second-annual Welcome Back concert on Sept. 1, Eppen achieved another milestone as he played for hundreds of peers: his biggest crowd, and his \u201cbest show yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so nervous to play before the show,\u201d Eppen said. \u201cOnce I got on stage, I was in the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a \u201cbig deal\u201d to be a DJ in the United States, Eppen says, because most come from other countries. Most notably, The Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Eppen\u2019s appreciation for music started with school band and the Backstreet Boys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always someone who listened to music,\u201d Eppen said. \u201cThat\u2019s something that I got from my dad. He was in just a fun band in college, and he was a guy who really showed me a lot of music when I was a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had a friend as a senior in high school who listened to Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and deadmau5. He wasn\u2019t sure if he liked it.<\/p>\n

EDM is dance music commonly played at raves, nightclubs and festivals.<\/p>\n

At first, Eppen thought the genre was weird.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more I listened to it, the more I got into it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That led him to go to Pandora Radio and search for more DJs who would eventually become his favorites and that convinced him to try his own hand at it.<\/p>\n

Eppen started to play around with DJ software and EDM with friend Mark Jansky as a college freshman and found a passion in creating electronic dance music sets.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring that first semester I started playing around with some DJ stuff, and Andrew joined in because he thought it looked cool,\u201d Jansky said. \u201cWe just started with some programs on our computer without any external DJ gear, and we slowly bought bigger and bigger stuff, and now we have a pretty professional setup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mixing music in a free DJ app led Eppen to play venues in Madison and Milwaukee clubs, most notably The Rave. He\u2019s gone so far as to travel to Missouri to play with DJ S3RL, an internationally known artist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI road-tripped it out, and for one show I got to taste what it\u2019s like to be a real DJ,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

National and international DJ radio stations from California and England, respectively, were taking notice of him during his sophomore year of college.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019d be international DJs from around the world, and we\u2019d have our set time for an hour to play all different kinds of EDM,\u201d Eppen said. \u201cIt was a really good community and we\u2019d have a chatbox \u2026 really support each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eppen also did monthly mixes for a record label before they decided to part ways due to artistic differences, among other things.<\/p>\n

He describes opening for Timeflies as \u201ceuphoric.\u201d He overcame any pre-show jitters once he was on the stage and was \u201cin the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once comfortable on stage, Eppen lets the music move him and reads the crowd, playing different music styles the audience likes and responds to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reactions the audience had right away to my set \u2026 I was clapping, and then the whole crowd started doing it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe whole experience is amazing. The feeling I get on stage is unlike anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

On stage is where he wants to be for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

He recently started talking into the microphone, which he says breaks down barriers between the DJ and the crowd and makes a DJ look like an actual person. It\u2019s one of his biggest pet peeves when a DJ isn\u2019t doing all they can to interact with and engage with their audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they look bored, it\u2019s like, \u2018why are you up there?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI want to be up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opening at the Welcome Back concert gave Eppen a chance to showcase his work to peers who\u2019d only heard about his <\/span>passion in the past, and show them what EDM is all about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Timeflies was a really cool experience for me, because going to school here, most people know me as a DJ and I would talk about the music and how awesome it was, but the thing is people didn\u2019t know. They didn\u2019t know the music, and they didn\u2019t know what it was like to experience it,\u201d Eppen said.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing Eppen says is \u201cin the works\u201d is learning to produce his own music and play new instruments to add to the music-mixing and set-creating skills he already has.<\/p>\n

\u201cDJing is all about knowing people, and I think I can do a better job of getting my name out there within the community.,\u201d Eppen said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s about stepping outside of your comfort zone \u2026 that\u2019s gotten easier for me because as I progress in my DJ career. I\u2019ve gotten more confident.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kimberly Wethal Sept. 23, 2015 You know him on stage as \u201cMcCoy\u2019s Boy.\u201d For now, that is. Originally choosing a name based off a love for \u201cStar Trek\u201d and the show\u2019s character Leonard McCoy, DJ and UW-Whitewater senior Andrew … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5773,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5773"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/kimberlywethal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}