Name: Chrissy Shively aka Chrissy
Occupation: DJ, producer
Nationality: American
Recent release: Chrissy teams up with Mr Wallace for "It's Time To Dance", out now via Maximum Airtime.
Recommendations: Today my picks would be Moon Is The Oldest TV, a great documentary about Nam Jun Paik, and Out Beyond The Kingdom Of by Sun Ra & His Arkestra.

[Read our Mr Wallace interview]

If you enjoyed this Chrissy interview and would like to stay up to date with his music and current live dates, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Soundcloud, twitter, and Facebook.



What made it appealing to you to DJ yourself? What was it that you wanted to express and what, did you feel, did you have to add artistically?

I started DJing when I was a kid—around 12 or 13—but I feel like even before that I was thinking about music in the ways a DJ would, without really knowing what DJs were.

I've always been fascinated with the connections between different songs and artists and genres, and how those things fit together, and I've always loved that moment where I can share something I really love with somebody else and see the look on their face as they hear it.

Which other DJs were important for your development and what did you learn from them?

There were a few DJs who first showed me what DJing even was, and made me realize this was something I could do: Derek Moudy, who was a friend of my older sister, and who DJed at a gay bar in Kansas before moving on to DJ for many years at Rich's in San Diego; Samson Cooper, Darrell Edwards, and Henry Self, all of whom I met at the record stores where they worked in Kansas City, and who all really took me under their wings when I was a teenage raver and helped me grow as a DJ.

Later, all the DJs in Chicago when I lived there really helped me grow—the caliber of DJ talent in that city is just incredible, and it really forces you to step up your game in order to compete.

What does a great DJ add to the clubbing experience?

A DJ can set the entire tone of the night, guide people's emotional states, regulate the energy of the crowd, all while giving people a mix of things they want, things they didn't know they wanted, and things that challenge them and expand their horizons.

A truly great DJ does all this while also considering the different demographics and experiences of the people in the audience, and playing music whose energy, vibe, lyrical content, etc. all contribute to making everybody in the room feel comfortable and welcomed and safe.

Do you think that DJing creates a new form that can take on the qualities of a composition in its own right? Is this something you strive for?

Absolutely. I definitely tend to think of the songs I write as mini-DJ-sets, and I think DJing, songwriting, and playing live music all use very similar decision-making processes and creative faculties, just in different ways and at different time-scales

When digging for music to play at your sets, what do you listen for?

Things that I'm humming after the fact.

How would you describe the experience of DJing, physically and mentally?

If you're having a good set, then the physical part of DJing is mostly just a lot of dancing around and enjoying the music. If you're not having a very fun set, then it's a lot of standing around wishing you could sneak off to grab something to drink, or use the bathroom.

Mentally you're listening and enjoying the music, but also feeding off the audience's energy and trying to guess what they'll respond to, while mentally planning several songs in advance, lining up the things you want to play in 5 or 20 or 40 minutes.

You're also thinking about who is after you and how you might set them up for a good set (or, if you're the last DJ, thinking about what songs you'll play to close out the club).

Do you listen – and DJ - with your eyes open or closed?

Both.

How does the decision making process work during a gig with regards to the inclusion of key records, the next transition and where you want the set to go? How far do you tend to plan ahead during a set?

I never plan sets in advance—I usually put together a little folder of songs I want to play, but once I'm up there, I'm winging it in terms of playlist / programming / sequencing.

As soon as I'm in the club, I'm sizing up the audience and getting ideas about the overall structure of my set, and I'm pretty much always mentally planning 2 or 5 or 10 tracks ahead, in a kind of loose way that can be changed at a moment's notice (depending on how the crowd reacts to this or that).

When you're DJing, does it actually feel like you're inventing something on the spot – or are you inventively re-arranging patterns from preparations, practise or previous performances?

On the spot! I love the magic and serendipity of new discoveries in front of an audience.

Describe how the presence of audiences/dancers influences your mixing. How do you engage with them?

It completely guides your entire performance! Everything becomes about catering to them, trying to get a good response, pushing their boundaries, making little jokes or playing things to get a rise out of them, etc.

Sometimes you are kind of holistically watching the entire audience as one mass, and other times you kind of lock in on one or two dancers who really feel like they're connected to you and are leading the vibe for the rest of the room if that makes sense.

Online DJ mixes, created in the studio as a solitary event, have become ubiquitous. From your experience with the format, how does the experience and the way you DJ when you subtract the audience?

It's a different kind of mix, and a different kind of DJing. It's radio, essentially; you're playing shorter records that don't have to be as dancefloor-focused.

I like it, because it's a chance to play the records I really love that don't always work as well on a dancefloor.

Technology has continually taken on more steps of DJing, producing and other "creative" tasks. From your point of view, where does "technology" end and "creativity" begin? Especially in the light of advances in AI, where do you see the role of humans in DJing versus that of technology?

I'm not sure I agree with the premise! Technology has certainly made certain tasks easier, but I feel like that frees us up to be creative in different ways.

For instance, CDJs have certainly made cueing and beatmatching easier than they were with vinyl, but for me I find that gives me more time to mentally line up the next few tunes, throw in extra layers with a third (or fourth) deck, play with different tempo transitions, loop sections and cut things up to edit songs on the fly, etc.

The same is true with production—DAWs and VSTs have streamlined a lot of the production process, but the end result has been a trend toward more complex songs (compared to the '90s) that probably took about the same amount of time to make, as opposed to the same old songs done faster due to help from a robot.

Collaboration is a key part of almost every aspect of music making, but it is still rare in DJing. Do you have an idea why this is? Tell me about your own views on back-to-back DJing, interactions with live musicians or other forms of turning DJing into a more collective process.

I view a b2b like any other kind of collaboration—it's an amazing experience when you really vibe with the other artist, the two of you understand each other, and you're having fun and playing off of each other. But it's excruciating when it's forced or unnatural.

A lot of b2b sets seem like they were the brainchild of an agent or a booker as opposed to the two DJs genuinely wanting to play together, and I wish that weren't the case.

DJing requires empathy, focus, time management, patience, and vision, among others. Are you finding that the way you play influences the way your life your life and vice versa?

I think my tendency to be organized (maybe a little too organized), my desire to make others happy, and my empathy for the person in the crowd who feels alone, or left-out, or uncomfortable—all these things really inform my DJing

Do you feel as though DJing is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more "mundane" tasks?

I like tea.

Let's imagine you lost all your music for one night and all there is left at the venue is a crate of records containing a random selection of music. How would you approach this set?

I'd be looking for things I know in that crate and trying to plan out enough music to buy time until a friend could bring me my backup hard drive. :)