The city of Las Vegas offers artists a terrific way in which to monetize their music: live residencies.
Artists ranging anywhere from Celine Dion to Guns N’ Roses have made Vegas their temporary home, seizing on the ability to perform their music night after night in front of a live audience without ever stepping foot on a tour bus.
But, for electronic artists, residencies are especially appealing. Vegas offers a seemingly endless influx of tourists with innumerable nightclubs to cater to their late-night demand. Nightclub residencies offer artists the unique opportunity to increase their exposure, develop a brand and make money.
Dee Jay Silver has worked with country superstar Jason Aldean as his DJ since 2009. The friends tour together and Silver spins between sets at festivals and amphitheatres across the country. But those late nights in Vegas are just as important.
“I love being out on the road with Jason every day but part of me is like, ‘I can’t wait to get back in a nightclub tonight,’” explained Silver. “I tell everybody, I get to live the best of both worlds: I travel with one of my best friends and one of the biggest country superstars in the world every day and I’m headlining Vegas at night.”
Silver grew up in Texas but has made Las Vegas his home. In his fourth year in residency at Hard Rock Hotel's Rehab nightclub, he's gearing up for the start of his next Vegas run at Bellagio's Hyde nightclub beginning June 30th.
Even in a Las Vegas nightclub scene where the game of one-upmanship is never ending, Hyde is something of an anomaly in that it features a crypto lounge inside called More Las Vegas, catering to those who seek ultra-exclusive privacy and use of cryptocurrency.
Growing up in Texas, Silver was exposed to country music from a young age and related to the way in which it told a story. But, by college, he gravitated to house music and hip-hop too. And, as a DJ, he was forced to carry a lot of records early on. On any given night, depending on the gig, he might be spinning rap music in New York, country music in the Midwest or electronic music in Miami with a quick stop in Texas for good measure.
That made him unique upon his entry to the world of country music, where there was little initial recorded crossover between country and EDM.
“We put out the first EP [on Sony] and it went great,” said Silver. “Then I started pushing out new records and they’re like, 'We just don’t know how to push this.'"
It wasn’t exactly an easy sell when it came to pitching his own music to record labels notoriously fond of pigeonholing.
“There was a change in guard [at Sony]. Randy Goodman came in – and he’s an absolute superstar, one of the best in the business – but he said straight up, ‘I don’t know what to do with you,’" said Silver. “And I was like, ‘Well, let me go.’ So we worked our way out of Sony with a gentlemen’s agreement. And I took it all back – my masters, images, logos, everything - and do it all on my own [now]."
Despite working with one of the biggest names in Nashville for almost ten years, Dee Jay Silver never released a full length album. But that changes this summer. Silver’s debut album was recorded in Nashville with Jared Sciullo at PhiveStarr Productions. The entire process took about a year and a half.
“Nothing makes things worse than being pigeonholed into a genre. And I just don’t believe in that anymore,” said Silver of the thought process heading into the studio this time around. "I want music I can play when I open for Jason Aldean. I want songs that I can play when I’m with Kane Brown. I want songs that I can play at Rehab in Vegas or play at Hyde Bellagio. I want it to have a part of the night where, whatever I put in, I made that, and put my heart and soul into it, and see a crowd react to it no matter what setting we’re in."
As the music industry continues a shift away from physical product toward online streaming and more, it’s become harder and harder for artists to monetize recorded music. The silver lining for an artist like Dee Jay Silver is that it's easier than ever to create on one's own terms. Silver wisely focuses on distribution and publicity, which frees him up to be as creative as he wants on record and onstage without being beholden to a record label.
The new album reflects his eclectic tastes and collaborations as well as the habits of a listening audience that are no longer relegated to a specific genre based solely on their favorite radio station.
"Because there’s so many different genres, we don’t have to worry about country radio play or pop radio play or hip-hop radio play," observed Silver. "In a perfect world, we can have a single in every format in the country. We’re gonna be all over the board: EDM, country, house, hip-hop. My goal on the record was for no two songs to sound the same."
The still briskly changing music industry has made a strong live show that much more important. Artists make the majority of their money today off ticket and merchandise sales. So that ability to try new things in front of a live audience, and see what works, is yet another reason why residency dates are so important.
"You go to these EDM shows – like look at Chainsmokers, for example – they’re [filling] the same amphitheatres that me and Jason Aldean are," Silver noted. "It’s a production: It’s the lights, it’s the sound, it’s the smoke and it’s a feeling. And when you see it for the first time, you’re like, ‘Holy cow. This is sensory overload.’ It’s everything you’ve ever wanted to see: Bass slapping you, strobes going off, cryo blowing, fire going up, confetti flies. And that’s the excitement."
It was Jason Aldean who was on stage last October when a gunman opened fire on the crowd assembled at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas from a nearby high rise hotel. Dee Jay Silver had just left the stage in search of his wife when shots rang out.
As it turned out, Silver's 1 year-old son was in a hotel room with a relative on the same floor as the shooter just a few rooms over. A SWAT crew rescued the child but it took hours before the family was reconnected.
Despite all of that, Dee Jay Silver was back on stage, in Tulsa, in an arena within two weeks and on a festival stage, in New Orleans, just 25 days after the Vegas shootings. His festival bookings continue this summer with a three-day run at Country LakeShake in Chicago June 22 through June 24.
"It was kind of the same thing. We were in an outdoor venue with buildings around and office buildings and private residences. And it was a little unnerving," said Silver. "But, at the end of the day, that’s what we do. And I will be damned if I let somebody take that away from us. We worked our entire life to be on that stage to do what we’re lucky and blessed enough to do for a living."
The world moves quicker than ever today. It's especially true in Las Vegas. But not even a year removed from the shootings, a resilient Las Vegas continues to come to grips with what happened last October.
"I was at game one of the Stanley Cup in Las Vegas. I was sitting there watching the crowd and it was like, nobody has forgotten it," said Silver. "People have dealt with it. Or they are dealing with it – not accepting it, but they’re definitely dealing with it or have dealt with it in their own way. I was standing on that stage literally five feet from Lil Jon and Travis Barker and Blue Man Group just watching the whole place. It was like, ‘I’m proud to be Vegas. I’m proud to be a Vegas local.'"
And in turbulent, divisive times, Dee Jay Silver remains as inspired by music as he ever has. Music as a unifying part of the healing process was clearly on his mind as he worked in the studio on his forthcoming album.
"When I listen to Eric Church or Snoop Dogg, I want to escape from whatever I’m dealing with that day. You let music cure whatever hurts you and take you to the place you need to be," Silver said. "Music makes you cry. Music makes you smile. It has an effect on a person and I think that’s the power of music. I can hear one song, you can hear the same song, and we can have two different feelings. There’s no right or wrong way to listen to it. That’s the healing power of music. That’s the positive power."
