Grooming and Interviewer: Jesse S. Ramirez
Videographer: Ailina Dohn
In celebration of Pride Month, XOXO sat down to chat with Corey Craig. A seasoned DJ and member of the LGBTQ+ community who has played everywhere, from New York City to Sydney, Australia, Craig offers insights on his music tastes and his podcast.
You can watch or read the interview below.
Q: How has the DJ community changed over time compared to where you came from in New York, and how are the two differentiated?
Corey: It was everybody experiencing the music together. If you want to hear Junior Vasquez, his new remix, you have to be at the club to hear it. We were there if an artist wanted to come and surprise us at The Roxy. We bragged about those kinds of things. Little by little, we got a little more disconnected from just experiencing the music together. Now it’s, “Stare at the DJ like we’re a puppet show, don’t talk to anyone around you, take video.” You could have every 3D angle of every party now because everyone’s filming. It’s now in our own little bubble, and it used to be a clique of people. So I would say that the current state of the DJ community now is, “It’s not just what you play.” You have to do a show. You have to do cartwheels and backflips behind the DJ booth. You have to throw cake at people. You have to have a gimmick and I didn’t grow up with a gimmick. When I was coming out and wanting to be a DJ, it was because of the music, and I did not want to be seen. You needed a detective to find the DJ booths [in the ] late 90s, early 2000s. They weren’t like a control tower. We were not front and center.
Q: Do you have a regular location where you DJ, or do you like to move around? Do you travel?
Corey: A little bit of both. I’ve been a resident out in Fire Island for seven years or eight years. There’s this infamous underwear party. The gays love to be in our underwear whenever we can! It’s just bottoms, and we gotta show them off! This will be my sixth season out in Fire Island for the summer. I do it every other Friday. I’m known for being out there for the underwear party. It’s weird to say this is a residency, but every year I go back to Sydney, Australia, for Mardi Gras, and I’m technically considered a resident there because I’m always out there for Mardi Gras. There are always multiple parties. This year, I did a headlining set.
As far as New York goes, I use my diverse set of friends as an excuse to go to different places. That helps me get gigs and bounce around the city and do one-offs. I feel like in New York, people take you for granted if you have a residency and you call it that. I like to keep people guessing, like, “Oh, I’m gonna be here this time.” It’s just more fun for me. I find certain parties that I like to spin, and I come in and do those.
Q: Do you have a pocket in house music, tribal, jazz, Latin…?
Corey: My pocket is–I guess you could call it–British house that American people file in here. I listen to a lot of podcasts that come from the UK and from Europe. I’ll bring my knowledge base in the music that we know here in the US and then twist some of those sounds into what I play. I love to introduce people to new sounds. I would say I’m more like house disco because there’s a new disco phenomenon going on now that’s been going on for a while. So I’m primarily house and disco, and tech house if it’s late enough at night. There’s a complaint system going on out there now within the community about how some of these DJs want to play–as we call them–the pots and pans and circuit stuff at a pool party at 2 in the afternoon. So I try to be flexible and malleable. I can be environmental if necessary. But house and disco is where I am. Tech house and the new producers that are bringing that sound back, even some of the acid houses going on right now (the rave stuff), I grew up on that in Dallas, so I’m a little hodgepodge of a lot of different sounds. I love drum and bass but I know my limits. I would not do drum and bass justice, but I have plenty of drum and bass.
Q: Tell me about your best DJ experience and what made you say, “This was always what I wanted.”
Corey: The formative years of DJing really didn’t happen until I came to New York. Most of it was touring around with playlists and learning how to sequence songs and learning how to use the equipment. But as far as New York goes, I will say there’s two experiences that let me know this. I had been working since 2006. Ellen DeGeneres was trying to hire a new DJ and I thought, “Oh, I’ll do an audition video.” [She] never got to it because she’d already picked the person on Memorial Day weekend. Right before I decided to do this audition video, a friend who had moved to New York before I did was having his 30th birthday. He goes, “I know you’re trying to get into DJing and there’s this bar called Vlada, would you be available for it?” I’m like, “For you, of course!” I didn’t think anything of it. So, just to be nosy, I decided after filming the Ellen DeGeneres audition video I would go to the bar and check it out. I liked the bar; it was cute, and I was like, “Oh, I’m Corey Craig. I’m coming to DJ my friend’s birthday party on Saturday. Nice to meet you.” That was a breakthrough because it was the first time I’d ever spun for a crowd at all, and the owner came to me and said, “If you want Saturday nights, they’re yours. Hired on the spot.” So that’s when I was onto something.
Then, the next year, I started putting out CDs. Do you remember Food Bar down in Chelsea? I used to give them CDs. I would burn my mixes before podcasting happened. I would burn them 10 copies of every mix I recorded, and they would play them at Food Bar. So all these things led up to what [was] my first big breakthrough that really took off for me. The board of New York City Pride was trying to figure out who they wanted as DJs, and they wanted locals that year. I said, “I’ll give it my best, record a mix, and see what they think.” They liked it so much they made me the closing DJ. That was the headlining set. When the sun goes down, I’m playing for the crowd. I had a lot of people behind me by that point: people who were my friends and people who just supported and liked what I was playing.
Q: What artists are you bumping right now and why?
Corey: Definitely Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” album because it’s so different than what I play. There’s a group called Jungle. I don’t even know how to describe their sound, but this current sound they’re going for is very retro. Those are two that I keep going back to. Defected’s been putting some really good stuff out. I’ll listen to a show called The Glitterbox. It’s the Defected disco show. There’s a Spanish DJ that I listen to a lot and he has his own show too.
Q: What does it mean to be both an artist and a member of the LGBTQ+ community?
Corey: I think even that has evolved over the past 20 years. Back in the earlier days, the LGBTQ nightlife scene was all about being the influence. People would come together at gay bars and clubs to hear what was next. You would see our gay-friendly allies come to the bar with us together because they want to hear what’s next. We’ve lost that somehow. Sometimes, all we have in common is that we’re gay, but if you have music involved in that, that also brings other personality traits and other qualities out in people. As a member of the LGBTQ community, it’s important to have a certain level of visibility and you have a platform. I don’t pretend to have 100,000 people on any social media, but if something’s on my mind as far as the political climate, how we might be in danger, and how the trans community is in danger, I’m not going to shy away from that. If I can get someone to listen and understand a problem they may not be aware of, then why not? I’ve had people say, “Oh, well, all you’re supposed to do is just play your music.” That fires me up even more to go, “You know what, there’s clearly something you don’t know that we all need to know about and be aware of.” I don’t think LGBTQ DJs have to do this. If they want to stay neutral on politics and not get involved, by all means, do that. I can be very vociferous about certain issues that I think we need to pay attention to. I won’t always get it right because I am human, but I will say how I see things. As a member of the community, you should always be open to hearing different positions.
Q: Do you play strictly queer clubs or everything?
Corey: I owe homage to the LGBTQ community and the bar scene that made me and shaped me, but I would be neglecting myself if I didn’t try to do more mixed gigs, not just specifically LGBTQ things. As a citizen of this world and as a LGBTQ member of the community, we owe it to ourselves to go out and be part of the world. Music is more than just what we listen to. You’d be surprised how many people in the straight community love dance music as well, but something is keeping us from always being around each other, and it’s not for lack of desire; there’s just some weird microcosm out there that’s keeping us from doing it. I’m thinking bigger. There’s nothing wrong with being a DJ strictly in the LGBTQ community, but I’m thinking bigger. I want to look out and see everybody, all types of people, and know that I can entertain more than one community.
Q: Tell us about your podcast.
Corey: It’s just music. It’s basically, “Here’s where I am musically. This is what I’m listening to right now.” It’s an hour. It can be a 45-minute set. It could be a live set. It’s just music. It’s one of those things that I don’t know if I got grandfathered in as far as content goes, but I have a large following with it. People use it to work out. People use it at their parties. It puts me in places that I probably wouldn’t ever be physical–a pool party and somewhere I’ve never been–and I get to hear that they were listening to me. I don’t do it as much as I used to, and I need to do more episodes or at least record more of my live sets and put them out, but it’s literally just music. So, let’s say there’s a venue out there that’s interested in me. They’ve heard my name; they can go to the podcast. It is not about radio voice; it’s about the music.
Q: Is there any message you want to give to our LGBTQ+ audience in celebration of Pride Month?
Corey: I think we should be as proud and as loud as we always have been [and] keep in mind that there are things we need to consider regarding the upcoming elections. Enjoy Pride by all means, but remember that the fight continues. If you haven’t talked about voting with your friends, use Pride as a backdrop; say, “Look, we’re here celebrating ourselves. We need to make sure we can do this next year.” And look after each other as always. There’s news out there now that people are trying to threaten Pride events, and so if this gets out there to whoever can hear my voice or see my face, go out and have the Pride that we always do, but just look after each other a little bit more. I like living fearlessly, and I think we all have thrived as LGBTQ people by living fearlessly. this year’s Pride is not the time to stop because someone’s trying to threaten it.
Q: Are you doing any special events for Pride?
Corey: Some things are in the works. I always go to Fire Island on the Friday of Pride weekend. I always do it because there is a contingency of New Yorkers that want to get out of New York City, so they go out to Fire Island, and we have a good old time, but as far as the rest of the weekend, I have no idea. Some things in the pipeline could very well be confirmed by the time the day is over. As of now, there’s nothing I can announce.
Make sure to follow Corey’s Instagram for more on his events and podcast.
XOXO,
Your Fashion Bestie
