Rockstar Remixer & Crowd Surfer

"DJing is kind of another way of moving an audience, you can't just open a laptop and say you're a DJ." - Dan Sena

Artist Dan Sena has a long history with the music industry, ranging from electronic music to indie rock and even hardcore metal. A native of Southern California, where he has based most of his career, Sena originally started of playing in 90s punk bands Palefire and Adamantium, and most notably, as a guitarist of Stickfigurecoursel. The newly formed heavy, yet melodic, metal band eventually later became the inaugural artist on Dim Mak Records. Long story short, Steve Aoki (founder of Dim Mak) had a friend in the band and decided to help them out by splitting the costs (with artist Bastille) of releasing their debut album. And BAMN! That's how it happened. Crazy huh?

As time went by Aoki continued to sign bands to his newly formed label, including indie rock band Give Until Gone which also featured Dan Sena as vocalist and guitarist. Sena started this band with bassist Jim Schwartz in 1997 but, after a series of member changes, they broke up in 2001. Shortly following, Dan Sena emerged himself in yet another rock back, Bullet Train To Vegas, as guitarist and lead vocalist. Like his previous project, the band had a number of member edits but managed to release a few EPs. Unfortunately, the group broke up after the release of their second album The City And None of the Above in 2007.

So with all this talk about indie, hardcore punk music, how did Sena get involved producing electronic music? Well, coming from a family of artistis, like his grandfather poet Jorge de Sena, this young man's talents saw no limits; he's even been playing the piano since age 6! So following the break up of his then-current band (Bullet Train To Vegas) Sena decided to heed his long-time friend Aoki's encouragement to venture into electronic dance music. After some quick sessions playing around on vinyl and Serato, he got it down. And he got it down real good!

The beginnings of his electronic music career date back to Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar, where he became a long-time resident DJ starting in the mid-2000s. He also recently started spinning for Dim Mak's new Wednesday nights at Yost Theatre last August, also in Los Angeles. Since then, Sena has continued to release hard-hitting track after track, always trying to stay original and never borrowing samples. My favorite tracks are posted below, including one off his latest EP Candy Floss Art Capitalism (available on Beatport) as well as a video of his recent track "Poison The Air" featuring friend Penny (who was also featured on Skrillex's last EP "All I Ask of You.")

To learn more about Dan Sena, check out this interview he did with OC Weekly! It's on point (click here).

- Silva's Gold