Good Night Mr. Lewis: DJ Cassidy on Remixing, Faxing, & Birthday Parties

You know you’ve been around for too long when you start interviewing the offspring of people you used to know. Add up all that "Uncle Stevie" talk and the obligatory "legend" rap (which I guess is better than being called an ass), and I feel like I’m due any second for a mid-life crisis. If I didn’t already have Nicole, my beautiful 21-year-old girlfriend, I’d surely have to get myself one of those. DJ Cassidy is a solid young man, as is his dad, uber-agent Johnny Podell. Cassidy reminds me of Mark Ronson a few years back; he’s super cool, well-mannered, extremely talented and always respectful. We talked about his upbringing, his obsession with rewatching videos of his own birthday parties, and a sad thank-you fax that never got answered.

Hi Cassidy ...
Before we start—I have a Steve Lewis story. The year’s 2000, I believe, and I’d come onto the scene about a year ago through Jon Lennon and Vegas. I started to go to Spa to hang out, listen to the DJs, meet the promoters, and try to put myself out there to get some cool jobs. I couldn’t get into Spa by myself, not only because I didn’t know the people at the door, but I was also about 18 years old, and I didn’t have ID. So Jon Lennon or Vegas brought me to Spa one night and I met Steve—I knew Steve’s name, but as we were walking in, I got the lowdown on who he was. The next day, I went to my manager Damon Degraff’s office, and I wrote a letter to Steve. It went something like: “Dear Steve, it was great to meet you last night; as I told you, I currently DJ at blank and blank and would really love to get into Spa. Hopefully we can work out a slot for me, here’s my information, and I hope to hear from you soon.” I faxed that to Steve and definitely never heard back.

I never saw that fax ...
I’m sure you didn’t, because who faxed, first of all? And who faxes “nice to meet you” letters to people who work in the club world? It’s not exactly something you do, but I was brought up to write letters to thank people for gifts, to say “nice to meet you,” to get things you want, and this was all of the above. It would be awhile before I got into Spa, but eventually I did get the job as the headliner, but it closed soon after, so I might’ve missed the heyday.

Yeah, I wasn’t there for the end of Spa, so you didn’t get in on my watch.
We didn’t overlap, so certainly my polite, well-mannered fax didn’t work.

I would’ve answered the fax if I had seen it, because that’s the kind of stuff we tried to follow up on out of respect. How much does respect have to do with your work? Is it just your upbringing, or have you found it to propel you to a higher stratosphere?
I think respect has helped me a hundred percent. I think good old-fashioned manners, good old-fashioned thank-you letters—or thank-you texts, which they are now—are far few and between. It’s very rare to meet people in the music and nightlife business that I think are sincere, genuine, and honest. And sometimes when I say this to people, they say it’s like that in every world ... you just always think it’s only in your own world. That might very well be true, but unfortunately my experience lies only in this world, and I do see it as a cutthroat world, and that’s just not who I am. When someone pays me a compliment, I wake up the next morning and I remember that whatever that person said really made my night, and I text or I call them to say thank you and how much it meant to me, and that’s just something that I always do.

Now you’re one of the premier DJs of this mash-up era or genre ... you have this “he’s real” reputation now. You had a birthday party recently, and everyone in New York showed up? Yeah, my birthday parties have become surreal moments in my life. I have it filmed every year, and I must watch it once a week.

You still watch your birthday parties? Is that fancy hat you’re wearing going to fit your head soon?
It’s not an ego or a gloating thing; it’s just that to me, these nights are so special. First, because so many people that I look up to and have looked up to my whole life come. Three years ago I had Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh perform; two years ago Big Daddy Kane and Naughty by Nature; last year Bel Biv Devoe, KRS-One, and Nice and Smooth. So we’re not even talking about who’s there ... these are people that come and perform. I’m still the little kid who looked up to these guys as a five- and six-year-old. I’m still the same kid who went to see Naughty by Nature when I was in the fifth grade at the Apollo. So to have them at my birthday party performing is a completely surreal thing for me.

Your dad is Johnny Podell, one of the serious rock n’ roll managers/agents. I know your dad from back in the day; I ran into him on the street the other day while he was talking to you on his cell.
Yeah, in fact, if I know the story correctly, you and my dad both lived on 30th and 3rd in the mid to late 1980s. I remember that walk-up apartment building.

He was my upstairs neighbor, and we were both transiting through this neighborhood, trying to get to someplace better. My apartment back then was all covered with graffiti, every square inch of it.
Funny you should say that, because ... let me explain my dad’s apartment. My dad had gone through ups and downs at that time, and had lost everything, except us. And when he was trying to get his life back on track, he moved into that studio apartment on 30th on 3rd, and he let me and my sister draw on the walls with big chalk sticks. So it’s funny that your walls were graffitied, because ours were also.

My walls were done by Splash and all these other graffiti artists; it was that kind of building.
Well, his wasn’t done by any famous graffiti artists, but by six-year-old me.

Well, you eventually became famous.
I don’t remember you from that time, I was way too young, but when the Spa days came around, and I started to hear your name again, and I mentioned it to my dad, he said, “Oh, yeah, we used to live in the same building.” So when I wrote the fax to you that I never got a response from, I’m sure I knew about the apartment and had put all the dots together at that point.

I’ve got to yell at some old staff and say that I never got this important fax that could’ve changed my life. So you’re a DJ and a producer now. It seems like after a while, a lot of DJs get to a point where they start to favor the sound they’re producing, and eventually they stop DJing. Is there going to come a time very soon when you’re going to hang it up to be a producer, or is DJing something you really want to hang onto? Are you going to stay relevant?
Well, “absolutely” to the last question. I love DJing. I started to DJ when I was ten years old; I asked my parents for two turntables and a mixer. It was my hobby first ... I never anticipated it to be a career. I went to NYU, I finished, and then it became apparent that it was going to be a career. I love DJing, but I don’t love every job ... but at the end of the day, it’s how I make a living, so I often perform and I don’t enjoy it, and I often perform and I go home exhilarated. But we’re talking about a career, here. If I only wanted to DJ for fun, I would take a small percentage of my offers, and the others I would just say no to. If I wanted to make music just for fun, I wouldn’t really shop a track or sign an artist, I would just make music, and if somehow it got to a rapper who wanted to do a song, it would be great. Right now, my DJ career makes me a lot more money, but when that gets reversed, I assume just by the nature of wanting to make more money, I’ll slow down, and I’ll spend more time in the studio producing. I’ll always want to DJ, but I certainly will DJ less frequently as the success of the other career grows.

See part 2 of this interview, including a track from O’Neal McKnight produced by DJ Cassidy.