Marco attends the “Project X” Los Angeles premiere. (FilmMagic)
New York City’s own Jesse Marco has made a name for himself in the music world, but it isn’t because the 22-year-old plays guitar, piano or any other traditional instrument for that matter.
What does Marco do to gain status as one of the premiere artists in America? He is a deejay.
Marco has played at some of the hottest nightclubs in New York City as well as international hotspots. Some of his celebrity clientele include Jay-Z, Heidi Klum, Alessandra Ambrosio, Russell Simmons and Spike Lee. He has spun at Liv, 1OAK, MIXX, VIP Room and Chinawhite, to name a few.
Cutting his teeth while interning at deejay academies as a teenager, Marco has brushed shoulders with industry royalty, including Mark Ronson and the late-DJ AM.
“I got into turntables when I was really young, my best friend had them and I saw him scratching and I said to myself ‘I really want to do that’,” Marco told The Post. “When I got a little older I interned for Mark Ronson and his record label which was really great. Through [Ronson] I met DJ AM and we became kind of close, he managed me for a little while and after that is snowballed into me doing my own thing.”
Marco has been touring nationally with Kirill Was Here, a nightlife photographer, as part of the “College Dropouts Tour,” taking over parties at colleges across America. He has also released a single “Daddy Cool” and was featured in Todd Phillips’ epic party film “Project X.”
Marco credits the current status of deejaying and the rise of EDM (Electronic Dance Music) as reasons for why he has become a nationally recognized performer.
“Now with Deejaying being in the spotlight, it’s really helping the culture,” Marco said. “I never thought that would really happen because I came from this school of you’re rocking the party and everyone is dancing with each other and now they are all looking at you. The best thing as a deejay is when people give you all of their energy and in turn that makes you want to give it all back to them and give an awesome show.”
With thousands of music fans flocking to the Ultra Music Festival, which wrapped in Miami last month, deejaying has indeed become part of the mainstream music culture and isn’t just about one particular genre or targeted toward a specific demographic.
“I think at the end of the day if you look at some of the most successful deejays and producers in the game right now, they are playing all types of music,” Marco said. “If you go see Skrillex you’ll hear everything, hip-hop, dubstep, everything. I’ve always thought that way, I’ve never sectioned myself off from a particular genre of music.”
Being an internationally known deejay is a dream come true, but Marco admits that he sometimes needs to sit back and relax when it comes to making his music.
“I get a little crazy about it, I’ll be working on a track for a really long time and I try to remind myself not to rush it,” Marco said. “I remind myself that this is what I love to do, it’s definitely my passion. At the end of the day if I was making 10 dollars or 10,000 dollars, it’s nice that I get to do it and it gets my job.”
There is one downside to Marco’s career, and only when he discovered his diet had changed did he realize he hit it big.
“When I was eating more room service that I was Katz’s deli and I started travelling internationally, that was probably the moment when I was like ‘Ok this is not just a side job, this is my career.’”