Just know when it's a good song: DJ Elliot

DJ Elliot wears his personality on his sleeve. One look at him in his flashy suit with comic book pop art all over, and you can tell he is full of enthusiasm. This is exactly what attendees of the recent Hyderabad Comic Con 2017 got a glimpse of. The official DJ of Walt Disney World, he was excited to come to India because of the sheer energy of the people.

“I was in New Delhi last year for Comic Con and going by just the reactions of fans and people enjoying themselves there, I’m sure that the event is going to be five times its size in coming years. It’s soon going to be on par with the San Diego and New York Comic Cons. Plus, here it’s not just comics. So many more aspects of pop culture seep into movies, TV shows, music, which works for me and that’s why I want to grab any opportunity that I get to come here and play. In the US, there’s a Comic Con every other week and people are burnt out. Here, since it happens fewer times, the energy is amazing. It also makes the show inclusive for all kinds of people,” he shares.

Interestingly, he has coined his music ‘Nerd Centric’. A strange name, you say? But he has a fitting explanation. “I didn’t know what else to call it! I take music people don’t know and mix it up with music they do know. In America, I do a lot of ‘alternate classic rock songs’ and mix them over EDM tracks. Here, I resear-ched and decided to use interesting American hip-hop beats with old Indian music. There’s Punjabi music too, and people always dance to that. I asked a couple of people here what movies they’re watching and what songs they liked, for my research,” he says, confessing that he could play some of the oldest, cheesiest Hindi songs.

Delving into his Comic Con jourey, he shares, “I like Comic Cons because here, nerds like me get to be who we are and celebrate the nerds within.”

Notably, his career has had major turning points. “Perfor-ming at Rock n Rio in Brazil put me on the map, but coming to New Delhi was a huge moment. It got me excited to focus on doing this internationally and not just in the US,” he recalls.

Talking about Indian music, he says, “Someone asked me how I knew something was good when I didn’t even know the language. But the beauty of music is such that we don’t need to understand lyrics. We just know when it’s a good song!”