WMC Up Close: DJ Enferno
By Mike Hamersly
Turntable champ and classically trained pianist DJ Enferno, aka Eric Jao, takes time off from performing with Madonna on her Sticky & Sweet World Tour to step behind the decks Thursday, March 26 at the Gansevoort South.
Tell us about touring with Madonna?
Well, the official 2008 tour with her is done, but it got extended for the summer, so I’ll be on that. It’s all in Europe – I was hoping it’d come back to the U.S., but Europe’s cool, too. I get to see a bunch of places I’ve never seen before.
That was one of the coolest things about the tour – I got to play for tens of thousands of people, eat a lot of food I’ve never tried before. That’s basically the dream that every DJ has, to be able to travel the world and play in front of really large crowds. It’s insane – 70,000 people sometimes.
Is it as enjoyable musically for you as what you do on your own?
Yeah, the thing is, I did a lot more musically on the tour than I thought I was going to when I got brought in. I thought I was gonna just add some scratching here and there, some samples, stuff like that, to accent the band, but what ended up happening was, on the second day of rehearsals, they said they really like my input on things. And so I was involved in the creative process with a lot of the arrangements for some of the songs we played onstage. A lot of the older hits were played in a whole different way; for example, Like a Prayer, Give It 2 Me … I was able to be involved with those, and that was really cool.
I produce music, and I’m not like a Timbaland or a Pharrell or a Kanye West, but here, the next thing you know, they’re asking me to do something that’s production-oriented for the show. And it really stretched me in terms of the things I’d be able to do.
Will your multi-instrumental Live Remix Project be part of WMC?
Yeah, now that I’m off the tour, I’m concentrating more on rebuilding my Live Remix. That’s all I’ve been working on, as well as the club gigs. Every time I listen to my stuff, I’m like, “It could be better. It could be better.” But unfortunately at the Gansevoort party, since it’s on the rooftop, there are certain regulations about what equipment can be used other than the equipment that’s already there. So I’m a little bummed-out by that, but it’s fine. I like to think that my straight-DJ sets are a little better than the average straight-DJ sets, performance-wise.
How often do you get to Miami?
Usually it’s once a year, for the conference, but this past year I got to spin at Karu & Y when we came through here for the show.
What do you think of it?
I’m almost 34, so what I do as a career is a job, and it’s cool that I get to see all kinds of places. I think it’s a really cool place to party, if that’s what you’re into. For me, personally, I’m more interested now in the beach, and the music, too.
This story was originally published March 19, 2009 at 8:03 AM.