Erben, tell us about your background and how it has influenced your art?

 I like to party. I like to get down (laughs). My mindset was formed by the funk and disco genres of the 70s, the synthy MTV music of the 80s, the Hip Hop and EDM of the 90s, and the amazing variety of musical styles resulting from those genres from 2000 until today. 

As a teenager, I attended a performing arts high school for music (Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven, CT). There, I learned about jazz and classical styles, which are the basic ingredients of our pop music. I went on to study music composition at Yale, Royal Academy of Music (London), and Rutgers (Mason Gross School for the Arts). I learned to appreciate the structure of musical works, whether those are songs or symphonies. 

But it was the electronic dance music (EDM) that I was exposed to in NYC clubs in the 1990s – Trance, House, and later Synthwave – that really caught my attention because the genres felt both futuristic and nostalgic at the same time. I like things that are epic.

What themes do you explore in your work?

To use a visual metaphor, I see music at a wedding as a green space. A place where friends and strangers of different ages from different walks of life come together and share the moment. When you feel yourself in your body – whether it’s dancing, playing ball, or just sitting in the sun. You are recreating, you know literally “re-creating” yourself. Contemplating your life and your place in the world and what’s next for you. That’s the feeling of – sublime joy, really -- I wish for every guest when I create sound experiences at weddings.

Can you describe your creative process? How do you approach a new event?

When it comes to weddings, I really attempt to grok the lucky couple. Help reconcile their often-divergent visions and help enhance them based on my expertise in all things sonic. My role is to be the ‘CEO of sound’ at the event so the bride and groom can focus on having the best day of their lives…so far.

What don’t people understand about performing at a wedding reception?

It’s like jazz improvisation. You can plan and prepare. But in that live situation, you are at the whim of the muses. Stuff happens: inspired ideas, happy accidents, and sometimes fails that require rapid adjustments to cover. 

With live performance, it’s like that old Greek dude (Heraclitus) said: you never step in the same river twice. It’s a high-wire act because everyone is relying on you to deliver a sonically amazing time. It almost gets harder as you get more experienced, because you realize you have so many artistic choices…literally at your fingertips.

What materials and techniques do you prefer to use, and why?

I use digital and analog gear. My main controller is a NI Traktor S8. I use it specifically because it doesn’t have turntables or so-called “jog wheels” that look like small vinyl records. I’m so happy vinyl has made a comeback. I love its archaic sound. But it’s a vestige of an earlier era. It’s technically inferior to digital sound. Also, I was always scolded as a child when I would scratch on the turntable, so I think that stuck with me (laughs).

But I can do looping, sampling and stem mixing with the S8, which opens my sonic palette way wider than rubbing vinyl “wicky-wicky-scratch-wicky-wicky-scratch”, which is fun to do but maybe not so fun to listen to over the course of a 4-hour reception (laughs). 

It also allows me to trigger other aspects of the experience like lighting and video through what’s called MIDI (musical instrument digital interface). I do use audio gear with analog circuits in my signal chain to add harmonics to the sound, because one downside of all-digital is that it can sound a bit cold.

So here’s the big question – what happens if no one is dancing? What do you do?

That’s never happened to me so I can’t comment (laughs). But really, in every set of guests at a reception, some are dancers and some are not. Some people are content to sing along and reminisce from their tables. Just because there is little dancing doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of enjoyment going on.

Now, for those who want to dance and aren’t dancing, this often happens because something else in the flow of the wedding reception experience is not quite right. Dinner gets set down too late and people don’t want to dance on a full stomach. The room may be too cold at first. There’s too much outside sunlight coming into the event space. The bar is overrun and people can’t get their drinks fast enough to get the courage up to dance. Usually, it is some combination of these things.

In my role as the ‘CEO of Sound’, I see myself in service to the other vendors – the event management and staff, florists, photographer, videographer. We are a loose team, and I am highly collaborative in driving the flow of the event, so the conditions are ideal for dancing.

If you could collaborate with any artist, living or deceased, who would it be and why?

I would say the folks at the architecture firm Diller Scofido + Renfro. They were an early influence on me with their category-blurring work like the High Line Park, Lincoln Center, Cooper Hewitt. I find many parallels between architecture and music creation because you are balancing order and surprises as the experience unfolds. Whether that’s in a public space or in the sonic space of a music track.

What are your goals for the future as an artist?

To be a part of as many couples’ special day as I can. It really has been a privilege and honor to be a part of the over 260+ weddings I have as a band member, former photographer, and now Experience Jockey.