Chances are that as a UK-based DJ, you haven’t heard of Aaron Traylor or Dominic Pirone. But all that will be changing soon. The pair are huge figures behind the DJ scene in the United States as founders of Crate Hackers, the rapidly growing DJ service. With the imminent launch of a UK version of the service, which has come to be known as the perfect song selector, Pro Mobile’s Editor Peter Holding caught up with Aaron and Dominic during their first ever visit to our shores.

Q: Hi Aaron, please introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a 25-year-old DJ who started off through small radio station programming. I really wanted to wear the headphones and I ended up doing so 18 hours a day. I would host a drivetime radio show, gear up and then head to the nearest club or wedding. I always wanted to be more of a fully-fledged DJ than just in a niche. Along the way, I picked up that the Holy Grail of tools we had as radio programmers was not available to other DJs. I really felt there could be a way of merging both philosophies together whilst still retaining credibility.

For many years I followed the charts and watched closely how certain songs had differing effects on a dance floor. I realised that you can’t just play all top 40 songs and expect to just fill a floor. So, I learned to “hack” the system. I was already a “grey hat” hacker, someone who doesn’t break the law but is using internet systems in unusual ways. For example, at one time I managed to get the Facebook feeds of around a million local people on my own, using around 10 computers in order to promote my raves.

Q: Aaron, you sound like a dangerous man. How about you Dom?

So, I’ve only been in the DJ game around six years now, my brother turned me on to DJing weddings which really brought me alive at a time I really needed some excitement in my life. Until then I was doing in-person marketing, something I have been in my whole life.

At that time, I was learning how to reach massive amounts of people through online marketing and this progressed to me starting to teach other DJs how to market effectively, to get more leads and bookings through my business called Booked Solid. I then linked up with Joe Bunn, someone who is really big in the US DJ scene, and we created the DJ’s Vault. I helped to put that together and also did the marketing, it was through this work that I first met Aaron.

Joe would get members to talk to other members, and as part of this, Aaron got to present a topic. We heard that he was putting together a program then called the Perfect DJ Playlist, and this coincided with a survey of our members which asked them what they thought would make them a better DJ.

I thought they would ask about becoming a better mixer, better at scratching – it was a surprise to learn that actually they really wanted help with music organisation. Aaron’s seminar created more excitement than any topic had for a while, and was called “how to create the one playlist to rule them all”.

The response was out of this world. Clearly, we had stumbled upon a massive problem in the DJ world that was not being looked at by anyone. We were heading for a seminar for over 3500 DJs, so I drove down to Nashville to meet Aaron, I really needed to go and check him out to make sure he was legitimate! That was when we put together Crate Hackers as a product.

Q: And the service is one where you are trying to alleviate the stress of song selection?

Aaron: This is where the radio programming really kicked in. One of the most profound pieces of advice as a DJ was, think five songs ahead. But in radio we think about how to fill an hour. So I thought, instead of five songs, why not 25?

We were about to launch the Perfect DJ Playlist and Joe Bunn said that we really had to change the name. It was going to make for a very long URL apart from anything else, so there we were, hours from broadcast to a huge number of DJs, without a name. Like all the best inspiration, “hackers” came to me whilst having a shower.

In the beginning we were literally selling lists which came from DJs hacking together. At the heart of this are our hackathons. Once a week we will all pull together and discuss a specific genre. We take all of that and then run it through artificial intelligence – this is where metrics and my radio programming come in.

We take actual data from DJs, get more from radio, and then dive into what is produced by streaming services like Spotify or YouTube. By going into back-door links for services like Spotify, you can see real world data like how happy or sad a song is, how energetic, and also how popular.

This is where radio programming comes into its own. We take the top ratios of songs based on popularity, energy, happiness, which leaves our members with a final crate in mixable order. You can pick any point in the playlist and guarantee that they will work.

Q: So that’s how Crate Hackers was born, where is it now?

We evolved quickly from PDFs! We started to recruit people on a limited basis. But we needed to move from the print and go lists and move on to an actual piece of software. So now we have a legitimate piece of software that you can put onto your laptop, and within 10 clicks, you can have all of our crates. This means that if you’re DJing and realise that your audience are into 90s rock, within one click you have your curated playlist of next songs.

Dominic: Our software will scan your existing library and pull all of your music into crates. So now we’re trying to think of every big problem that DJs have that really isn’t touched by other DJ solutions.

We’re trying to get rid of “Serato face” – that look we all have when trying to work out what to play next. Also, music hoarding. We have tonnes of music that we’re not using, creating load errors and things like having nine remixes of a song, eight of which you’ve never used before.

Aaron: We can literally take a database of 300,000 songs and organise it pretty much instantly, no matter how much of a mess it’s in.

Q: And in the future, with the advent of online streaming and so many sources of music?

Dominic: We’re reaching into the future. Music streaming means we all have access to millions of songs and this is only going to increase. We believe that the future of music is through streaming, there is so much out there and it's only going to increase.

Crate Hackers will give you access to all the best playlists using the very latest data from multiple sources, including other DJs.

Aaron: We’ve all talked about the transition from vinyl to CDs to MP3s. With streaming there is so much more flexibility. If you look for a song like Bruno Mars’s ‘24k Magic’ you’re going to get up to 34 points of contact for that song in our software. You will be able to get any version and any part of that song you need.

Dominic: We don’t want to come over to the UK and say, “hey, try our crates.” Everyone will think that a bunch of Americans don’t know what they’re talking about. It needs to be relevant to you where you are.

Another fun aspect in the future will be to open our doors to influencers, people in your local market, the best DJs, people who want to sell their crate through our service.

Aaron: We aren’t another record pool. In fact, you won’t find an MP3 on our site. We are promoting the record pools out there. Someone recently put it best when they said that Crate Hackers is the Google of record pools.

Q: So how will Crate Hackers be relevant to the UK market?

Aaron: That’s why we’re here. I think we have the US pretty much understood now. We know that we can go to any part of the US and have the right crates. But in the UK? Fish out of water, no idea. That’s why today we’re making a major announcement, we’re teaming up with Mastermix. We will also soon launch UK hackathons, Tuesday night discussions about music looking specifically at UK playlists.

This (to us) is really exciting, we have new rules to play with. As an example, Richard Lee from Mastermix can sell a USB of music legally in the UK – in the States you’d get arrested for that!

Dominic: Again, we want to have the personalities over here that DJs in the UK look up to. A big part of our success is our community, this is everything to us. Not only are you subscribing to a software service, you’re going to have access to our private Facebook group where no negativity and trolling is allowed. It’s a very open and supportive network for DJs.

Q: Aaron, I’ve heard you play in quite a famous bar where you’re based?

Yes, and Crate Hackers actually helped me get this. I’ve bounced around from state to state but ended up becoming the resident DJ for the Johnny Cash family in Nashville, Tennessee. I’m a huge Johnny Cash fan, he was really progressive; it’s not all country and western, he liked to embrace all forms of music.

They had a venue with DJs, known as the Johnny Cash DJ club, and I got to audition. I was pretty fried from a wedding season and really needed a starting point. This was when I got a list from Joe Bunn, who produced the perfect list, and I ended up killing it.

Dominic: Aaron has also just DJed Kid Rock’s son’s wedding.

Aaron [laughing]: I was this close [uses fingers to show no gap] to Cindy Crawford doing the ‘Cha-Cha Slide’ on my dance floor. It’s all downhill from here.

Q: Tell our readers about your own music preferences, and also your number-one floor filler.

Dominic: I’m a little weird! I’m a big Chromeo fan. They have that fun 80s disco, nu-disco sound. Also, a band called Tuxedo – love their sound. In terms of a floor filler, I’m based in the south where people love their rock, and also, it’s the area Nelly lives in. I have a great mash-up of ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Ride with Me’ – that’s my floor filler.

Q: And Aaron?

I listen to podcasts, talk radio, to detox from the beats! At a wedding and especially for a younger generation, there is an amazing mix by DJ And-One, using ‘All I Do is Win’ by DJ Khalid. There is a part in the song that goes “everybody’s hands go up, up, up” – and this goes into Cardi B’s ‘Up’, which surprises people. It probably has a short shelf life, but it’s a great mix.