Meet Steven Dermody

Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Dermody.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Steven. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Story of how I became a DJ / Mistake Maker…

Grew up with music always in my life through my family, got bit by the rave bug in the late 90’s, kept dancing, moved to Colorado in 2005 with friends and bought records to jam with them, kept dancing and things kind of pleasantly unfolded from there. Soon started playing music out anywhere from all-night dance parties to art openings, house parties and yoga classes.

Make Mistakes started as a monthly loft party in 2009 with three other great, like-minded friends here in Denver. We had a successful run of various events for about five years and in parallel created a record label and podcasts series under the Make Mistakes brand, the latter two are still chugging along today. While we don’t do parties anymore here, I still gig around town and occasionally out of town, representing the crew and reminding folks its ok to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. And keep dancing.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No road is ever that smooth I suppose, music – specifically electronic music, is an interesting space. It’s a very passionate community/hobby/lifestyle where you can dip your toes in the shallow end and be happy or send it off the high dive and, maybe be happy?

Dj’ing a wedding, for example, it can be ten times more stressful than playing to a loaded club of 500 people. Having to field song requests from the drunk Uncle alone is more stress than mixing the next track together for the dark dancefloor.

I did a full-time stint in the music industry with a local (global) company called Beatport, which was a fantastic experience. Challenge there is how fickle the music industry can be security-wise, as well as more often than not its a ‘paid by passion’ industry, more so than being paid actual money.

Promoting events anymore is just too much of a headache/challenge in general, glad I clocked in that earlier and do not rely on that grind for job security these days.

All that said and cliched but true – follow your passion and good things will come. Maybe not in the exact form you envisioned, maybe even better who knows, but you gotta try. Also, being consistently kind will open more doors than you ever knew existed.

Tell us more about your work.
I am most proud of Make Mistakes because it still exists and lets us stay connected with friends and other humans through music.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.makemistakes.us/
• Email: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevendermody/
• Instagram: @stevendermody
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.dermody
• Twitter: @makemistakez
• Yelp: https://soundcloud.com/make-mistakes

Image Credit:
Chris Laplante, Sam Cambell, Sara Ripperger, Joshua Smith, Tony Zalhalla

Suggest a story: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.