The Friday Night Party was a long time staple of WJPZ, allowing mixers to come in and strut their stuff. Today we revisit the 1999-2001 version of the show with three guests who've gone on to very successful careers in the music world. From the Class of 2001, we have Mike Kruz, aka DJ Komar, as well as Adrian Arenas, DJ Double A. They're joined by Michael Eisner, aka DJ Splyce, from the Class of 2003.
Hailing from Binghamton, New York City, and Los Angeles, respectively, each of our three guests talks about ending up at Syracuse. For Komar and Double-A, they learned from the guys before them - DJ Pass da Mic, and Spike Eskin. And when they took over the show, they paid it forward with Splyce, who quickly impressed them both with his talent and enthusiasm.
We've talked about the Ostrom House on previous epsiodes, but these three may be the only alumni that enjoyed that iteration of the station; the show was designed to sound like a party - and now it was in an off campus house, the perfect venue. We believe all things discussed here are past their statutes of limitations.
The "Triple Threat" quickly garnered a following, and routinely DJ'ed events in Syracuse at the Country Club, from end of semester bashes to Donovan McNabb's draft party. But without the proper equipment to do a live broadcast, these three describe how they pre-recorded a show "live to tape" - a cassette tape. You'll hear that audio.
DJ Splyce is now known as "Hollywood's Disc Jockey to the Stars." He worked hard at honing his craft and networking in Los Angeles. A guest spot DJ'ing Larry King's party celebrating 20 years on CNN landed him an interview on the show. From there, his career went into the stratosphere, doing gigs all over the world.
Komar, now on air as Mike Kruz, has had a two decade career in radio, including 13 years in South Florida. He's currently doing afternoons on Miami's Easy 93.1. He's DJ'ed everything from Miami Fashion week to a residency at Atlantis in the Bahamas.
Adrian had a long career in entertainment, working with Tommy Mottola at Sony Music, then distributing telenovelas internationally, then for Univision, targeting their content for the US Latino audience. But the perspective gained from the pandemic led him to pursue another passion - getting certified in life coaching.
Throughout this episode, you'll hear common themes from the WJPZ at 50 podcast. Mentoring, being kind to others, paying it forward. This was just as true for mixshow DJ's as it was for news, sports, music, and PR. And the lessons learned at WJPZ served each of our guests well. And we of course close with a classic WJPZ story - when 2/3 of "the triple threat" were kicked out of the Country Club - at their own gig.
More from our guests:
DJ Splyce website (and the most fun sizzle reel ever): https://splyceofficial.com/
Adrian Arenas Website: https://adrianarenas.com/
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
Sign up for email alerts whenever we release a new episode here: jagindetroit.com/WJPZat50
Want to be a guest on the pod or know someone else who would? Email Jag: jag@jagindetroit.com.
Want to stay in the loop with WJPZ Alumni events? Subscribe to our newsletter on the right hand side of the page at http://wjpzalumni.org/
JAG: Welcome in to episode number 69 of WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay, and appropriately. Tonight we have a Friday night party reunion. We're gonna try to get to this whole thing without anybody getting suspended. I hope we can pull this off. Yeah. We have from the class of 2001, Mike Kruz aka Komar. Mike Komarinetz, let's pick your name. In Adrian Arenas, DJ Double-A. And from the class of oh three. Michael Eisner. AKA DJ Splyce. Welcome everybody.
Komar: In the place to be.
Splyce: Let's go. That's right. Thank you so much.
Adrian: Thanks for the invite.
JAG: Let's see. Komar your first on my screen. So tell me first how you got to Syracuse and how you found the radio station.
Komar: Ooh. All right. So Syracuse, growing up in Binghamton, New York, it was always on the radar. Growing up, going to football games, going to basketball games an hour and a half away. So Syracuse was always a thing, but then when I started figuring out what I wanted to do as a career and realized that, hey, I like public speaking, like sports, like broadcasting, like writing all of that.
And I did my research. I'm like, wow, Syracuse is a pretty good place for that with Newhouse. So it was one of these situations where I didn't exactly know what I wanted to do. It's funny, I thought I wanted to go into sports. I thought I was gonna be one of those guys on ESPN.
JAG: So did everybody on this podcast, my friend.
Komar: And it's crazy how things worked out.
But it was a situation where I went to orientation. Dick Clark comes on the screen talking about Syracuse University. And I'm like, okay, this is where I need to be. Realized my hockey career wasn't, gonna go to the NHL. So that was all good.
JAG: How'd you find the radio station?
Komar: I think it was actually my freshman roommate who saw a flyer or something and told me about it.
And I wanna say I even accompanied him to the meeting and wound up in Watson Hall. I think Spike and Pass da Mic were doing some sort of thing right there freshman year outside Lawrinson. Were you there as well, Double A?
Adrian: Yes.
Komar: So I'm like, who's this Pasta Mike Guy? I thought his name was Pasta Mike. It a situation where everything just came together and we wound up doing Fridays from two to six as my first legitimate shows, overnights as a freshman because that's where you gotta start and four hours instead of two hours cuz it was a Friday night and no other freshman in their right mind wanted to do that sort of thing.
So my shadowing, the first time I ever shadowed was with this guy DJ Damone. Okay. Do we remember DJ Damone? Anybody? DJ Damone. Better known. You may know his other name. Damon Amendola. Sports fans out there.
JAG: Oh geez, that's right. CBS Sports extraordinaire now. Yeah.
Komar: Morning show and everything. So I go into shadow him. He was supposed to oversee me and make sure that everything went well. And he just left. I don't know where he went to get food or something. So he left and then I had to figure it out from there. So it's wild to know that Damon was the first guy and then, right into the fire, he threw me right into the fire.
JAG: But, and Komar, I don't know if you remember this, I believe you were the first person to air check me.
Komar: Yeah, I remember that. I hope I wasn't too hard on you,
JAG: it worked out well for all of us. All right, lemme turn to your classmate, DJ Double A. How did you end up at Syracuse and the radio station?
Adrian: It was an opportunity that was offered to me when I was looking at colleges out here. Obviously same sort of desires and aspirations that Komar had. I thought I was gonna be a broadcaster, sportscaster, all that jazz. And Syracuse being one of the top schools in the nation was, at the top of my list.
And I got a great opportunity to attend the summer program, which helped me with my financial aid. So I was at Syracuse six weeks prior at everyone else. Doing like an intense six week course with a lot of students out here from New York and underrepresented community. So that's where I got my start.
And then yeah, I didn't get into Newhouse initially. So I had to, get the grades and, do all the work in the first quarter of the year to get into Newhouse. But I knew I wanted to do something either like I said, sports casting or TV production. And I was at the same event at Lawrinson that Komar was at.
I saw the same Pass Da Mic Guy, who is this guy. And I was like, as a dj, right? I was a DJ, so I had DJ'ed, parties out here as a kid. Yeah. And I was like, man, this is, let me see what this guy's up to. And I think he did have a Z89 banner or something on it. Yeah, pretty sure.
So I just went up to him and I'm like, dude, what is this all about? I had heard about, wait, WAER? Was that the new house one? So I had heard about that and then I saw this opportunity and he said, yeah, just come by man. We're a student run radio station came by and I was like, this looks like a lot of fun, man.
Like to be able to run a station as a college student, so that's how I got my first foot in it was through Pass da mic and knowing that he was actually a DJ doing the Friday night party at that time. I was like, yeah, this is where I want to be.
JAG: So you guys had that same experience that so many other guests in the podcast have had where you talk about walking into that station and having that feeling, which is impressive because the station had just recently flipped back to Z 89 from the Pulse right before the two of you got there.
So we flash forward a couple years to Splyce. You walk in the door in this would've been, 99?
Splyce: About 99 is when I got there.
JAG: Yeah. Tell me your backstory, your origin story.
Splyce: Okay. In my case, I was coming from Los Angeles, California. So I started in a very small private high school with 54 kids in my graduating class.
Now you can imagine 54 split in half, are male, half are female. Very small group of I suppose kids. Turning into adults. At that time I knew I wanted to, one, get away and go to somewhere bigger. So if that makes sense. Like being in such a small school, there could be a lot of benefits, but it also can feel a little bit constrained.
So I wanted to go to a big school. I wanted to be a little more anonymous, and I wanted to make my own way and a fresh start. All
JAG: that. I'm scratching my head over. You saying anonymous, but continue.
Splyce: The thing is, like when you go to such a small school, everyone knows your business.
Everyone knows everything. And at those ages, If someone touched a cigarette, then you know, that was the person that touched a cigarette. If that person had done something sexually or.
Adrian: So that's what you did Splyce!
Splyce: No. I'm not saying I did any of this. I'm just saying that everyone knew everyone's business and this school was so small and intimate that everyone knew everything about everybody.
And so it would be a little bit refreshing to go somewhere bigger, where like it's a fresh start of something new and not everyone's gonna know all your business, so I had always loved going to the east coast. I always loved going to New York City. I did the college campus tour of Syracuse and I fell in love with that campus.
Now I had done a bunch of east coast tours. But that Syracuse campus, and I can say from a musical guy walking around Marshall Street and seeing the bars and seeing, the people on the streets and the music that was coming outta those bars and the energy was a huge attraction. Like it was something I didn't see at some of the other campuses.
So I was like, all right, I think I could fit in here. And, made the choice to start at Syracuse and leading into Z89, the freshman orientation, I believe there was a party, and I remember a good friend of mine from LA said, as soon as you get there, day one, try to join that radio station, ask questions, see if they're interested and see if you'd be interested.
And it took a little push from him telling me to do that. So when that freshman orientation happened and there were live DJs and there was a Z89 table, set up whatever it was, I was like a magnet to it. Went over there and I learned quickly that there's different on-air positions, there's board opping, there's on-air personality and there's mixers.
And I wanted all of it. I wanted any of it. I wanted to be at least on air. I know there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff, operations and like administration stuff. But I wanted to be something on air and that's what brought me to Z 89. And it started with overnight board ops. Yeah.
Komar: But he wanted to go straight to the mix show, if we remember that.
Adrian: Yeah.
Splyce: Absolutely.
JAG: Because by the time you get there, two years later, Double-A and Komar, you guys have the Friday night party at that point.
Komar: Yeah, at that point it was passed on.
Adrian: Yeah. Pass The mic had left at that point. So he was a senior year, and then we took over our sophomore year.
Komar: Sophomore year Spike. I think he graduated he had an extra semester. So then I wound up co-hosting with Pass the Mike and Steel.
JAG: Steve Selleny.
Komar: Yep. All right. I'm trying to remember the name. I wanna make sure I got that yeah, it was he and I and pass the mike. And if you remember the old studio we had, I don't know, cables running into the production room.
JAG: For the turntables. That's right.
Komar: And we didn't have turntables installed in there. It was a situation where you had to bring all the records in, you had to bring the turntables, you had to bring the mixer. It's funny, I talked about Friday nights when I first started, it was two to four or two to six. It was my overnight shift.
And that was directly after what? The Friday night party.
So the situation I just kept coming earlier and asking questions like what is this all about? What's, what goes here? What goes there? What are you doing when you got the, okay, so finally Pass da Mic's. Listen, I can only teach you so much, you could only, learn so much by watching what I'm doing.
You should invest in your own stuff if you're serious about it. And I remember buying a Gemini scratch master mixer from some guy on campus, some fraternity guy with a little sampler on it for like a hundred bucks, something like that. Just whatever, I don't know what parties it had been through, thing.
And then maybe the first belt driven or non belt driven direct drive Gemini turntable, the 500, whatever that was, which you had to push it to start, like whatever. Got one of those. And I had a Discman. I remember just practicing whatever records I got from past the mic, given to me, extras, whatever they made on the left side with the turntable, then the mixer in the middle, and then I had my Discman on the right.
Practice, just trying to beatmatch and scratch a little bit. This, that, and then finally, wound up saving up enough money to get some Technics and doing it correctly, that sort of thing. And the rest is history, as they say.
JAG: Komar, you're talking about two common themes throughout the podcast of wanting to get there and learn. And then also, Harry used the phrase "by hook or by crook." Just figured out a way to make it happen. So you're getting into this whole thing and learning how to scratch as a student. Adrian, you said you had been doing this in high school before you even got there. So how did you get involved with the Friday Night Party and what was your story with that part of it?
Adrian: Again, I remember just talking to Pass Da Mic and it was the same thing. I just wanted to be involved, right? Yeah. And so I was like, all right, I know I'm gonna have to do these overnight shifts. And, I remember my first DJ name wasn't even Double A, it was Slim.
Splyce: Yeah, I remember that.
Komar: Wasn't your AOL, your AIM Slim four 16 or something like that. That's what I knew the name from. I remember your birthday that way. I remember Splyce’s with the 33 from March 3rd. It's crazy. All these years later. Yeah. Based off our AOL instant mesh screen names. What is that about?
JAG: That is a timestamp to end all timestamps. I love that. So tell me a little bit more about how you got involved with FNP Adrian.
Adrian: I was talking to Mike and then at that time I think Komar and I were in the same stages just trying to get involved. Yeah. And help out. And I think at first he was just, doing board for him.
He was the big guy on campus. So it was just, again, learning. Learning from the guy who had the experience until the point that he left and the show actually became ours. We were able to take over and do our own thing.
Komar: And hope we didn't mess it all up too.
Adrian: Yeah, no, and I think Komar and I took the lead there and there was a couple of people that were still involved.
But that's how it happened is it was being passed down to us. I just remember being excited about the idea wow, we're gonna have like our old Friday night party radio show. That was the beginning stages of it. And then obviously when Splyce joined, that's when FNP came about. Not FNP, the triple threat came about from there. We're just like, like Komar said. The rest is history. The rest is history.
Komar: Yeah. One show, two turntables, three DJs.. Four hours nonstop.
JAG: Yeah. So Splyce, by the time you get there, these two already have the Friday night party and then you join as the third member and that's where the triple threat starts.
Splyce: I do remember. When I became a member, I had to earn my way in. The first show was a four hour show. I sat through the whole thing. The next week I was allowed 1:45 till 2:00 AM. I got 15 minutes on air and the next week I got 30 minutes, 1:30 until 2:00. And every week I came back, I get an extra 15 minutes until after a while they probably had a discussion amongst themselves, the legends, Komar and double A.
Adrian: He proved himself, he proved himself. Yeah.
JAG: So when you say on the air, 1:30, 1:45?
Splyce: Mixing, actually getting on the turntables, getting the permission, getting allowed to give it a try, get on the turntables and do my, my style of DJing.
JAG: And had you had experience in that in high school before you got to Syracuse?
Splyce: Yes, but very little. I ended up getting the turntables and mixer, the DJ equipment. Senioritis second semester, senior year of high school, and then a couple months of summer. Then it was Syracuse and at that time I didn't even bring the turntables. So the focus was supposed to be academics, so everything was left behind. So my only time on turntables was with DJ Double A. Komar at one of their places or at the radio station.
JAG: You actually are leading me to this question. I was gonna ask the three of you, and whoever wants to take this is for those listeners who haven't scratched, haven't mixed, they just kinda like watch in awe of the stuff that you guys do. What does it take in terms of the practice and the honing, the craft? What goes into that? Anyone that wants to take that question?
Adrian: I'll answer that one because I remember when Splyce came in, right? I had DJ'd a few years, right? There was some scratching technique that I was doing. I think same with Komar, like there's some scratching technique that we had, but the idea of like advanced scratching, like when you're crabbing, Jag, I don't know if you know what crabbing is.
JAG: Explain that.
Adrian: Crabbing is, you're taking the fader, right? And with your fingers, you're creating a. Like a systematic scratch back and forth, but it makes the sound a you a very unique sound with a record. It's called Crabbing. I didn't know how to crab back then. I still, to this day I still don't know how to crab and I just remember.
Komar: Splyce had it.
Adrian: Yeah. Like seeing Splyce trying it, and I could tell that he wasn't there yet. But I'm like, there's something that this kid has, and I saw this like desire from him to wanna be a part of what we were doing. And I see Splyce now doing his Instagram videos and I'm like, holy cow. The growth that he's had over the years.
Because this has been, what, 20, almost 20 plus years. The growth that I've seen in Splyce as a DJ because he is a DJ. This is his craft now. He's continuing to do this for a living. Is amazing. It is something that if you do not continue to practice, you get rusty and you lose the, the touch to
it and the feel to it.
Splyce: Sure. Yeah. I couldn't agree more with everything you're saying. And to answer your question, it takes time, it takes practice, and that's really it. It's muscle memory. And I remember listening to DJ's on the radio when I first started DJing and feeling like a failure and getting frustrated.
And a dad that was so supportive saying, just keep practicing, you'll get there. No dad, I'll never be like these guys. I'll never be this good. I'll never be able to do what they're doing. And maybe still to this day I haven't been able to, but I have improved. I did get better. And that was it. Like the simple advice, just keep practicing, you'll get there.
That advice from my dad, that was just. You know imprinted my brain was like, okay, just keep doing this because it does happen where one day you're practicing and it doesn't sound good and you come back the next day after a couple hours of practice and now the muscle memory's better and you're quicker and you're better and you're faster and the next day you're where you left off last time and it's just quicker and better and you start to feel incremental improvements.
Even if it's 3%, 3% a day, it might feel slow. It's not that slow actually in the big picture, but if you don't have the patience for it, which my personality usually doesn't, I'm not the most patient person. That was something where it took hours and hours like that. We've all heard the 10,000 hour thing.
JAG: So I'll ask you a loaded question while we're geeking out over scratching and mixing here.
So you know when you guys are there 20 plus years ago, you're bringing in, to the point earlier crates of records and stuff like that, and now it's either CDs or was CDs and now it's really two hard drives you can have and you're loading up the decks virtually. You don't have to lugging in crates and crates.
Is that the way it's really done now? Splyce all digitally or is there a still a home for using records or what's your opinion on that?
Splyce: I would say that no, it's completely all digital to the point now that even you don't need hard drives anymore. Like the technology's gotten to the place where you can stream.
As long as you have an internet connection, your software can connect to many of the streaming services that we all know. And additional streaming services. You don't have to have a song in your library. I can pull up to somewhere with an internet connection and a laptop and dj a complete set. Not having a single record.
Komar: That scares the hell outta me.
Splyce: Not having a single mp3. It's scary, but it's there. The technology is there.
JAG: What if the internet connection buffers or craps out? They're thinking you're scratching when you're not.
Splyce: Obviously they've thought of that and what the answer is you can download the songs if you choose to. So you still have access to a lot of the songs.
You're allowed a library of x amount of, however many songs. Let's say a thousand. Yeah. And that's plenty enough to do a gig and get by. So you can actually have the thousand if you wanted to on your, on the hard drive, but you don't need it. But yeah, the technology has changed tremendously nowadays.
We're walking around with a laptop with almost an unlimited amount of music where that was never possible in those days. And we're telling the stories of we walked miles in the snow with crates of records.
Adrian: I was just gonna say that I remember like in my car, I had a Toyota Tercel back then.
I don't know if you remember that. I would either pick up Komar or pick up Splyce and literally lugging crates of records into the station.
Komar: Yep. In the snow.
Adrian: And we were like six, eight crates of records. And this was every single Friday, right? All the equipment in, take all the crates in once you were done at 2:00 AM in the morning, right?
Put it back, everything in the car. Take it back to your dorm room or to your apartment. And now like Splyce said with the technology. Nowadays it's like laptop and then you got a mixer. Now you don't even need the turntables anymore because you have a mixer.
Komar: You talk about the crates of records.
You remember like a party at the country club and loaded up to the brim with the records, it crate of records, this and that. It's a situation where it's like, hey, can I get a ride at the club? And you tell your friends, now you can meet me there and carry a crate of records in and I'll let you get in for free, but I have no room for you because I have records loaded to the entire car.
Splyce: Yeah. And another thing to remember when we were organizing crates, one, we had to either get the records sent to us or buy the records, which cost a lot of money. And physically putting records in the order that we wanted to play them. So we'd remember to have them, not forget to bring them risk our fingernails getting dug into the little sharp pieces of the paper and the records.
And nowadays you can be in bed comfortable organizing a crate on a laptop, with a fireplace going and anything in the background. And it's just different.
Komar: Cue points and figures out the BPMs.
JAG: Splyce is in his mansion in LA, get the fire going and oh yeah. I'm gonna drop some David Guetta in here, whatever else. This is great.
Komar: Set the mood.
Splyce: I love it. I love it.
JAG: So a moment ago, one of you said the words country club. Yeah. And we've got some stores we wanna get into with all three of you. Double-A sent me audio of how should I put this? A fake country club broadcast? Who wants to tell the story here?
Adrian: I guess I'll jump in here. So I think one of the things that we were very creative back in those days, you had to be very creative. You know what we would do, right? Knowing that we had this date at the country club where we were all three of us were invited to spin on a Friday. We all came up with this idea of hey, how could we create something that sounds like we're live at the country club?
And so what we ended up doing was we would record in my apartment on South campus. Okay. These guys would come over, we would set up shop right there on the computer. I would run an audio of a crowd noise. Yes. Ambient crowd noise in the background. We would put a little echo on the microphone.
JAG: A lot echo.
Adrian: And it would legit sound like we were at this club. Okay. And so that's what you're probably gonna run now, was this Country club live broadcast, that we recorded in my apartment.
JAG: As heard on JPZ, recorded in DJ Double A's South Campus Apartment
(Audio Plays)
JAG: I have so many thoughts right now. Very subtly, the really sarcastic from Splyce "broadcasting live." I'm full of shit and I'm coming out right on the radio right now.
Splyce: Make it stop. That's so brutal.
JAG: Man, I like the echo on the mics. Little clipped. Little over modulated, but I guess you would expect that at a nightclub.
Adrian: Yeah. That was part of the trick. This was being recorded on a cassette tape, by the way.
Splyce: Yeah. Oh, wow. And someone had to flip it.
Adrian: Yes. Yes. Yeah. We would have the producer, Jag, at the studio.
We would record to say a week in advance, right? Yeah. I would go with two cassette tapes. So one hour on one side, one hour on the other side, and then the second cassette tape had three and four. And then the producer in the studio would play the first hour. They would do some drops during the course of that one hour when we had some bed time when there was like 30 seconds of bed time.
And then at some point they needed to run the break so they could flip the tape over to the second time.
Komar: So then we play the promo of, hey, we're out here partying, whatever it may be, and flip over the, and I think there wasn't even a cassette deck in the station, so we had to bring a cassette deck out there.
Yes. And then take the RCAs and throw it in the World Feed panel or whatever. And yeah, pot it up, turn it on.
Splyce: There's definitely a little bit of heartbreak when a young DJ realizes not everything is real and not, like when we said, and I'm like, wait a minute, what are we doing?
Komar: Wizard of Oz, bring back the curtain?
Splyce: Wait, we're gonna pretend to be recording a whole live show. Live from somewhere else. Pretend that's right. And they're gonna play it. That's right. All right!
JAG: So you guys were all mixing live at the country club on Friday night while the tape aired on Z 89?
Komar: Yeah, we were used to that like once, I think once a semester, a couple times a semester.
JAG: So speaking of things that we held together with duct tape and bubblegum. Yeah. Let me ask you about the Ostrom house. Because that was Wow. Your guys' senior year. My junior year Splyce's sophomore year. How did you get the Friday night party on from the house?
Komar: Yeah. It turned into the Friday night party. Party house.
JAG: Yeah. Cuz there's some stuff. There's, this is where we're gonna get in trouble and this is where you're gonna have to cut each other off as far as incrimination here. I think.
Splyce: For sure.
Adrian: Keep it PG guys.
Splyce: There was definitely a less seriousness at that house versus being at the station. You know what I mean? It felt looser. Yeah. It felt unregulated. It felt more free.
Komar: It was more combination co radio station and real radio station at that point, and it had we talk about Z89 being like almost a fraternity for a lot of us it felt like a fraternity house.
That's exactly what it was. Yeah. That's basically what it was.
JAG: I had the unfortunate position of VP of Ops that year. While this was all going on and there was always this balance of this show is really good. So I don't wanna like tamper any of the creativity and the on-air product, but I'm not gonna go to the house between 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM on Friday night because there are things happening there that I'm better off not knowing about.
Would you say that at 20 years later, that would've been an accurate way to look at it?
Komar: I thought about this the other day. You imagine if everybody had that cell phone that we all do now with the cameras and the videos and the audio and whatever else?
JAG: But it was like Monday I'd come in, I'm like, could they at least have gotten rid of the beer bottles? Geez!
Komar: Somebody brought a Kegan one time. You guys remember that? I think it was somebody's birthday and somebody decided to, not one of us, but somebody decided to bring a keg in.
JAG: He's got his finger on his nose. Not it.
Komar: And then we're, we would all take turns DJing. We, I remember walking downstairs like when I got off the turntables, just to get a drink of water or something and then there's a big speaker set up. There's a bunch of people downstairs and there's a keg. I'm like, what the heck is going on?
JAG: Just to paint the picture in this dingy old house on Ostrom downstairs was like a living room and that was like where the exec staff would meet and all that. There might have been a computer there, but you had to walk upstairs to get to what was the on-air studio in the production studio. So I can't imagine what you had going on downstairs.
Komar: Yeah, there was a definitely a disconnect. We didn't know what was going on down there sometimes,
Splyce: I know this, we definitely have our stories. There's no doubt we all know some of the stuff that went down. We do have our stories, but I think that it was interesting because we all started to it was a new, the attention we started to get was interesting and it grew. At least it grew from my case, from starting to a year in and two years in the attention we started to get AOL Instant Messenger was one of our, it was active, you know what I mean?
The phone lines were active and people that wanted to come visit us at the station started to get active. And I know that it was a newer thing for me because it was almost like starting to become a little bit of a big fish in a small pond.
Adrian: It felt like a little, like a mini celebrity of sorts. Yeah. Because you knew that you had this following at that point
Komar: In our own heads. Yes.
Adrian: Yeah. No, of course. But you know what I remember the most about Ostrom, and I don't know Komar if you were a part of this or not, but I think when we graduated, we did a 12 hour mix show.
Splyce: Yes. Oh, Mike, I remember everything about it. Yes. With the pizza.
Komar: A mix-a-thon. Yeah, with the pizza. The pizza guys showed up.
You guys are broadcasting from here. This is a real radio station?
Splyce: This is what I think Double-A or someone reached out to get a sponsor and said, hey, would you guys be interested in sponsoring our 12 hour marathon?
They said, we'll deliver two pizzas an hour for 12 hours. So it's 24 pizzas we're coming our way to keep us fed. And they did it. Yeah.
JAG: What other stories do you remember from the house that you can share?
Splyce: Yeah, and I would say that, when you have college aged people, men and women, hormones are going, we had, we had female guests.
Yeah. You know what I'm saying? We had female, not guests. We had female co-hosts that were always like a part of the show. There was a lot of storytelling.
Komar: Yeah. I think they calmed us down after a while. I think it was good having Sexy Stephy around and. Darraugh J because I think they kept us in line.
Adrian: Yeah. I think it would've gotten more out of control had they not been there.
Splyce: That's what I'm saying, that I think there was a lot of storytelling and they might talk about their boyfriends or their breakups or their, who love interests and, yeah.
JAG: No, you make a good point there, Splyce, because it became a show wasn't just three dudes mixing and scratching. The on-air personality piece of it came out of it.
Adrian: Yeah. We wanted to have a party. I think that's what the Ostrom House brought to us is that we had the opportunity to invite people over, right? So every Friday there was just people coming through, people from the town, just coming, cuz we would have something called like a rap off or freestyle something. Remember guys, we had a freestyle battle,
Komar: A freestyle Free for all. Was that it?
Adrian: Yes, freestyle free for all.
Komar: It was a free for all.
Adrian: And so we would have people come by and just engage with us and be a part of the show. So I think that's what made it fun for us at that point, right?
It's just having that community of people, whether it was people from the school or people from. The local area that we're coming to, be a part of the show.
JAG: I am talking to the only three alumni of the radio station for which the house was a good thing.
Splyce: Yeah, no the house was a good thing. I think this, when people think about partying or degenerates, you think of sex, drugs rock roll, you think of alcohol.
And I can honestly say I didn't see, at least our show wasn't really exposed to that kind of stuff. I don't think any of us were heavy drinkers, heavy drug users. Everything was moderate to less than moderate. I think we wanted to give the perception of the real party life, and this in a way was our way of doing a Friday night party.
We got to enjoy our company, our bonding time, and also putting on a show with the presentation of that kind of thing. But I didn't see it a lot. Still to this day, I don't really drink.
JAG: I think what you're getting that Splyce is the appearance of a massive, like blowout party. But I think in knowing the three of you, there was too much pride in the on-air product. I don't see any of the three of you getting to a point where you were incapacitated, where you weren't able to put on a good show.
Splyce: Oh, never. Absolutely. It wasn't a way for us to go use the time as a getaway to just do drugs and drink.
Komar: We understood the seriousness of the situation that we, what we had at hand is a station that's been there for years, upon years. A lot of people taking a lot of pride into, I looked forward to Friday night so much and getting ready to go down there definitely and DJ for four hours and hang with my guys here and do that. And I think one, one of the things I took away from that is, I think it was the first time I ever heard. Don't ask for permission. Ask for forgiveness.
JAG: Yeah. Beg for forgiveness. Don't ask for permission.
Komar: Exactly. It's one of these situations where we understood the parameters, we understood what was at stake. We understood, sometimes we had a bit of a strain here and there, but it was a situation where we knew where to push the envelope. We knew okay, we gotta push it here a little bit. We gotta push it there a little bit to, make this something special beyond just the regular on-air product during the week, but having a Thursday show and having that structure, having the formats was also a blessing because then you were able to reign it in and know exactly what a good structured sounding show would
Splyce: be. I think something important to note is that I think all three of us went on to legacy careers in music and had we just been there for drugs and alcohol and girls and partying. Yeah, like you said, we cared more about the quality of the show, the quality of the product that we were doing.
And that was, I think, the number one driving force. That's what mattered the most. That's why all of us ended up doing stuff in music for years and years to come.
JAG: Splyce. You're teeing me up for my next question. Tell me about your career after Syracuse.
Splyce: My career after Syracuse was wild. It's been a journey and it hasn't stopped, which is really insane because a lot of times none of it feels real.
It was leaving Syracuse and coming back to Los Angeles and from there starting to get a couple opportunities to DJ local nightclubs. And the thing about LA is there's a lot of action. There's a lot of movie premieres and fashion shows. There's a lot of nightclubs, there's a lot of celebrities and celebrity birthdays and celebrity parties.
And so by chance I started to fall into DJing as a full-time career where I started to be able to pay my bills off DJing. And that meant doing events and getting residencies and working my way up like an infant back from square one. No one really cared about my background in radio or my background in Syracuse.
No one cared really. It was just you had to prove yourself again. And that's what I did. And what ended up happening is by luck I would DJ at one place or another and certain, say, celebrities would be in there or writers would be in there, and I would start to get little blips and little mentions in the local, when I say local Los Angeles Times, the US Weekly, the local writeup, press.
That led to me getting asked to be a guest on CNN, Larry King Live. It led to me being asked to go perform at the Grammy celebration, the official Grammy celebration, walking the carpet, limo passes, green room. Stuff that was out of my dreams. It was not anything. Now DJing was a hobby, a complete hobby,
JAG: What did you think you would do for full-time work?
Splyce: I don't know. I never really knew. My mom is a lawyer and she went lawyer and judge. And my Dad's in business and I really always thought DJing is a hobby and I love music and I'm so passionate about this, but I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do.
And if law takes me in and, that's the direction I go, then maybe I try to go be a lawyer like my mom. And a strange thing happened that when I started making enough money to pay my bills, I just kept riding it. And from there it grew. And a lot of these opportunities led to opportunities around the world where the DJing and the performing started taking me to, all over Asia at the time, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand. And I'd be in Canada and Mexico, Romania London, Antigua, Jamaica, Maui, many places I'd never been in my life. Still feels surreal.
JAG: So one of the things they hammer at Syracuse, and particularly Newhouse, is network. You're personifying that right now. You meet people you build those relationships from starting out in LA and then you become this worldwide DJ and you've gone to all these amazing places. For those who don't know you, is it Larry King's birthday party that you did that he ended up having you as a guest on the show on CNN?
Splyce: I did. CNN Larry King Live's 20th anniversary party. He had been in the air for 20 years. They threw a party for him. And I DJ'ed the party for an hour at Spago in Beverly Hills.
JAG: And he ended up having you on the show, which had to be great exposure for you as well.
Splyce: That changed my life.
JAG: What do you say? Obviously there are a lot of people who are talented DJs who can mix and scratch. How much of that is personality and reading a room and working a crowd, and what are some of the other maybe not as well known skills that have helped you excel to this point in your career?
Splyce: Communication values, ethics, character building. Things that you work on for yourself are huge. They matter. Showing up on time matters. Making the client feel special and feel important and know that when you're there for them, you're not there for yourself. Super important. Doing a good job is very important. Being practiced, prepared. You can tell when someone is either lazy, unprepared, not into it, it doesn't take deep psychology to understand that this person isn't giving it their all. When someone is passionate and they love what they do, it shows. And but I still think that like attitude does matter. I don't know what the percentage breakdown would be. Yeah. I go back and forth.
There's just times where I think, man, DJing is only 20% and the people skills is actually 80% of this. It's way harder for me to get the job than it is to do the job. And once I'm in there and once they already like you, it's really hard to do a bad job. You can do an okay job and that's a great job.
And if you do a great job, that's magnificent.
Adrian: I just wanted to add something about Splyce because I think one of the things, and I've known him for so many years, that Splyce has always remained very humble. And the same humble kid that walked into the station that day is the same humble person that you see right now, Jag.
And that sort of personality characteristic goes a long way. It's the law of attraction because you bring that energy to the space of people that you're surrounding yourself with. You're gonna get that back again. Splyce. I just because I know his trajectory. People don't know. Splyce has been around a ton of celebrities, right?
You could have easily said, you know what? I'm gonna go into the celebrity life, and this is the lifestyle that I'm gonna live and forget about Double A and forget about Komar. Like I'm the king of my castle right now. He was never like that. Until this day. This man still refers to me with so much respect and admiration.
That I admire that back. And that's, I think what's kept, I think all of us consistently friends for all these years, is having that respect for one another. But we've remained humble individuals because of these.
Komar: Yeah. We picked right up where we left off here and Splyce, it's one of these things where I remember when you came into the radio station at first, as a freshman and just feeling that infectious energy, like it was just, I wanted to be around Splyce and I wanted, like what's this guy on right now?
But it was just like unbridled energy and just having a passion for what he's doing and wanting to soak up what we were doing. And so the situation between the three of us is we were all learning different stuff from each other. Where I may have been more shy, like going into Syracuse University, like Double-A taught me to stand up for myself more and be more, a little bit more aggressive sort of thing.
Splyce maybe taught me how to be a little bit more childlike and fun and just have that energy. It was a perfect situation, perfect formula for. Not only a successful show, but even just leaving Syracuse University with lifelong friendships and just lessons, that sort of thing.
Splyce: Jag, I think it's so special that you're doing this for us and having us all on, and I think it's a good opportunity for me to say that I probably wouldn't be the person I am without these two gentlemen, because they changed my life. They were there for me as the big brothers I never had. they were some of the people that took in this kid that moved across the country was scared to death of everything. And I'm still scared of a lot of stuff, but they were able to take me in and it was one of the first times in my life that I felt like I knew I was part of something special. I was part of something bigger than me. I was a little piece in a legacy.
JAG: Yeah.
Splyce: And I'd already heard about Pass da Mic and now these two gentlemen opened up their hearts, their homes, their arms to me. And all I could do is just do my best, and leave the school doing my best. As far as like where things are at, nothing really feels any different. Celebrities, actors, actresses, musicians, they're just people. And I know we all say that and we all hear that.
And I've been exposed to a lot of it, and I still know, it's just people. So it's nothing is any different. Like I have the same respect and love and value for all three of you guys as I do for anyone else that I meet out there.
JAG: What you're all talking about is just something that's come up time and time again in 70 or so episodes of this podcast and how special the relationships are with people who are at WJPZ when you were there.
I wanna turn to Double-A and Komar in a second, but one last question for you, Splyce
Splyce: Sure.
JAG: In 2013 we were in San Francisco for Matt DelSignore's wedding and it was Beth Berlin and Jana Fiorello and me and a few others. And I come to later find out that after the wedding reception, Beth and Jana end up going to hang out with you cuz you've got a residency at some club in San Francisco. You remember that night?
Splyce: I remember that night. Not only do I remember it, but the Real World was filming at the club that night. So if you go back and watch one of the episodes of the Real World, I'm definitely on there with a scene where one of the characters was jealous. His girl was flirting with the dj.
And I'll say right now, there was no, nothing on my end. You know what I mean? But yeah, that was amazing because it was so cool to reconnect with Z89 people, Syracuse, people across the country in a complete different city than any of us live in. Yeah. But yeah, they came to the club, they were hanging out with me in the DJ booth. We had fun. Like it was the coolest thing. It was amazing.
Komar: And how many times did you have to play the same royalty free music? Like 15 times. Cause I've been there doing it down here in Miami. Different shows. Or Undercover Boss when I was on the ship there and I'm like, you guys are gonna drive the people out of the club here because you got me playing some like BS version of Black Eyed Peas right now, thing.
JAG: That's hilarious. Stuff you learn as you get into this field. Yeah. All right. Komar, Mike Kruz, take me through your journey after Syracuse, cuz you've had some pretty big stories and pretty big gigs and radio. You're also not one to toot your own horn, but let's hear it.
Komar: Okay. All right. What's funny is I wound up back in Binghamton, back in my hometown. I worked for a couple stations there, but it was one of these situations where sometimes you gotta go to grow and I didn't even get full-time. I got passed up a couple times for full-time gigs in my own hometown. Wound up at a startup radio station that you're familiar with in Burlington, Vermont.
JAG: Oh, that's right. So funny story. Mike Kruz and I both started at the same, radio station, 92-1 Kiss FM. Clear Channel in Burlington. You had just left prior to my arrival there in March of 04. Yeah, I,
Komar: I had been, while I was in Binghamton and working for Wild 1 0 4 there part-time weekends, I wound up do also doing a show at WKRZ in Wilkes -Barre Scranton, 98.5 KRZ..
And when their night guy left to go to KDWB in Minneapolis, I got the call, Hey, what are you up to? How's it going up there? I'm like, actually I wouldn't mind trying to see what else is out there and wound up going to KRZ to do nights there.
JAG: So you went from?
Komar:
Binghamton to Burlington to Scranton and there for a couple years. And then from there to Charleston, South Carolina, which I was there like four years, B 92, another top 40 station there. It was, I had another startup station and after KISS FM I told myself, oh, I'll never go to another brand new radio station again, sort of situation. Wound up at WIHB92 in Charleston.
Never been to the south before. I'm like, what's going on? What do I need to know about the south guy? Call the Yankee every day for I don't know how long, and I'm not even from the city. And then from there down to where I'm at now in South Florida, I can't believe, but down here, 13 years. So the longest I've been, other than my hometown, my God, down here in south Florida, first in Aventura, and then from there to Miami Beach for a while.
Got my fill of that living in Hollywood right down the street from the radio station, which is, I'm working for Cox Media Group down here and on, on here and in Tampa Bay every day in the afternoon. Started at Hits 97.3 here in town, top 40. Then they moved me on over to the AC station.
JAG: That means you're old, by the way.
Komar: I try not to remind myself of that, it's, you're only as young as how you feel, and. And drink a lot of water. But no, I, it's ac. It's worked out great because the station, our ratings are phenomenal. It's eighties, nineties, and more so it's, mass appeal, listening sort of situation doesn't help me get DJ gigs really.
But there's plenty. Actually. It does. T not nightclub gigs per se, but events, that sort of thing. And then weddings and then my share of DJing and Miami Music Week stuff. We were talking about the equipment. And I still like using the turntables and Serato and stuff.
My laptop, some of these guys just show up with the USBs. I had to learn real quick about record box and the USBs when I wanted to play some gigs for Miami Music Week, show up at the
Clevelander or Liv or whatever. And they're only playing CDJs and I gotta drop 'em in and do that real quick.
I've been blessed, DJ'ed parties for Jennifer Lopez. Been to Bahamas more times than I can count a lot of stamps in there cause I had a residency at Atlantis in The Bahamas. Met a lot of people out there. A lot of connections and yeah man and it all started with the Friday night party.
And real quick before I turn to Double-A, Splyce and Komar, during the beginning of the pandemic, we had two JPZ things going on because we had Scotty MacFarlane hosting trivia nights over Zoom. And then we had Stephen Kurtz putting together over Twitch live streaming, it was like a four hour Saturday night.
It was Kobe, Steven, or Tex, and the two of you as I recall, right?
Splyce: Yeah. I forgot about that.
JAG: Yeah. My wife and I we're not going anywhere. We're sitting home and beginning of Covid. Nobody was going anywhere. Like it was a great way to play some music and keep us entertained.
Komar: Yeah. Dragging out everything outta the patio so everybody could see the palm trees behind and get jealous and all that. It was fun. Yeah.
Splyce: That was cool him to put it together cuz I, I wouldn't have done that without him, like his little push Yeah. Was like, yeah, let's do it.
JAG: Because what else were we doing at that point? Nightclubs weren't happening.
All right. Dj, Double-A, you have made a couple references to the kind of person that Splyce’s and giving and getting energy back, and that kind of segues into what you're doing now.
But take me through your journey since graduation.
Adrian: After Syracuse I said to myself if I want to go into radio, right? I know I'm not gonna end up in the number one market in New York. And I was like, yeah. I knew I didn't wanna go like into a small town. I wanted to do radio, but realizing that I wasn't gonna start in New York City.
I had to figure something else out. And that's why I commend people like Komar and you guys who have popped from these cities to get to these markets eventually. That's not something that I knew I wanted to do. And so I was fortunate enough to, again, Z89, having the relationship with Tracy Chilandese, who at that time was running promotions. We became really good friends. She was working at Sony Music at that time and an opportunity to intern to be like a summer intern. And she's, hey, you should come check it out. I look you love music. And that's literally how I got my career started, was getting my foot in the door at Sony Music that led to a job with Tommy Mottolla's office at that time was the CEO.
And that was just, mind boggling. At that time I was a runner, so my first job with Tommy was just running around New York City delivering contracts or records or picking up things for his wife Talia, or meeting up with artists to give them stuff.
JAG: This is after he was married to Mariah Carey, right?
Adrian: Yeah. This was after that. So that was during the 9/11 period. So I was a part of, seeing all that happen. And got to rub shoulders with, some big name artists, Michael Jackson, Shakira. And I think to Splyce this point, I've always been someone who, I've never been starstruck by anyone.
To me, they're like, they're just people. And people who are going through their own challenges. They may have the most money in the world, but they've got their own challenges. So did that for a couple of years and then I ended up moving into media, went to work for a distribution company distributing telenovelas or soap operas internationally. So was able to travel to Nigeria. I was in Asia. We did stuff in the Middle East distributing that content. Did that for almost 10 years. I was working for a pioneer in advertising in Hispanic advertising and working very closely with our partners in Mexico, Televisa.
And after the 10 years, I said, you know what? I've been doing this for a very long time. Digital started. It was the proliferation of digital at that time, the Facebook, the social media. And I knew I wanted to just try something else. And that's how I ended up at Univision, which is the biggest Hispanic media company in this country.
Targeting all their content to the US Latino audience. And was there for seven years running the integrated marketing team, which again gave me the opportunity to attend, massive events, the Latin Grammys. tentpoles. Music tentpoles. Worked with the J Balvins the Bad Bunnies of the worlds.
Creating a branded content for, Fortune 500 brands. Yeah. And then in November of 2021, seven years into that, I decided that I was just ready to do something different. And I think what Covid did to a lot of us, it gave us an opportunity to reflect and assess our life. Because we had all this sort of time enclosed and I knew I've always wanted, I've always had this entrepreneurial spirit in me, to own my own thing and do my own thing. And so I parted ways with Univision in November of 21. Got certified in life coaching or career coaching, executive coaching.
Started my coaching business. Been doing that since September of last year. And now I'm also in the process of starting a marketing consultancy, going back to my integrated marketing roots. And doing a little bit of that as well. So I see a lot of opportunity now in the marketplace for individuals like myself.
I think there's a need for people that have multicultural expertise. , integrated marketing expertise. So that's where I'm at right now, and I'm just pushing forward, having that dream that I think a lot of us have to just, have your own thing and hopefully be able to make a living on it.
JAG: So is your ideal client somebody who's just looking to figure out what they're doing in life? Or is it a C-suite level executive? Who are you targeting?
Adrian: I tend to target high performers. So it could be someone who is two or three years into a job, right? They may be a bit confused or challenged in their role.
They don't know how to grow within a particular company. So I like to target high performers, and I think ultimately for me, my job as a career coach and executive coach is to help individuals tap into their full potential. A lot of us struggle with, a lot of limiting beliefs and trauma that we've had, growing up, that hold us back as adults.
And so my job as a life coach, career coach is to support them to get out of these mental blocks that you're having and overcome those blocks and shifting to a state where they ultimately see what's really inside of them, right? To really go and chase those goals and dreams that they're going after.
JAG: That's amazing work you're doing, and it is absolutely needed in this world, especially as we're talking more about mental health and it's become a lot less taboo as we all get a little bit older and new generations come up that aren't afraid to say, hey, put a hand up and say, you know what? I need a little bit of help here. So I love what you're doing there.
Splyce: And you're perfect at it.
Adrian: Thank you. Thank you, Splyce.
JAG: What's the name of the business, Adrian?
Adrian: My company's called Double August. But my program, my coaching program is called Unstoppable You.
JAG: Love it. Shoot me a link. I'll link to your business in the show notes as well.
As we start to wrap up here, guys, you talked about the deep friendship and relationship that three of you have had since getting together on the Friday Night party. I'm wondering if there are any other names folks from JPZ that you stay in touch with over the years, connections you made at the station.
Komar: You, we talk and obviously.
JAG: You and I only recently connect reconnected in the last couple years too.
Komar: I'll explain that. I, back in 2016, some people know what I went through with colorectal cancer. Some people don't. And it was a situation where we talked about even the pandemic and just you had time to reflect during the pandemic and just sit with yourself.
And I had a lot of time to sit with myself when all that was going on.
JAG: Sure.
Komar: It was situation where I just started realizing certain things that meant a lot to me, and I. Reconnected with a lot of you guys again, WJPZ friends there. And I was like, okay, once I'm well again, I wanna make the, effort to get back there and to give back and to also just be a part of those friendships again and just rekindle that.
Adrian: To Komar's point. Sometimes we have to go through these experiences in life to turn that switch on. And you go years upon years without reaching out to people, that you had a relationship or that helped you along the way. Like someone, like a Tracy, right? I still, every single December I get her Christmas card, and I thank her and we connect, we try to see their whenever we can.
But it's those friendships and relationships that go such a long way. Like I, I could tell you right now these dudes will be my friends and not even my friends, they're family forever.
Splyce: Absolutely.
Adrian: That's the beauty I think, of what JPZ brought to us in our college years. Is those relationships. We all went through this experience of running this radio station as college students. And that's not an opportunity that many people get.
Splyce: These two I talk to the most and then I try to keep up online with everyone else.
JAG: Alright. I know we've got an infamous Friday night party story that we're gonna close with, but before we do, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you guys your opinion on where the radio industry is right now.
Komar: We give everybody so many different ways to get in touch with us that it's a double-edged sword. You're working in a medium that's audio and you want tangible stuff on the air. So if you're talking about something on the air and somebody, they might be shy and they feel better like texting you, Hey, I thought was really great, and then you got their number in front of them.
Hey, can I call you to get you on the air? I feel like we gotta find better ways to use that technology that we have at our disposal in order to put a product together on the air. Like ultimately we got so many different. I'll go into my meeting tomorrow and we'll be talking about digital and promotions and community and this and that and the next things.
But you gotta remember end of the day where your ratings come from and that's your on-air product, right? You gotta make sure that's solid. You gotta be brilliant at the basics. Make sure you're putting on a good radio show, good radio station together and everything sounds tight and good there if you're gonna be able to sell the radio station to do anything else.
And I think it's important to just never limit yourself in what you do. Learn social media if you're not familiar with social media. I see so many people on Facebook, and they've been in and out of the industry or they've been out of the industry for a while now, just cuz they refuse to learn to keep up with the industry.
JAG: Splyce?
Splyce: I do have some concerns about radio and I really am curious to hear what you guys think because I have a recording studio in LA and all the artists that are in here talk about their Spotify. They're monthly listeners, getting on a playlist, not getting on the radio, but getting on a playlist.
Having dancers dance to you on TikTok, going viral on TikTok, how many Instagram followers do you have? How many streams does your song have? And really, I even broke it down, which streaming platform is number one and unanimously it's just been the only one that matters is Spotify. Spotify. Spotify.
Spotify, Spotify. Coming from a history of radio, it's a little concerning that I haven't heard anyone say. All we're trying to do is get this song on the radio. No, all they say is we're trying to get this in this playlist on Spotify. And also, if I may just one, I wanted to answer the earlier question you asked about what we learned and I just wanted to say, I wrote some things down.
One was value and hard work. This is what I learned, especially from Double-A and Komar value and hard work earning it, like we talked about earlier, I had to earn the spot and it was a lesson in perseverance. The next is adaptability, more specifically. What I mean by that is if I was a piece of crap to them the whole time, all the time, it wouldn't have lasted.
They wouldn't have liked it. I wouldn't have liked it. They wouldn't have put up with it. I'm not saying I wasn't ever, but if I was all the time, if I wasn't adaptable to work with their personalities, and if the chemistry wasn't there, that wouldn't have worked. And the more you give, the more you get. The more I was there to give. The more they were willing to give me back.
JAG: Well Said. Last question for the three of you. What's up with bouncers kicking you outta the country club?
Adrian: Oh boy.
Komar: We went there. Yeah, we saved the best for last. You want me to tell it or?
Adrian: Go ahead. Go ahead guys. You fill in the gaps, but alright.
Komar: So Splyce, as he is two years younger than us, right? We're in the club. We got all our records, our crates of records in there. Yeah, they're exactly, he's putting the black X on his hand right now. Did you have the black X on your hand at the time? Is that how they knew?
Splyce: Yeah. On the back of my hand. Huge Sharpie.
JAG: Oh boy.
Komar: So Double A and I had the wristbands, he had the black X on his hand, he asked me, Hey, can you give me an adult soda? So I wrap up my set. Double A's DJing. I'm like, yeah let's go get something. This bartender's been cool to me. I don't think we'll get any flack over here.
Thinking like we, at that point we're like, hey, we're DJing the country club. There's a thousand people, as we said on the fake live broadcast below us. We're the kings of the castle. Nobody's gonna touch us. Everything's good. So we go over and I get 'em a drink and I get myself a drink and go back to the DJ booth.
And not long after there, you remember how the bouncers at the country club, they were a bit hard asses, those guys. So they come over, they're just doing their job, but they grab the guy with the X on his hand, who bought you this, whatever. They look over at me and proceed to kick us both out of the club, even though we're pleading, hey we're DJing, we're the guys who were setting the tone.
We don't care. We don't give a...
So we wound up outside, our records still inside. I need to get my gear.
JAG: All three of you got kicked out?
Komar: No. Double A was immune from this one.
Adrian: No. I didn't get kicked out. I became the single threat.
Komar: Yeah, the single threat that night. He finishes the night. , I wanna say either you grabbed our records or somebody, a friend of ours went in and grabbed him and was driving because we didn't drive out there, we rode in your car. So we proceeded to hop on the school buses that went back to campus, got on the phone with, was it Amy, who was running the board running the tapes for us?
We're like, hey, you need to put us on the air. And on our cell phones or whatever, we're in the back. We're talking to these girls on the bus going back to Flint or Day or wherever they're headed. And we're like, yeah, could you believe they kicked us out of our own party on the air?
We're on the air trashing 'em. Yeah. That was probably the, not the best move in the world, but we were fired up at the time. We're like, they can't kick us out. Who do they think they are?
JAG: Do they know who we are? We're the triple threat.
Komar: Exactly. Yeah. The single threat to Adrian's point.
Splyce: But yeah, that was probably the one and only time I was kicked out of a club. Oh man. The one and only time. In my life. That was probably the one and only time I was kicked out of a nightclub.
Komar: You know what's strange too about this whole story is that Josh Sagman, he was the promoter, he did all the different parties at the time.
When we had our next party for whatever reason, they booked Splyce and I, but not double A. Do you remember that? So I don't know how you would've thought it would've been the opposite. Like these two guys that got, kicked out of the club, the guys that got kicked out the, they're, let's get them to DJ. And Double A I don't know if the messages got mixed somehow they thought Adrian had something to do with it.
I didn't have no idea how that even happened. So all of a sudden Splyce and I are the ones DJing the next party and double A.
Splyce: And that's so awkward.
JAG: Oh yeah.
Splyce: Yeah. It was so awkward.
Because you're sitting there going this is so weird. When you get the call, hey, we want you back at the country club.
And I go, all right, let's do it. And then you find out later, oh wait, it's just me and Komar. Wait, what happened?
Komar: Double A was asking for too much money.
JAG: Who did you piss off when they left you all by yourself?
Adrian: Yeah, that's what it was.
Splyce: It might have been a money thing a lot of times.
Adrian: I don't, I don't remember that. I like vaguely remember it.
Komar: Yeah. You try to block that outta your memory.
Splyce: A lot of times it comes down to the money, man. And sometimes it just comes down to, that's the thing about being a DJ.
Adrian: That may have been it probably. That may have been it.
Splyce: Yeah. How do you judge your own value and how do you up that price?
Like there is no set formula for saying, I want to get paid $500 bucks, or I wanna get paid $5,000 or $50,000.. If you're ticket selling DJ and you can quantify the amount. That makes sense. Yeah. But in our case, we weren't really privy to the numbers. We didn't know how much they were selling tickets for. We didn't know how much capacity it was.
JAG: Do you remember what you were getting for that gig?
Komar: When we got paid? I had to chase people down a couple times. I remember that.
Adrian: Couple hundred dollars max probably.
Splyce: Yeah. But I remember this for being a college kid, it was good money compared to what a lot of the other people were making for their jobs. Being a waiter or a waitress? Yeah.
Komar: Or whatever else. I wanna say Ryan Blackwell threw me a few dollars too. Do you remember DJ and McNabb's draft party? That was another one.
JAG: I have a picture that night with Komar. It's you, me and McNabb. That night, right after he got drafted, he had the suit on. He had to hold his gin and tonic below the frame of the camera so it wouldn't show up in the picture.
Komar: Hey, you know what? That's something I do to this day. Whenever I'm being photographed with somebody, it's something I learned from him. It's funny you mentioned that. I'll put my drink down or keep it out of frame because I don't want like a picture circulating where I got a drink in my hand at nightclub or at an event or something like that. So that's funny you mentioned that.
JAG: Yeah. And we learned that from Donovan McNabb.
Komar: From D nab. Yes, we did.
Splyce: One thing that was cool about Syracuse since Z 89 is the campus was very active, and I don't know if it's still like that, but I remember it was active. We were DJing and especially being Z 89 DJs, we were Z 89 DJs.
We were DJing fraternity parties, sorority parties, rap battles on South campus. Man, were DJing. Oh man. Fashion shows. Double-A was DJing with DJ Cash Money. They would bring guest DJs and guest performers. You did the dungeon. They tried opening a nightclub.
Adrian: Run DMC.
Komar: Kid Capri.
Splyce: It was so active that being a DJ on that campus and being part of Z 89. Was just something special. It was different. And I remember like other college kids, friends of mine would ask, how's college going? And I was like, dude, I'm having too much fun. Like every day of the week there's something fun to do. And they're sitting there yeah same. But you can tell like ours was just off the chains fun.
JAG: That is a fantastic place to leave it. The triple threat. DJ Komar, DJ Double-A, DJ Splyce. Thanks for spending some time with us on the podcast and great to reconnect with you guys. We'll talk soon.
Komar: Amazing. Thank you, guys.
Splyce: Love, love. love.
Adrian: Thanks Jag.