Marcie Joy on the Virtual Sessions presented by The DJ Sessions 7/28/25

Host: Darran Bruce
Guest: Marcie Joy
Location: Virtual Studios, Seattle WA & Boston MA

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Overview:
In this vibrant episode, Darran Bruce welcomes singer, songwriter, and educator Marcie Joy to The DJ Sessions for an in-depth conversation covering her music career, creative journey, and contributions to both the electronic music and children’s music scenes.

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Topics Covered:

• Early Inspiration and Musical Upbringing:
  Marcie discusses growing up in a musically rich household with influences from her parents. From singing before she could speak to early recording sessions, her passion for music was evident from the start.

• Emotional Storytelling Through Music:
  She explains how songwriting and singing serve as emotional outlets, revealing her connection to poetry and voice as powerful tools for expression.

• Collaboration in the Electronic Music Scene:
  Marcie details how most of her early collaborations were remote via platforms like AOL, MSN Messenger, and Skype. She describes the unique friendships that form when creating music together, even from afar.

• Behind the Lyric Radio Show:
  A deep dive into her signature show which highlights the often-overlooked voices behind electronic tracks. She shares how the show humanized the songwriting process and brought attention to underrepresented vocalists.

• Children’s Music & Banana Band Project:
  Marcie shares her transition into children’s music and how her Banana Band project became an exciting new creative outlet.

• Live Performances & Memorable Gigs:
  Highlights include performing live at Luminosity Festival and stories about unconventional placements of her music, including a South Park feature and an iPod-powered vibrator ad.

• Industry Wisdom:
  She provides candid advice for aspiring artists – keep creating, expect rejection, and stay connected to your passion. Focus on authenticity rather than trends.

• New Acoustic Projects:
  Marcie teases upcoming acoustic reimaginings of her songs and new collaborations that focus on storytelling and stripped-back performances.

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Special Features:

• First-ever integration of a music video (“Never Enough”) within the interview format.

• Discussion of the shift in media production during the pandemic and how The DJ Sessions evolved to include global virtual interviews.

• Marcie and Darran brainstorm future concepts, including a collaborative cooking show and robotic kitchen interactions.

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Call to Action:

• Explore more of Marcie Joy’s work:
  Website: marciejoy.com
  Kids Music: kidsmusicbymarcie.com
  Socials: Instagram, SoundCloud, Facebook

Closing Thought:
“Embrace the absurd” – Marcie’s guiding philosophy that reflects her resilience and creative spirit throughout her multi-faceted music journey.

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of The Virtual Sessions, presented by The DJ Sessions. I’m your host, Darren, and right now I’m sitting, as always, not always, sometimes I’m out and about doing events and having fun stuff and being around the world, but I’m sitting in The Virtual Studios right now in Seattle, Washington, and my guest today, coming in all the way from Boston, haha, I just had to make fun of that and say that because we’re talking about a pre-show Boston, I got Marci coming in today for The DJ Sessions. Marci, thank you for being here today.

[Marcie Joy]
Oh my gosh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Darran]
Yeah, super excited. Doing some new tricks and stuff with the show today too. I’m super excited to try out with new technology.

Always something coming up. Oh, you know what I did? I forgot to turn off the server volume.

So that’s always happens in the back end. You heard an echo of me coming in because I got…

[Marcie Joy]
You’re handling so many technical things, I’m kind of blown away. I’m just here.

[Darran]
You know, a lot of people think that this, and you know, being a media professional in the industry, that there’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that people don’t know about. Like before our pre-show, we did a pre-show warmup. Then before we go live, I have to turn off certain servers, turn back on certain servers, activate Instagram, make sure the feed’s going out to Twitch, make sure our marketing’s going out, make sure it’s all working in a matter of like 35 seconds when our intro is running.

That’s pretty impressive. We are in the process of licensing some new music for our intro. So I know it was a little silent.

I can’t type in with you and go, we’re getting new music soon. Your music for the new intro.

[Marcie Joy]
Okay, also to deal with a panicked guest.

[Darran]
Yeah, it’s all good. But thank you so much for being here today. You know, with an extensive career of working with so many artists, and we’ll get into this a little bit more in depth, but you know, you seem to have a passion and a love for making music, pursuing music, doing music.

What has been your strongest motivation? I’m going to hit it right out. What has been your strongest motivation for pursuing a career in music?

[Marcie Joy]
Well, I think I was born singing. Like I always wanted to sing. I always sang instead of talking.

And it’s almost like I couldn’t not like, I just have to. So even if I’m not writing and putting things out on labels or something, I’m always singing to myself or singing, you know, when I’m working as a teacher, like, it’s just how I communicate, especially when when emotions get heavy, or get stronger, or get happy, you know, really happy, like it comes out through song. Um, so I think it’s all about a voice, like having something to say, finding the best way to say it, the most authentic way that, for me, it was often through poetry.

And then the music kind of gives it that extra emotion.

[Darran]
Yeah, is this something that started at an early age? Or were you encouraged or something you just picked up says they’re doing this and then pushed?

[Marcie Joy]
Both my parents are very musical. So I was fortunate to grow up with like, was that right around me and my dad had a van, we practiced in the basement, I’d go downstairs, I was really afraid of the kick drum. I thought that I was gonna get lost inside of it.

And so I had, you know, I was very close to those instruments. But I loved it. I love to hear him do all different kinds of music.

My mom has a beautiful voice, nice piano. So that was just always there. The dancing.

We actually found some, some funny cassette tapes recently of, like some of the first songs I did when I was maybe two. And my parents are telling me to sing. And I’m, I’m happy to do it.

And then I’m kind of talking about how I want to go to the beach. They’re like, Oh, you know, say, sing one more song. So I just made up a song in the spot about how they should take me to the beach.

Because that’s what I want to do. Like, I just learned early, like, if I can, if I can get your song, people are gonna listen. And it’s gonna have more impact.

So yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Darran]
Wow, the age of two. Okay. I thought I was young getting into the industry.

I’m starting to six. But you know, unfortunately, industry back then, though.

[Marcie Joy]
You know, right.

[Darran]
It’s just like, you know, over the years have worked with a number of artists. I mean, don’t need to name drop to me. But I mean, there’s some people I’d love to have on my show that you’ve worked with in the past and all that fun stuff.

You know, the collaborations working with people in the electronic music world, do you find that you’ve made a lot of friends? Or has it been more like friends in the music industry? Or more just business contacts, career contacts?

[Marcie Joy]
That’s a really good question. And so it’s over the years, and it’s been a long time. So I have maybe a core group of three or four people who I would consider to be true friends.

I’ll trust them with, like, giving me honest feedback on my work, or helping me out, or I’ll help them out, or, you know, we’re there for each other. They know about my personal life. But most of the most of the collaborations were professional, because most of them were over the internet.

And so when I started out, it was still MSN Messenger, or even AOL, and, you know, then Skype, and just sending files back and forth all different time zones. And it was wonderful, because I got to get to know people. And I, there’s seasons, you know, there’s a season when I was very close with this person, we’re working together.

And then we maybe went different ways, artistically, we stayed friendly. But, you know, there’s something that happens when you really make a song, maybe together, you just feel really bonded. And then you always have that connection, even if you’re not in touch all the time.

[Darran]
I definitely can relate to that experience. Because, you know, before we waited a lot for a lot of artists to come to Seattle, and then do kind of a red carpet in person, in studio interview with them. And it wasn’t until 2020.

So everyone, in my opinion, after being in video production, for 35 years, people did not know how to zoom and Skype, unless they were doing it in like, you were Skyping, you were aiming, you were doing stuff like that. The general public didn’t know how to do that. And let alone up and coming artists that weren’t using that as a medium.

So, you know, lighting, audio, bandwidth, right browser, computer speed, you know, all the tech wasn’t really there. You know, all that fun stuff. And to collaborate, whereas, you know, afterwards, it’s, you know, I was meeting people online, doing interviews, and I kind of shifted the format of our series to more of a news based interview platform, because we couldn’t have people come over to the studio and play because of Pandy.

And the thing is, in 2022, I managed to make it finally to ADE for my first time over in Amsterdam. And just to see the people’s faces of being able to be around people again, once, once again, being able to shake hands, meet people and collaborate around the world of people that normally just talk to email, instant messenger, or via a zoom meeting, you know, it was just awesome to have that back. So you know, that that personal connection you can build online can even exponentially is much more better when you can meet that person in real life.

You know, it’s really cool. You know, so I totally understand, you know, making friends and meeting people from all over the world is different. And you know, what it’s like dealing with the different time zones.

[Marcie Joy]
I mean, I had a chance to meet some of them too when I went to performances. And yeah, that was really exciting.

[Darran]
And that’s, that’s what’s really fun is, is actually finally putting not putting a handshake or a hug, you know, with someone like we’ve spent six months talking. Good to see you, you know, eat, you’re not just eating dinner over a computer screen, and I’m eating dinner. Yeah, after all of the productions you’ve worked on, though, in people you’ve worked with in the industry over the years, what’s the most memorable or out of your list of productions you’ve done the most memorable, the one that stands out to you the most?

And why would that be one that does?

[Marcie Joy]
I mean, I think what stands out most to me is probably the radio program behind the lyric, which allowed me to not only share the stories behind the lyrics of my own releases, but to really reach out to vocalists and producers from different eras and even a little bit of genre crossing and get their stories too, and really humanized the process. Right? I felt when I when I first started the show, I felt like vocalists maybe weren’t getting the credit for being songwriters.

Sometimes lyrics really meant a lot to people, but no one knew who was saying them, or it became about, you know, what that singer was wearing, or like, the cool factor of something as opposed to I think, a lot of the interviews on my shows sort of proved this to be true. Most of the singers were writing in our pajamas, you know, pouring our hearts out and producers probably too, right? We’re all just like, like at our most raw and vulnerable when we’re in the studio or creating something.

And then when you market it, it becomes just, you know, your persona or the hip factor. So being able to do that show and connect with so many artists on such a personal level, and so many people were really vulnerable to tell their story on the show, it just made me feel a lot closer to everyone. It made the industry feel a And I did that show for 37 episodes, that was many, many interviews, and just finding like the commonality that we all shared as artists, and what we really wanted for the world, and what we were hoping that our music would do besides just about, you know, people were really hoping it would, I can’t say it would bring world peace, because that’s very dramatic, but kind of, right? Like how many songs are about love being answered, about music bringing people together.

And so that was always a really powerful experience.

[Darran]
I can totally relate to that, especially doing a show, a live streaming show that was focused on just the electronic music industry. You know, I saw in the beginning days, I would do a pre interview with the DJ, let them play a set, and then do a post interview, like a one hour, here’s a teaser of this DJ, if they if it was a local DJ, which is what the show is created for, or an international superstar, they’d come by the studio, do that. But when Pandy hit, I basically realized every DJ in the world, and those that weren’t DJs started doing a live streaming DJ show.

And I’m not a DJ, everyone always thinks that I’m a DJ. And I’m not a producer. I’m an executive producer, but I’m not a producer of music.

So I didn’t really, I saw it as an opportunity, I could have figured out a way to do DJ shows, but everyone was doing so connecting people, which we need someone to be above and moving the pieces around and helping us. What was crazy is that I didn’t like your behind the music concept. These DJs were going online, they were making music producers are going online, and they were showing themselves in the studio making tracks.

But they weren’t talking to the camera. Now they might talk to the chat room. But they weren’t putting it out as an actual official show saying, Hey, today, I’m going to show you the dissection of this song.

I’m going to tell you what this song means to me. And here’s a preamble, or here’s an in the in the middle, or here’s something I’m finishing up. And here’s me making the song here.

Or here’s a story of me beginning the middle to end of this track and what it means to me. Boom. And now you’re seeing it released.

You know that just nobody was taking to that level, which opted me to go, I should start taking my Rolodex and start interviewing these people get behind. I’m not gonna use your tagline. Yeah, you’re behind.

But to get behind what’s going on these people, and where I might only have them for five minutes behind the stage or in the green room, I now would get them for an hour and be able to ask some really in depth questions or even let them help to guide the interview, as you know, send me some information over and say, What would you like to talk about? What do you want to be current on information, past information, whatever it is, of course, with my own little flare of questions that I put in there. But, you know, just I feel so much more connected, like you said, to the scene to the industry now.

And we open it up to to not just DJs and producers, but to all industry professionals. And even when we’re going down in the hip hop, because hip hop has that turntablism culture. But you know, it was just, it’s been interesting to hear so many stories.

And you’re right, getting behind, using your tagline of your show behind the lyric, you know, to do something is just awesome to help that.

[Marcie Joy]
I really respect that. Right? Because the scene is only the scene of the people in it are making it so.

And that’s what underground has always been popular is because it’s very, it’s driven by culture. And then, you know, the usual pattern is it becomes commercialized, and then it’s sort of, you know, becomes pop or whatever. And then there’s sort of new ideas coming up.

But if people and this was tricky during the pandemic, if people aren’t able to go out, and they’re not able to collaborate, then you don’t have a scene. So it’s amazing how people kind of circumvented that and came up like you did with these really, like, ingenious ways of getting people to stay together and to say, we’re going to create the scene that we want to live. We’re not going to leave it up to, you know, the major labels or the corporate whatever to decide for us what our, what our musical passion, you know?

[Darran]
Yeah. And I think that’s one of the reasons I love being kind of independent, not that I’m trying to knock into the major production companies or houses or labels or anyone out there, I want to work with all of them. But being independent, I can move as freely as I’m not getting an assignment.

I mean, you have to talk to someone, you have to do this, I would feel so can’t do like a straitjacket wrapped around me rather than just be able to go on site to somewhere like AD or I got invited to go down to Mexico for dreamscape. You know, be backstage, set up a whole media junket there and, you know, or just travel and be like, I got my cameras, I can be on the fly, I can go jump in the crowd and do interviews and stuff.

[Marcie Joy]
Were you going to Winter Music Conference back in the day?

[Darran]
Funny enough story.

[Marcie Joy]
Did you watch Winter Music Conference?

[Darran]
Funny that’s how the DJ sessions got started was in 2009. Just a little back history, I was doing a series, a broadcast television series called ITV. And we had 13 separate shows approved on 12 different stations on the west coast, big series looking for millions of dollars.

And I had this opportunity to go to Winter Music Conference 2009. It’s where I first met Dave Dresden and interviewed him on my show. And I had the opportunity, the person who got me connected with Dave was also Carl Cox’s PR person.

And I didn’t know, for some reason in the world, I did not know who Carl Cox was. And she had this huge, huge, huge press release thing, huge, huge event that was going on with Carl. And she’s like, do you want to come cover it, Darren?

And I was like, oh, no, I got to go do something else. We’ve got this thing going on. I don’t know.

Found out later who he was. I’m like, how the F did I miss out on that? Next time, listen to the PR person who’s working with one of the top DJs in the world and go.

But anyways, yeah, the concept, I was talking with a guy I was there with, and he started talking about streaming live and wanted to stream DJ sets live. And I was like, well, I was looking into starting my own internet radio station at that time or even streaming live videos for myself. And it was going to be like $3,500 a month for the server.

[Marcie Joy]
There used to be a lot more internet radio stations back then, right?

[Darran]
What’s that?

[Marcie Joy]
There used to be, there was like a window of time where there were a lot of internet radio stations. Oh, yeah.

[Darran]
Internet radio stations weren’t too hard to set up. I had one going out of my house, off my Mac G5 tower on my server. And I would put different genres.

And it wasn’t too hard. I mean, getting listeners obviously is hard, but I had one going. But that being said, I came back and I was like, I produced this series doing live streaming with my broadcast show.

And I thought to myself, what was the easiest part of putting that together? And it was the DJ section where I could say, okay, we’re taking a commercial break right now. We’re going to let the DJ play for 30 minutes.

I came back after all that footage and I go, I broke it up. And one of our genres we had was called ITV nightlife, was a segment of our series of the show. And I said, well, what if I just started, got a studio?

Well, I started this in my living room. You can go back and watch these episodes too. It’s pretty funny.

My friend called me up one night and said, I’m coming over. We’re doing the DJ sessions. Put it on, record it in my living room.

The next week we moved it to my bedroom, lights, camera, action, multi-cam, everything set up. I was doing local DJs for a few moments and lo and behold, Dave Dresden was coming to town. And I called his PR.

He just said, hey, I’d love to get Dave on the show. Would that be cool? And she hit him up and Dave said, yeah.

Dave came by, did an interview and played a set. I had 12 people in my apartment. That’s about all it could hold.

This was kind of a studio apartment. And I sat back and I went, wait a second. I’m onto something here.

What have I got other people when they came to town? This is two years before Boiler Room ever came out. And I’m going, let’s put DJs when they come to town, put them in a studio.

Now there was something called groove tech back in our town, years ago. It was pretty big, internet streaming station. And they had a DJ booth out by the record store and they would bring people from time to time to come by and play that.

And it was awesome. And that was what our show was kind of an homage to groove tech itself. But we did it in video.

They were just audio only. I mean, they did have a webcam at one point later on before they went out, but I think they went out somewhere in the early 2000s. And we’re talking, this is 2009.

So that being said, I just started inviting everyone that came to town to come by on the show. I got a studio, then I got a mobile studio, our mobile billboard truck studio. It’s really cool.

You can see it on our site.

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah.

[Darran]
I’ve had other bigger studios on location, all that fun stuff, just building and building, building it up on this live streaming. And our backend of our series is a podcast series. Basically everything that’s archived is podcast, basically video and podcasts.

So people could subscribe to it and obviously watch us live right now. If they’re, hi mom, if you’re watching.

[Marcie Joy]
I think my mom might be watching.

[Darran]
And basically, I like the live aspect because it’s what you see is what you get. Our shows will be done. I can edit them, put them up now with technology, put it all together and have it gone.

But yeah, and get behind the scenes even more now. I mean, if you were never coming to Seattle, what would be the chances of me being able to get an interview with you? Unless we did it like this, but I just liked that we expanded.

And then in 2022, I said, let’s get all electronic music industry professionals and talk to the promoters, talk to the PR managers, talk to the label owners, talk to the audio engineers, whatever. There’s some insight that anyone in the industry can give that maybe somebody hasn’t heard yet. You know?

And we’re here to talk about you and not my show.

[Marcie Joy]
It definitely makes me want to dig into your archives. So thank you.

[Darran]
Oh yeah. 2,600 episodes and I think it’s 2,700 now. And we’re just getting ready to do some, our website just launched in the version 3.3, which is awesome. You can actually, if you want to dig into something, go to the Wayback Machine and look up the djsessions.com and see what our website looked like in 2013, what it looked like in 2018 compared to what 2021, I think. And it’s like, yeah, there’s been a progression of this. And it’s just always the back end work of all this stuff.

But speaking of breaks, we’ve got big on Twitch before pandemic, we were out there, we’re doing our stuff. We want to know more about you. What was your biggest break that launched your career and got you going in all this?

[Marcie Joy]
I mean, all through college, I had bands. After college, I was performing with a corporate show band, went around the country. It was like a big 13, 14 piece group with dancing and choreography.

And we’d do events for NFL, Coca-Cola, and fancy weddings. But I was doing my own songwriting. And I started recording for a producer in New York named Alexander Pearls, who he’s had so many, so many amazing hits.

And the first song that I recorded for him ended up being kind of a, you know, a hit overseas with Accuphase. It was out on vinyl, but I didn’t, I didn’t really know about it until I started to get kind of some like spam emails or like, like requests for more work. And that that opened the door to being able to say, Oh, wow, I can start sending some ideas out, I can find some collaborators.

And then from there. I mean, the big breaks were probably just the people that believed in me. System Recordings gave me the opportunity to do some EPs.

Different producers I worked with in the beginning like Steve Birch, who just, you know, allowed me to experiment and helped me learn about the scene and the genres more. Having songs on ASOT, having songs on, you know, Tiesta’s show and things like that were always, that was kind of like night and day, you’d make a song and it’d be released and people would hear it. But then if it got played on the show, like that was suddenly like, like a whirlwind of new requests for collaborations.

And then just, you know, doing a lot myself, like pushing certain sponsors I believed in making kind of independent videos for them or figuring out how to land gigs. Just keeping it rolling. So there was never like a big break.

It was just sort of consistency. Doing, you know, following through on projects, you know, trying to live by my word, trying to look out for people that help me, you know, just to be fair, to be ethical, like all of that stuff paid off. You know, it maybe makes some things move a little bit slower, but it just felt better in the end.

And so it’s always, yeah, it’s been a long road.

[Darran]
I can totally relate to the slowness of the procedure of making sure you’re doing things right, crossing the I’s, dotting the T’s and not just running by the seat of your pants and just signing anything away. You know, I just got into a conversation slightly on Facebook the other day. I still call it Facebook.

Does that date me? Am I too old? Am I old because I call it Facebook and not Meta?

No, about, you know, the lack of, I wouldn’t say it’s not the lack of professionalism, but the lack of management or the lack of education in the environment that people aren’t familiar with getting a contract signed, getting something in writing, putting together a handshake hearsay deal. And, you know, it goes on both ends, the artists not requesting it, but the management or the promoters or people not asking for it. And then, you know, you get this whole up in the air.

I thought you said this, and I thought you said this, and I paid you money for this, and I didn’t get this. And, you know, and then what, you know, anything like that is the business side of things. I’m very contract orientated myself, have been for 25 years ever since I started producing broadcast TV shows.

And, you know, I’ll come to most people and even just a personal release is out of their wheelhouse. It’s like, you know, I have to have you sign a personal release because if I don’t, and then you can take my whole episode that I put a bunch of hours into and have me pull it down.

[Marcie Joy]
No, I mean, that’s something I learned early for myself was, you know, get the books, read about the law, read about contract, read about your rights as a songwriter. It’s not always about whether or not you’re going to get paid. It’s sometimes it’s just about standing up for yourself, being an advocate for others in the industry and making sure that we’re all heading on a trajectory of even more fairness for everybody, not less.

So, you know, and that was a lot of work.

[Darran]
Yeah. And some people, if they, if you’re an artist and you say, okay, here’s my contract, they’ll go, uh, we’re looking for somebody else and they’ll go hire somebody else who won’t ask. It’s like, why aren’t you?

And if that just screams danger, real Robinson all over to me, you know, like now that probably just dated myself. Well, no, there’s a new season, there’s a new series of the lost space remake. So people might get that reference.

But anyways, you know, it’s, yeah, I just, you know, unfortunately there’s no kind of union for everything out there, you know, that is watching people’s backs that sign up and there is for actors, but there’s not, I mean, there’s probably something for musicians, but not at the like local DJ, local artists, performing artists level. I mean, there is, but then they’re like, we just won’t go with that because we’re going to get somebody cheaper over here. You know, it’s unfortunate that they pick it like that, but you know, now social media.

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah. It comes down to like, there’s so much talent everywhere. So it has to be, it really has to be about giving as many people as possible a chance to express themselves.

As opposed to cherry picking the few that get to do everything.

[Darran]
And that was one of the original concepts of the DJ sessions was a show that would show our local talent DJs that were really phenomenal. And then it sort of became the artists would be the eye dressing that I can like, Hey, look, we got this big name artist, but I really wanted to focus and give the DJs. Now everyone knows how to web web stream live, get a webcam, put their computer on video BS and go to Twitch.

And yeah, I got a channel 16 years ago, they didn’t know video production. People didn’t know that side of it. So I came in as the video producer, all the cameras in the studios that they came in with their CDJs and, or the CDs and played or turntable sometimes and played on the show.

You know, as, as far as influences go, who would you say has been your biggest influences and artists when it comes to your career? And, and why?

[Marcie Joy]
That question. I have so many, because like I said, growing up, listening to my dad, it was Elvis and oldies and, you know, rock and roll. And then I, through high school and college, it was musical theater, like a background in that.

And then as I entered the electronics scene, you know, there’s the Jeff Briden, there’s Gabriel Bresnan, like these artists that their songs are going to be good at forever because it’s at their core. They’re amazing songs. They’re amazing vocalists and songwriters.

So it’s just been a mix. Yeah. No, like one particular person.

[Darran]
You know, I know sometimes I ask questions and they stump people. Sometimes I know it’s a difficult question to answer. And I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll jump on that with you because some people ask me, what’s my favorite episode?

I have 2,700. Like every single one has been awesome. And I have a good friend of mine.

He always asks me, do you ever go back and watch your old work? And I’m like, no, if I did that, just watching, I’d have to, even if I watched four videos a day, that’d be what? 600 days.

I’d have to watch a lot of time.

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah.

[Darran]
I put it on the background and it ran for eight hours a day. It’d still take me.

[Marcie Joy]
Which is why everyone watching this should go to all of our archives.

[Darran]
All of our archives.

[Marcie Joy]
Absolutely. All of your shows.

[Darran]
Yeah. I made a nice search feature on our website. So if somebody wants to see if an artist is there, they can just type in the search field and see if they pop up or not.

That’s kind of nice. I just added a new ranking calendar and we’re adding some more stuff in there, but I made it easy. We haven’t had everyone in the world.

We’re working on it. There’s 20,000 DJs in our list. It’s not that we have 2,700 episodes with 2,700 individual DJs, which would be awesome.

[Marcie Joy]
The cool thing is when you interview more than one person like that, you get an interesting juxtaposition of people that maybe wouldn’t normally appear next to each other. When I did my show, I have Thievery Corporation and then I trance vocalist and it was like just the next to each other made for a very interesting listening experience.

[Darran]
That’s something that really falls into again. I was going to touch base. We do silent disco events.

I’m a foodie. So my favorite type of thing is all you can eat buffet. And I like being able to like, you wouldn’t mix these foods together on a plate.

A chef wouldn’t do that, but Darren will. I had calamari. I had ribs.

I had a hamburger and I had a steak with baked potato all on the table. Not just for me. I had a friend with me.

No, no, no, no. I was just saying like, that’s how I eat is I like to have a bunch of different things to choose from. When we do our silent disco events, I can have a house, a techno, a trance, a drum and bass all on the same stage performing together and people can choose what they want to listen to.

But again, when we would do our shows in the studio, it wouldn’t be, first of all, it wasn’t the Darren Bruce show. Look at me, everyone. It was let’s highlight these DJs, but I could have a house DJ coming and playing.

The next DJ could be a techno DJ and the next DJ could be a trance DJ, and they normally would not play together at all because they’re all playing their different elements. But on a Wednesday night, they’d come over to my studio. We put each one of them on and I wouldn’t care about trying to just say, oh, this is a house music show or this is a trance only show.

Not that I have anything about single solo genre shows. I don’t get beaten up for that. I just believe a smorgasbord is better.

And you’re right. I can have different interviews with different people all over, all over the world. It’s awesome.

[Marcie Joy]
And even as inspiration, thinking I, my day job nowadays, I’m a teacher and my students in the spring, a group of them wrote a song together. And I think that’s probably the first song they’ve ever written. I don’t know what their influences are, but it was one of the best things I’ve ever heard.

And so it’s hard to pick one influence because I’m always being influenced by, I think maybe just people with something to say, you know, this kid had something to say and it was catchy and it was poetic and it was the way they performed. It was so heartfelt. It made me cry.

I’m just like, that’s music.

[Darran]
And you actually have made a shift to doing more children’s music as well within your career. What was the reasoning behind that shift? Or was there always a passion back in the end?

[Marcie Joy]
I’ve always loved working with kids. So I was working as a nanny, as a camp counselor, as a theater director, you know, theater classes, creating afterschool curriculum and just kind of piling up song ideas. And so maybe 10 years ago, I did a Kickstarter, that kind of dates me now, you know, and raised money from lots of fans who were really supportive of the idea and worked with some collaborators from the EDM and made a whole album with those ideas.

And I thought it would just be like a one-off thing. But then I started to do performances based off of that album and I created kind of a whole show around it. And I just fell in love, I’m still doing those shows today.

I’ve probably done a thousand of them. They’re always a little bit different. All different ages come to them.

We just have to have so much fun. And I’m still making music. I just created a banana band project, which I got very obsessed with in February.

I was sick with the flu and home for like seven days by myself. And then I realized I had this idea from a long time ago for a banana band song. And so I just started making it.

And then now I have four songs that the banana band does. It’s a whole little vehicle for a certain side of myself and I’m loving it.

[Darran]
Now, banana band, you said you have a vehicle. Now, when you say vehicle, do you mean an actual vehicle or a vehicle is in a- No, that’d be cool.

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah. Now I’m driving around in a banana car. No, I mean like a vehicle to express certain musical ideas.

Yeah. Now I have a whole band and they can explore some ideas musically and lyrically and have some fun with it.

[Darran]
If you knew me in 2007, between 2007 and 2010, I couldn’t stop. There probably wasn’t a conversation that I didn’t have that probably 25% of every conversation I had was talking about getting this glass box truck and making it a mobile studio. Like everything.

If I got the glass box truck, glass box truck. If we had the glass truck. And finally in 2010, we ended up getting the glass box truck studio.

So when you said a vehicle and made a banana vehicle, the vehicle, I was like, wow, I know what it’s like to think about dreaming about a car and a vehicle and getting a vehicle.

[Marcie Joy]
I mean, I do kind of want to wrap up like a banana with people and perform these songs, but it’s harder than you think to find people who are willing to just quit their jobs and go on tour and stuff like that. Working on it.

[Darran]
Yeah. Speaking of videos, we’re going to try something new here on the show. We’ve got a couple of videos we’d like to show our guests.

Which one would you like to show first and talk about it?

[Marcie Joy]
A little bit of Never Enough. Never Enough.

[Darran]
We can come back and look at the live performance. So we’re going to take a quick peek at the video right now and we’ll come back and talk about that. Marcy Joy on the DJ Sessions Virtual Sessions, first ever, taking a video shot of Never Enough by Marcy Joy.

We’ll be right back. That was awesome. We’ve never done that before on the show.

Tell us about Never Enough. Tell us about the behind the lyric. Tell us what was behind the making of the song, the video.

[Marcie Joy]
Well, the song idea I came up with on an airplane. And to my embarrassment, I think the opening lyrics are temptation 30,000 miles high, which worked beautifully as a lyric, but it never occurred to me that it’s not miles. And so like people pointed out, it’s actually a beat.

I was way off on my, you know, but it ended up working out very nice. But in my head, it was actually, I thought it was being mathematically correct. Yeah, just this idea that people are, you know, an airplane might be a place where people make an illicit connection with someone and, and imagine how life might be different.

But maybe they already have a life that’s really quite wonderful. And, you know, just this human nature sometimes to feel like whatever you have isn’t enough, you know, to compare yourself with other people and how that can kind of lead you maybe down a path that that would cause you to lose what you do have. So or, or inspire you to, you know, to reach out and take what you should take.

So that was that was the idea behind the and then the video.

[Darran]
I was gonna say I love 30,000 miles. I think that’s great. Outer space and you’re like, yeah, you know, you’re getting 30,000 30,000 mile view.

[Marcie Joy]
Literal miles, miles. But yeah, so we did the video and there’s a beautiful bridge between Charlestown and Boston. That’s where the opening scenes were shot.

And then we did some of it live at a club. Like had people come out, I had a gig there that night, but they came out earlier. And we filmed the scene.

And it was really fun, you know, running around running around the city, we got a little bit of trouble in a couple locations, because we’re supposed to film and, you know, that’s the running is actually like actually probably running. So I can relate. Yeah, I’ve done a couple videos like down in the, you know, at the train stations and stuff, too.

And you always have to kind of do real quick. We got people let’s go.

[Darran]
I can totally relate to that. Running gun for security gets you. Awesome.

Well, you know, um, I, were you directing on that? Or was that did you work with a team?

[Marcie Joy]
Or what was team? And then he was, he did the directing. So we really had to rely on him to help us refine our vision.

I think at the time, Anthony and I had come up with a storyline. And then it’s, you know, it just depends on what you can actually make happen. I tend to, I tend to imagine the miles high and sort of abstract, like things that would be difficult to, to tangibly film.

So a lot of a lot of video ideas I’ve had in the past haven’t always been realistic, you know, with the budget constraints that we have. But it ended up being a little bit more of a straightforward story, which it came out amazing. I was super happy with it.

It was on like, from only got distributed and played to the clubs and stuff. So yeah, it was fun.

[Darran]
And we do have another video of a live performance. Before we show that, can you tell us a little bit about that live performance video and what that’s all about?

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah, I was really fortunate to perform at Luminosity in Utrecht. I don’t know how many live vocals they’ve had at the Luminosity events over the years. I do feel really fortunate to have had that opportunity.

I think I did a maybe 18 songs in 20 minutes or something like I did a medley of a lot of different things. And I think this particular video I didn’t even know existed until maybe last year when it showed up on YouTube. I was so excited because everybody had phones right back then.

But it wasn’t no one was live streaming a lot of that, but it’s never never appeared. It was a really fun event. It was one of those times I get to meet a lot of people in person.

I think before I finally met Dennis Shepard. It’s just Yeah, it was such an amazing experience.

[Darran]
And this is a video just to make sure this is a video coming from a person in the audience via their phone.

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I think that’s good fun. I mean, I have other ones too, but I think that was this one.

[Darran]
Would there be a title of this or just at Luminosity? This is your live performance?

[Marcie Joy]
I think I’m going to be singing Love Letters. This is a track I did with Damien Askew from Holland.

[Darran]
Well, let’s check it out. We’ll be right back. And this is Marcy Joy at Luminosity.

What year was this again? We’ll be right back after checking out Marcy Joy at Luminosity. That was awesome.

That audio sounded perfect. That was a little because we didn’t preview it before shows. I was like, oh, no, no, no.

That was awesome. And that was all live vocals in a show that had never really been done before?

[Marcie Joy]
I mean, look, it’s not that common for us trance vocalists to get to perform live. Maybe a little bit more nowadays, or maybe even a little less nowadays. There was sort of a window where it was happening a lot, and I feel like the industry may have even gone backwards.

So, yeah, I got to perform there, I performed in Jakarta, I performed at Miami Music Week a few times, and a bunch of other places getting to do this music. But then, of course, my songs have been many more places than I’ve gotten to go to. So, that’s okay.

They have their wings, my song.

[Darran]
A great question I typically ask producers on the show, artists on the show, is where’s the most interesting or weirdest place you’ve ever heard one of your tracks play?

[Marcie Joy]
Ooh. Well, I had a song used for the first iPod-powered vibrator ad way back when. So, that was interesting.

[Darran]
What year was that?

[Marcie Joy]
I think that was right around probably the time you were at Winter Music Conference.

[Darran]
2009?

[Marcie Joy]
It was the Oh My God. Yeah, maybe.

[Darran]
I didn’t do an interview with you back then, did I?

[Marcie Joy]
You might have. I don’t remember.

[Darran]
I don’t, were you a little bit of Marcy Joy back then?

[Marcie Joy]
Well, probably just Marcy, but yeah.

[Darran]
I was at a pool party in 2009. I swear, Oh My God was at that pool party.

[Marcie Joy]
Was it Cedar? I remember the Cedar Song Party. The Steve’s Music Factory guy was there.

[Darran]
Which one?

[Marcie Joy]
I was doing the, it was the Cedar Song Party, I think. Steve’s Music Factory, the guy’s, the rapper from that group was there. It was fun.

I don’t know, but yeah, so they may have, because there was like a, the rage of sort of- No, I remember specifically Oh My God at a table. Yeah, I was like, you know, my song was in that, I was in their ad, and they were the first, and there were these new companies coming up, and they kept giving me like samples. So, I was like wandering around Miami.

So that was, you know, I can’t complain, but it was weird.

[Darran]
Yeah, I didn’t get a chance to get an interview with them. But yeah, I do remember that. I totally remember that.

Wow.

[Marcie Joy]
That’s quite possible. I have to admit, I was never much of like a drinker or anything, or I didn’t, you know, never done anything like that, but I didn’t sleep much that week. I was so excited.

And so I, yeah, after maybe the first four days, I was just a little delirious. So we may have done more. I was very sleep-deprived.

You’ll have to try to find it.

[Darran]
I was trying to see if I could pull up an internet search on Marcy Joy ITVNW, but it didn’t pull up. But let’s see if, that would have been so crazy. I thought I would have, I would have recognized somebody that’s been on the show, though.

You would have been like, oh, you look like the guy that was in Miami 16 years ago.

[Marcie Joy]
Right, no, yeah, well, again, like there was, I remember I had stayed up all night, and I almost didn’t go to that pool party, but I was scheduled to do all these interviews. And so I just rallied and went through and did all the interviews for Behind the Lyric, which was great, but I was so tired.

[Darran]
Because even, you were doing Behind the Lyric at that, so when was the years of Behind the Lyric?

[Marcie Joy]
2007, so about 2016.

[Darran]
And I really, I really only- So familiar, too. I can’t believe I’m not, figuring out why I’m not pulling up.

[Marcie Joy]
But, okay. I really only, I really only stopped at show sort of through no, it wasn’t like an intentional break. I, well, that’s a funny piece of the word.

I actually broke my kneecap in 2016, and that was like a big, I mean, that’s a pretty serious injury, so it’s pretty life-changing. And you’d think you’d just be like, you know, laid up, recovering. It’d be a great time to do stuff online, but that’s not how that recovery from injury like that works.

I really, like I had to learn to walk again, and it took a couple years, and I was getting sick a lot, so my immune system was messed up, or I had to find work, and I had to find housing, and there’s my earbud. Where did it go? Sorry, I’ll pick it up.

And, you know, it sort of delayed like the amount of work I could put into that show, which was sad, because I lost momentum on that.

[Darran]
Yeah, I definitely know after years of doing this, that I’ve burnt out a few times, where I just didn’t want to, I just went through an eight and a half month hiatus of kind of like, what am I doing? I did no front end stuff. People are like, where did Darren go?

I mean, I was usually a lot on my specials.

[Marcie Joy]
Well, sometimes you have to take care of your health. You have to take care of yourself, yeah.

[Darran]
And, you know, and it was kind of a turning point. I had to figure out some stuff with my back end, like to get my stuff back in career, that momentum, that bubble when you’re ready. And restarting can be even harder than starting starting.

You know, this again, and I got to do this again, and I don’t want to do this again. Okay, now back, mix it, everything’s going again. You know, and I definitely relate to that.

You know, it’s tough. But it’s good that you’re here back, and you find that your career path can take a few different changes, and you’re still, like, you find out what you’re doing with the children’s projects and teaching and things of that nature. It’s like, maybe that’s where your course was supposed to go.

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah, and as long as I’m singing, I’m happy. And then I had, you know, last summer, I found out that a vocal that I had written was featured in the special that South Park put out, the end of obesity special. You know, there’s things that pop up.

I guess that’s another strange place to hear my voice or my music. I had written vocal samples for Auto-Tune, working with Jason Donnelly, who’s an amazing artist in his own right. And we had sent the samples out, and I, you know, will they ever be used?

There’s so many samples out there. And then to hear one being used on South Park was kind of awesome and unexpected. And, you know, it was exciting.

It kind of, like, lit a fire a bit for me to, like, finish that song and, like, do other things and explore a few new ideas that I had kind of let go on the back burner. So you never stop. It’s just the momentum or the motivation or why you’re doing it.

[Darran]
One of the toughest things that people, if you’re not on the artist side of the fence, or, you know, most people, let’s just say, the people that work a day-to-day job and they get to leave stuff at the office, you know, and then come home and have their downtime life, their weekend life, weekend warrior, whatever you want to call it. You know, when you’re running your own business, you’re your own artist, it’s 24-7, especially when you’re collaborating with people around the world. And, you know, I’m talking to people, I had a conversation this morning that I was supposed to take at 9 a.m., but it’s five o’clock in the UK, you know? And, or, you know, working with people in Germany or Tokyo, sometimes it’s backwards and they’re on Australia or Tokyo or something. And it’s like how to meet those times and make sure. But I kind of drive it to make it around my time for my health, you know, because of, yeah, maybe one interview with somebody that might be on their time or, you know, but I can’t be doing things at two o’clock in the morning or three o’clock in the morning.

It’s like, and if I did that for, I actually had that happen to me in 2022. I had like opened up my outreach and had like 49 interviews in the first month, like hour-long interviews. And then next month it was like 43.

And then the next month it was like 57. I’m like, okay, I gotta do something to control this because it’s getting out of hand. And I wasn’t even eating.

Like, we didn’t have time to eat lunch. It was great, great, yeah, great on the success, but not health-wise. But yeah, I mean, being able to orchestrate everything that goes on in the background, you know, and what the demand, when you’re doing it at the level you’re doing it, you’re not at a hobby level anymore.

You’re at a professional level, especially if you’re getting, you know, the artists that you’ve worked with in the past, they’re expecting results too. You know, they’re gonna be like, see ya, bye. You know, you gotta be professional, be on point, be up to date, be on time and deliverable, you know?

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah, I mean, every project I do, like you can’t necessarily ride the coattails with things you’ve done in the past. Everything has to be top-notch. And so if there’s a period of time where I’ve taken off from singing and then I go right back to it, I’m gonna be like, oh, mercy, like you need to take a couple weeks to get your voice back.

Like you need to, you know, you need to sit down and really make this a priority. Otherwise it’s not gonna be the level of work that I hold myself to is for something I really want to put out.

[Darran]
So, yeah, but. Would you recommend a career as a DJ and or produce, I know you don’t DJ, but producing or vocals, would you recommend that to young kids to pursue, not just music in general, I mean, as like a passion and perfecting that, but as working in, say, the electronic music industry, would you say, hey, start at a young age, get in, go for it? Or, you know.

[Marcie Joy]
I don’t know, because with AI and everything that’s happening, I don’t know if there’s going to be an industry. So it’s hard to make any recommendations. I think, no, I think I recommend everybody to be like doctors and, you know, scientists and environmentalists and things that are really gonna, you know, teachers even, just things that are really gonna help save whatever’s going on in our world right now and keep us as a civilization proactive and strong.

But I would never say don’t pursue your passion. I think people absolutely should make art always, because art is also a powerful change maker, but maybe separate art from an industry or a commercial venture, because I don’t know how profitable it really is financially, but it’s definitely worth it as far as building a society and building community and people being able to share their talent.

[Darran]
And to those that are already in the industry, with your knowledge, your wisdom, and the years of experience, is there something you’d like to say to new and up and coming producers, artists, vocalists, to watch out for when it comes to making their career successful?

[Marcie Joy]
I think you have to get used to rejection. I think, I’ve been saying, like the only way to combat rejection is to have a lot of fires going at the same time, right? Like this idea didn’t take off, whatever.

I have 35 other things I’m excited about right now, and maybe none of them take off, but it doesn’t matter because there’s something else coming up. Like you’re never going to run out of ideas. So you might feel that way, but you’re not.

So like, don’t marry an idea, put your best work out there and learn from whatever you can from it. And then if the greater population doesn’t dig it, like move on, you’ve grown as a person. So, and again, maybe you’ve made a connection with someone or you’ve explored something about your artistry that you hadn’t touched on before.

So yeah, that’s just my advice. Like just keep plugging, don’t necessarily try to make what you think you’re supposed to make, make what you want to make.

[Darran]
That’s a great piece of advice. I just got the phone call with a friend, my best friend of over 30 years this morning and telling him, you know, one of the paradigm shifts I went through with that eight month hiatus was I was putting a lot of pressure on me to get some things accomplished with the DJ sessions. And I should have been focusing on other business goals and those would hit me and I’d be like, oh, oh, and I’m a pretty upbeat, positive person anyways, but it would still take them internally.

Whereas today, the same conversation I was having, if I approached somebody and wanted to do a business deal with them, and I literally was telling my friend right off the cuff, if something happens, okay, if this doesn’t happen, if this doesn’t happen, it’s not gonna crush me. I don’t think if it’s like their loss and I’m all up here and they’re getting the golden egg and they’re passing up on it. But I’m like, let’s work on my plate to not have to do that project.

I’ll go do this over here. You know, that just doesn’t work. I’m not gonna put so much effort into something that may or may not happen.

[Marcie Joy]
And truthfully, when I was booking my own tours and managing and writing contracts and all that kind of stuff, there was not a lot of time to actually do the art and the music. And that’s, not that I didn’t like everything about it, but that’s very draining. And it pulled away from sort of my zest for life.

And so, yeah, sometimes you just have to focus on what the passion is without worrying about the outcome. And then as I switched into education, I’ve thrown myself into that for many years, like as with as much gusto as I ever did in my music career and with amazing results. I love it.

And that’s just, it’s incredibly fulfilling. So, you know, whatever you put your passion into, you will feel fulfilled.

[Darran]
Absolutely. You know, and having the free knowledge and control and wisdom to be able to do that, I’m sure helps out a lot. You’re not always running around, you’re seasoned.

I’m seasoned. I mean, I’m not trying to sound like I’m old and I’m getting a grade. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

There’s a little salt and pepper here, but you know.

[Marcie Joy]
But you know, you don’t have to know anything. but it’s all in the glitters, it’s not gold, right?

[Darran]
Yeah, and I try to always maintain a philosophy. It used to be 98% of the information that I knew I’d give away freely. I just wouldn’t give away like my Rolodex, my top level, C level contacts and stuff like that.

Because everything’s out there, I would just wanna help somebody get there faster. You know, if they could, where do I go to find this out? And they’re not searching and spending three or four or five months, days, whatever, weeks.

I can go, go here, go here, get this. I’ve done all this research. This is what you wanna do.

They’re like, whoa, that totally advanced me. Oops, that advanced me way further. It’s my big jug of, yes, you can.

[Marcie Joy]
Ooh, I like that. Is this Stanley?

[Darran]
It’s not Stanley. It’s just water.

[Marcie Joy]
That’s what happens in the classroom. Students are all, everyone has like a metal water jug and they drop them, you know, not on purpose. That was the back of my day.

It’s like, don’t go, don’t go, don’t go, don’t go. But I was trying to teach. So, and sometimes I’ll drop it and I’m like, well.

[Darran]
Well, you know, a couple of last questions before we let you go here. If somebody were to write a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

[Marcie Joy]
Well, I have a phrase I like to say, embrace the absurdity. Which I think I adopted around the time I broke my knee because sometimes when you have a major life catastrophe, it leads to a succession of other catastrophes because you’re struggling to rebuild and things can sometimes get a lot worse before they get better. And if you can’t find the humor in it, you will lose your mind.

And so I, you know, sometimes it just felt like I was fighting with the universe, punching it. And it was absurd. And if I couldn’t embrace the dramatic shifts that my life had taken, yeah, like I would lose my mind.

So embrace, embracing absurdity or find the funny or, I don’t know.

[Darran]
No, that works, it works. I just, I have, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, I don’t know if you’ve ever been pitched a book deal before, a biography or autobiography. Marcy.

There’s, I’ve always talked about people over, at least for the past 25 years about writing a book about the nightlife industry. Even if it finally accomplished my coffee table book that I want to do called to do. And it literally, it’d be about my, trust me, there’s a whole nother thing.

And it’s all dated and have like excerpts and little bullet points and things in there. I’ll get to it one day when I get a bunch of money and I’m like, okay, now it’s time to publish a book. You know, and just kind of like the history of the making of an executive producer or something like that.

To do. Don’t steal my title, anyone, if you’re watching. It’s a good idea, Derek.

[Marcie Joy]
It’s a good idea. It’ll be like Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of Sydney, like sketched out a helicopter hundreds of years before.

[Darran]
Yeah.

[Marcie Joy]
All of our, yeah, all of our to-do lists and sketches. I love it.

[Darran]
No, and it, because it really, you know, it’s very interesting because you look at one of my to-do lists and one word could mean so much, but one word could mean do the laundry. If it just says laundry, it’s like, that means do the laundry. If it’s like.

[Marcie Joy]
You can do that during your interviews. Interview me and do your laundry at the same time, okay.

[Darran]
The laundry sessions. Now you just gave me a whole nother show out of seven that I already produced.

[Marcie Joy]
There’s a lot of things I could be doing, yeah.

[Darran]
Well, we do have a series that I’ve been wanting to launch for a while called the Beats and Eats series. And cause I cook and I’m foodie and all that fun stuff.

[Marcie Joy]
Now I’m gonna do an interview in person so you can cook for me.

[Darran]
Anytime, you let me know. We can do it virtually. Maybe you prep something, I prep something.

Totally.

[Marcie Joy]
That’d be amazing.

[Darran]
Don’t tempt me. I will produce it.

[Marcie Joy]
I will produce it. Everything I’m doing is gonna be like on fire though cause I’m not a great cook. So it’d be very different screens.

Me with like this fire extinguisher and you eating something delicious. Oh, that’d be. Yeah.

[Darran]
I mean, no, you know what we did? We set up a remote fire extinguisher. So if it does something like that, I can press a button in Seattle and it activates the fire extinguisher there.

[Marcie Joy]
I would feel safer, honestly. Thank you.

[Darran]
You just gave me a totally awesome concept for a show. Oh my gosh. What if we had like robotics stuff here, but you could like go and you program the thing and it scoops the ingredients here on my end and puts them into the dish.

But I push the buttons and it makes the dish for you over there, but you make a dish for me over here, but it’s all done with like robotics and stuff or something.

[Marcie Joy]
I like it.

[Darran]
A mystery dish. You tell me to grab stuff from my cupboard and I grab stuff from your cupboard.

[Marcie Joy]
And you’re blindfolded. So you’re just wandering around and me robotically controlling your hands. Yeah.

With the fire extinguisher button. Yeah. All right.

We’re gonna- Just walking into the wall repeatedly.

[Darran]
No, I mean, you gotta be careful with me cause I am the type of person that would be like, that’s a totally new show concept. Let’s do it.

[Marcie Joy]
Well, like I said, embrace the absurd.

[Darran]
We gotta make sure we get you a credit on it as you know, as producer, co-producer or something. I’m not one to take credit for something and take it if I do produce it. Marcy, Marcy, I’m producing that cooking show.

You gotta get on board right now. I’m right there with you. Okay.

We’ll work out points and everything on the backend outside of the camera actually.

[Marcie Joy]
I’m not like concerned about that stuff anymore.

[Darran]
Yeah. Is there anything else you want to let our DJ Sessions fans know before we let you go?

[Marcie Joy]
I’m working with a friend of mine to try to put together some acoustic versions of some of my songs and do some recording. So stay tuned for that. It’s kind of interesting to strip them down from their quantized, beat driven, somewhat varied vocals sometimes form into the storytelling, the sort of the raw storytelling.

And you know, my voice has changed over the years too. So like, I think I’m a little bit lower than I used to be. And just, it’s kind of fun to explore that.

And then he’s got some songs as well that he’s written. So, you know, stay tuned for that. Otherwise I’m working on some, a couple of new electronic songs, but mostly just my kids songs right now.

And, but always something, I’ve always had something going on. If anyone wants to work with me, let’s do it. You know, send me a message.

I’m open to ideas. Again, I’m not super concerned these days about commercial monetary outcomes. I just like to connect with people and make things and it’d be awesome to meet more people.

[Darran]
Where’s the best place people can go to find out all that information and- Oh, you can go to marcijoy.com.

[Marcie Joy]
That’s my website. My kids site is kidsmusicbymarci.com. If you’re interested in that.

And then I’m on SoundCloud, I’m on Instagram, Facebook, you know, anywhere is fine.

[Darran]
Awesome. marcijoy.com. Check her out and all those past songs, episodes, videos, and more, and the Instagram and the Spotify.

[Marcie Joy]
The cutest thing from a gig I ever did. Someone wants to share it. Like, I’m always like, that’s always fun to resurface.

Like that luminosity one.

[Darran]
Yeah, that’s the one thing I love about the internet. It’s crazy. You can go back and see the first days of when I was streaming live for, I used to call it dialing for dollars.

It was my version of doing YouTube. I never liked YouTube. Okay, strike that.

I love YouTube. I love you, Google. You’re awesome team, cool people, whatever.

I don’t want to like lose the sponsorship in the future for saying something wrong. But no, I always, we always saw YouTube as what the TikTok is now. It wasn’t for broadcast television shows at the time.

We missed a big opportunity there, but luckily we got a big opportunity doing a video podcast and being one of the first video podcasts in the Apple iTunes store when video iPods first came out in 2005. So that kind of led to our success of going, wow, 300,000 downloads a week. This is awesome.

How do we make money at this? Nobody knew because podcasting was so new at that time. There was no way to monetize it really like with commercials or Nielsen ratings.

So, you know, you can go back and see some of those crazy. I keep everything up online. Yeah, definitely.

[Marcie Joy]
I watch some of the more recent stuff, but I’m really intrigued now to go do a deep dive.

[Darran]
Yeah, submit it online, get it up there online. Tag, it’s easy to tag people now. That at mention works wonders, especially if you get them right.

[Marcie Joy]
Oh, that person, you know, whatever.

[Darran]
Yeah. All right, well, Marcy, thank you for coming on the show. It’s been a pleasure having you.

[Marcie Joy]
Thank you.

[Darran]
I love to hear more about your children’s songs and all that venture as well. We’ll follow back up with you. Definitely want to talk to you about possibly doing a cooking show.

That’d be pretty awesome.

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah, I mean, you’re really easy to talk to. So if anyone’s considering doing an interview with Darren, go for it. He makes you feel very relaxed, super easy.

[Darran]
Awesome, I appreciate that. All right, well, we’re going to get going here and let everyone know where they can find out more information about us. Obviously at thedjsessions.com.

Find us there. We have over 700 news stories every month, 2,700 plus and counting past episodes, exclusive mixes, and more. All of our socials are there.

You can go check us out on our new, well, our VR nightclub. It was new a few years back, but we just revamped it a little bit more to get it up and running. Our website is version 3.4 and more coming. We have a mobile app you can download and you can get everything and that at our store. We’re going to be launching a new music section here coming up shortly featuring the artists that you love, hopefully some Marcy Joy stuff, and more at thedjsessions.com. Check us out, thedjsessions.com.

Thank you for watching. This is Darren and that’s Marcy Joy coming in from Boston. I’m coming to you from the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington.

And remember, on The DJ Sessions, the music never stops.

[Marcie Joy]
Yeah, thank you.