DJ AM: In It To Spin It - Last interview before his Death.

Upon arriving at DJ AM’s Los Angeles’ offices for our interview and photo shoot with one of the world’s most innovative and sought after experts of spin, we are told AM (a.k.a. Adam Goldstein) is probably exhausted having just returned from pulling an all-nighter at the turntables in Las Vegas. Immediately, our staff fears the worst. Nothing throws a wrench into a photo shoot like a cranky celebrity. As AM wearily walks through the doors, bags in hand, we all take a deep breath. “Hey,” he says with a smile. “So sorry to keep you waiting.” It is in that moment that a universal sigh of relief comes over the room. Along with possessing incredible talent and a keen knack for combining and building on tracks in a way no other DJ has done before, AM, it turns out, is also a pretty cool dude.

As we go from shot to shot around AM’s offices, it becomes evident that AM’s true place of work doesn’t involve a desk or a conference room. His office is today’s hottest clubs and parties and his clients are music lovers looking to have a good time. “I am the luckiest man alive,” he says. “I get paid a ridiculous amount of money to do what I would do for free anyway.”



A Philadelphia native, AM discovered his interest in DJing early on. After watching a performance by Herbie Hancock on the Grammys one evening, AM, at age 10, was mesmerized. The idea that someone could control music and sound with their fingertips was fascinating. He immediately found his parents’ record player and proceeded to scratch up their entire record collection. His skills may have needed some work, but AM was well on his way and every free moment he had, he would spend trying to master the turntables. AM says that everything around him suddenly seemed to have a beat and a rhythm. Even when riding the school bus or driving with his mother, he would watch and wait for the windshields on the bus to synch up with each other or the blinker on his mother’s car to match the beat of the car ahead.



AM was also influenced by all kinds of music. “My parents raised me on Bob Marley and Elton John. My sister was a diehard punk rocker who loved the Misfits and the Dead Kennedys, and I was more L.L. Cool J and Boogie Down Productions, but then I also liked Tom Petty. I liked everything,” he says. AM was perfecting his craft, though he never imagined it would one day become his career or that he would bring a much needed spotlight to an often overlooked musical art form.

Instead, AM took a job in the mailroom at a Los Angeles talent agency and would practice spinning in his spare time. It was during this time that a friend of his, who ran an after hours club that opened at 2 a.m., invited AM to test out the skills he had been perfecting. After wowing the crowd, AM continued to pick up gigs, including a stint as the resident DJ at a club called Dragonfly in 1995. “My first job paid 40 bucks and cans of Budweiser. I couldn’t have any mixed drinks or bottles of beer,” AM recalls. After a while, AM was getting enough work spinning that he was able to quit his mailroom job and says he hasn’t had any other job since.



Eventually, word on the DJ who played your favorite music in a way you had never heard it before began to spread. AM was asked by his friend Oliver Hudson to play his sister’s birthday party. As it turned out, that sister was Kate Hudson, and it was there that AM was asked to play at Ben Stiller’s wedding where he met famed record producer and Def Jam Records co-founder, Rick Rubin. From then on, AM worked only the best venues and star-studded events. “I have never made flyers or mix tapes or done anything. I just have always worked my ass off. I’ve always gotten hired from one job to the next job.”

Eventually, AM decided to open a club of his own. Club LAX was the redesign of the former Las Palmas club in Hollywood. But while AM had spent much of his time working at highly exclusive clubs and parties, the VIP philosophy was not something he wanted to adapt in his own venue. “I miss dancing,” he says. “Bottle service has ruined fun. Now it’s about real estate. It’s about ‘Look at me and my success.’ Where does that leave the fun in dancing? I need to shut up because that’s why they can afford to pay me. I just miss the fun aspect of it.”



To offset the bottle service phenomenon, LAX hosts an anti-VIP night every Sunday. “We don’t care who is a celebrity or what they want to spend. Anyone can sit next to anyone else,” he says adding that on more than one occasion, he has had to threaten to throw out bodyguards for attempting to block off tables for their celebrity clients.



AM wants the evening to be about fun and about music, and about leaving egos at the door. His go-to tracks for a good time? For the girls, he says “Love Fool” by The Cardigans is always a hit and for just about anyone, the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize” is always a crowd pleaser. But if he really wants to put people in the mood to hit the dance floor, AM pulls out the big guns. “Whether I’m in the hood or Beverly Hills, Michael Jackson will make people dance,” he says adding “I don’t care what environment I’m in as long as there is a crowd that wants to



have fun.”

At the time of this interview, AM was partcularly excited about his work with Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker. In an effort to develop his sound and range as a musical artist and created AM had teamed up with Barker in a unique musical pairing where Barker plays the drums to AM’s spinning. AM admits he was unsure about the project. “At first I was apprehensive, because I have seen it done and it can look sloppy. I always think less is more, but then I realized, wait a minute, this is Travis Barker. Aside from the image and the tattoos and whatever, the dude is an incredible drummer.” The result is a really unique sound. “It’s not a band or just a DJ,” says AM. “It’s really about beats.”



But it’s AM’s interests beyond the turntables that truly set him apart from the pack. A recovering drug addict, AM makes it a priority to educate young people about his experience. “What I do with the majority of my free time is help people get off drugs,” he says. AM has spoken at Beverly Hills High School among others and even mentors a few teenagers one on one. “It’s nice to just sit and listen to them talk about what’s going on in their life and not think about what’s going on with me for a while.” Parties, clubbing and business aside – when it comes down to it AM explains, “Success is not money, it’s happiness.”



By Jillian Gordon





Photos by Bobby Quillard

Styling by Jessica Loria & Kelly Williams of Exclusive Artists Management

Grooming by Michelle Mungcal

Shoot supervising by Carla Thorpe

Thank You: Saturday Night Magazine

Powered by: Micky Flores