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What Style of Wedding Music is Right For You?

Are you getting married in the not too distant future and finding it difficult to decide on the right choice of wedding music for your big day? Then this, our second audio interview, might just be for you.

In this episode I interview Kevin Knower. Kevin runs Insatiable Nights, which is a Melbourne based DJ service that specialise in wedding music. I ask Kevin questions specific to what a couple might need to know when they are looking for either a DJ or a live band to hire for their wedding day. Some of the topics covered include:

• Advantages and disadvantages of hiring a DJ or a live band to play wedding music on your wedding day.
• Which act is better for getting the party started.
• Does the type of venue dictate what choice to make.
• How to find a DJ or band.
• 5 top tips for hiring a DJ or live band to play wedding music on your wedding day.
• Budget.
• Customising wedding music for the formal proceedings on the night.
• Working with the hired music and the reception venue and/or function co-ordinator.

Websites mentioned in the show:

Easy Weddings: www.easyweddings.com.au

Insatiable Nights: www.insatiablenights.com.au

I am sure you will get a lot of useful tips from this interview. Please leave any feedback you have in the comments section below. Also, as Kevin mentioned he is willing to answer any further question that anyone has also via the comment section below.

Enjoy

Warren

PS. If you would prefer to read the interview, I have included the audio transcript below.

 

Choosing the Right Wedding Music for Your Wedding Reception

Transcript

Warren: We’re back.

Warren: Hi everyone. My name is Warren Knower and I’m a portrait photographer with Volare Photography here in Melbourne, Australia. Please excuse my poor impersonation of a young Drew Barrymore in Poltergeist but yes, we are back for episode two. We weren’t thrown out of the worldwide web and the Podcast Quality Control Police didn’t blacklist the site either.

But in all seriousness, I would really like to thank everyone for the positive feedback which I received. It was a fun experience and I’m looking forward to doing it all again.

So today I’m going to share with you a little brotherly love and that’s because I’m interviewing my brother Kevin Knower. Now Kevin runs a successful wedding DJ business called Insatiable Nights and he’s going to cover all the things you need to know about organizing wedding music for your wedding day.

Now just one word of warning, our parents keep telling us that when we talk to them on the phone, they can never tell us apart and they always get mixed up with who they’re talking to. So hopefully you won’t find it too difficult to follow along.

But before we begin, I just wanted to remind you if you haven’t done so already, please follow us on our Facebook page which is Volare Photography and you can also follow us on Twitter. The handle there is @VolarePhoto. I hope you enjoy this episode and I would really love it if you can leave any comments you have down below and let us know your thoughts.

For those of you who are planning a wedding, I’m sure you’re going to get a lot out of today’s show. So without wasting any more time, let’s get stuck right into it.

 

Warren: Welcome everyone. As I mentioned in the intro, today I’m joined by my brother who happens to be a DJ. His name is Kevin. Kevin, would you like to introduce yourself?

Kevin: Oh, firstly thank you for the interview opportunity. Yeah, well, I’m a DJ like you say. I’ve been DJ-ing for about 12, 15 years now and like most young DJs, started out in the house parties, doing favours for friends and then slowly progress to night club swing and as you got old in the night club scene, I’ve kind of launched my own business, Insatiable Nights. We’re focusing on private functions and in particular weddings.

Warren: Great. And the name Insatiable Nights, where did you come up with that?

Kevin: Well, hopefully by the end of the night, you’ve got an insatiable hunger for more music and hopefully you want some more down the track.

Warren: And I guess today’s interview is about what options there are available for our clients to choose from when it comes to wedding music for their wedding day, be it a DJ or a live band. Is that totally a choice option for them or are their disadvantages and advantages of choosing both?

Kevin: Well, I think obviously I might be slightly biased in saying DJs – you can pull off a great wedding with a DJ but I think it ultimately comes down to personal choice. A lot of people grew up with the live music scene. A lot of people grew up with the club scene, so they’re familiar with tracks and they’re familiar with what they want.

So I think in the end it comes down to personal choice. There are a lot of factors based into whether or not you want a DJ or a band. I played alongside bands. I’ve been – had a band myself in my own wedding. So we can go into the details if you like.

Warren: Yeah, we can do that. Let’s start off a little bit. Are there any trends at the moment? I mean you mentioned that people now, the generation now, have been growing up with bands. But do you find that there’s a trend towards more DJ work?

Kevin: Well, I think in Melbourne, the DJ scene is very comparative which suggests to me that DJs are always going to be popular but the same goes for bands. I would say there’s no trend either way at this point. Again I think it’s coming down to personal choice for couples. So I think they can be swayed either way depending on their budget for the wedding and what they particularly want to get out for the night.

Warren: Sure, yeah. OK. Another question I would have is the venue. Does the venue play a part? I mean if you’ve got a venue in an outdoor setting or whether it’s a large hall or a small hall, does that dictate whether a band or DJ would be a better choice?

Kevin: Absolutely. I think venues whether they be large or small definitely add to the atmosphere for a night. You can pull off a great wedding in a small function venue, making it more intimate with a small two-piece band or with a great DJ and I think with the larger venues, sometimes it’s harder to capture that atmosphere particularly with DJs or a band. So definitely the function venue, its reputation for hosting DJs, for hosting bands is a key point.

Warren: All right. Now while I was doing some research for this interview today, I actually found some instances where some couples are using iPods to run their wedding music for the day. What’s up with that?

Kevin: Not much is up with that to be honest.

Warren: You obviously don’t care too much for it?

Kevin: Listen, I think the common theme of this interview is going to be that music can make or break a wedding and an iPod is not going to pull that off unfortunately. I mean you can set up playlists all you want. But what happens if you want a request or what happens if there’s a particular – something is not working. How are you going to change that up in the spot? That’s really where a DJ comes in full effect.

Warren: Absolutely. OK. Now let’s say a couple has made a decision whether it be a DJ or a band. Where are the good places to start looking for actually someone to do the work for them?

Kevin: Well, obviously everything is going to be based online now. I would say a lot of work also comes through referrals or other previous weddings you’ve been to. Obviously you’ve heard some music or bands down the track that you’ve heard at your friend’s weddings and you were able to get a recommendation from there. There are great websites. I’m listed on Easy Weddings which is a company which provides a lot of great services for musicians for brides and grooms in the Melbourne area.

Warren: And for our listeners, what I will do is I will put some links to some of these sites in the notes on the page. Sorry, keep going.

Kevin: Yeah. But basically a lot of inquiries I get start online but I will say a lot of those come from people who are just fishing for quotes or really novices and unsure in what they want. If you focus your search results to sites such as Easy Weddings or referrals from other weddings, I mean that would be a great starting point I think.

Warren: OK. Now when you go to a band site or a DJ site, obviously they’re going to have lots of reviews and testimonials on their sites. Now are these reviews relevant?

Kevin: Oh, absolutely. I take a lot of pride in making sure I get reviews from my couples, hopefully positive ones. Even the negative ones because I think like in all businesses, in all shopping, people are looking at customer reviews as a point of reference. Like if you’re going out to a restaurant or something, you will eat where there are great reviews.

Warren: Well, a lot of people – I mean there are some people out there who don’t trust reviews 100 percent. I mean they could be fake or something like that. So what do you think about the idea… Is there any merit in the idea of asking the company that you’re talking to, to refer previous clients, to the couple?

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely, and something on top of that and something which I make a point of doing is actually meeting the couples beforehand, before they make any booking decisions. I will always insist to meet with them because sure they may have some doubts about customer reviews. But once I think you meet the person in person and you can ask them any direct questions straight away, you get a good sense of the couple and the DJ or the band you’re dealing with.

Warren: All right. Say I’m with my future bride. We’ve come to meet you or a band. What questions are the ones we should be asking to get confidence in knowing that on the day, that we are going to get what we get?

Kevin: Well, I think you want to come out of that meeting with a clear indication of exactly what you’re going to get on the night. What are going to be the advantages of hiring me for example over someone else? Are you looking for that personal touch? Are you looking for a wedding where you can just rock up and feel extremely comfortable with the person you’ve hired? A lot of that optimism is going to come out of that meeting and you’re going to walk away feeling very comfortable and don’t have any second doubts and that’s the type of meeting I would call a success, something that I like to pull off, yeah.

Warren: Yeah, great. Now, I guess the first thing that most people ask you is the price. If a couple is looking at budgeting for entertainment on their wedding day, what sort of good budget are they looking for, for say a DJ and a band?

Kevin: Well, I would know more so about the DJs and I think with this is – you really get what you pay for basically.

Warren: Sure.

Kevin: Like most things in life and particularly with DJs, there are larger DJ companies where you can get more budgeted DJs and then go as high as the personal touch DJs. We’re looking at two grand plus.

Warren: What do you mean by personal touch?

Kevin: Well, DJs who work on their own. They’re going to do the – go out of their way and work the 50 hours for your gig, leading right up to the function and …

Warren: That includes the ceremony as well, I guess, and things like that.

Kevin: Yeah, it might be the emcee duties which I include as well and they’re happy to meet with you two, three times leading up to the wedding and they’re happy about implementing your wedding music choices from everything to the formalities, your entrances, your bridal waltz, even putting together mixed compilations for a special fancy dance or something like that.

Warren: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned larger companies. Now some of these companies I assume would have like 10, 20 DJs on their books. How difficult is it to get a one-on-one meeting with someone?

Kevin: I wouldn’t know to be honest. I make a point of marketing myself as being someone who’s always attainable and happy to chat with couples and the feedback that I’ve been getting from couples is they really appreciate that type of thing. They really appreciate the relationship you develop.

Warren: You can customize what you want?

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. So it will be unfair for me to comment about other companies and I don’t want to do that. But I mean I can only comment on how I want to market myself and that is to have that personal touch.

Warren: But the bottom line is you probably prefer – I mean from a client’s point of view, they probably prefer a one to one, face to face meeting.

Kevin: Well, that’s the common thread, to catch up with your musician of choice whether it be the band or the DJ well in advance and just sort it out.

Warren: You talked about customizing a wedding. Are there any additional services that say you yourself or other DJs or even a band can offer during a wedding?

Kevin: Well, I give – whenever a couple books me, I set up an online event for them and basically I give them access to my wedding music database and through that process, I can set up a play request list well in advance for the night. Maybe play, must play, don’t play, and it’s a great opportunity for me to understand the musical taste of the bride and groom and a lot of times, that’s reflected in their audience because you grow up with the same group of friends and you went out to the same venues and stuff like that. That’s a great basis of setting up a platform for a fun night.

Warren: Yeah. Now you mentioned emcee work. You do that as an additional service.

Kevin: That is an additional service.

Warren: Yeah.

Kevin: I’m happy to emcee with weddings because it also gives me some control in like making sure everything runs smoothly, operating with the venue staff, and there are pluses and minuses of getting your musician to be the emcee as well.

One, they don’t have the intricate knowledge to your relationship, of the bride and groom and how you met. So I always tell couples there are advantages and disadvantages of getting the musicians to be the emcee rather than say a family member or a close friend.

Warren: What about other questions that the bride and groom might have regarding things you might bring to the venue like sound, lights, things like that, equipment?

Kevin: Yeah. Insatiable Nights, I provide all those functions, whether it be lights, sound, capable of providing for crowds up to 400 people. But what I find is a lot of couples – they don’t want to turn their wedding into a night club. They want to have a touch of class with it, so things such as up lighting or some nice, coloured floods.

So low lying fog machines, haze machines, and things like that. They’re optional extras but I find a lot of couples try to shy away from turning their event into a night club and want to keep things very classy which I think is great.

Warren: Yeah, sure. Now finally,  just on the last bits of hiring a band or DJ, are there any things that a client needs to be aware of at the venue itself in terms of bringing in a DJ into the venue? Anything that they need to ask?

Kevin: Well, what I try to do is not that the couples worry about that altogether. I basically get contact details of their coordinator at the venue and I liaise with them right up until the wedding day. So they don’t hear any issues about any function coordinators or any function venues themselves. So I may be working in a telephone box or I may have the greatest facilities to work with, basically whatever it takes to get the job done.

Warren: So you take the hassle out of it.

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely.

Warren: OK. Now I’m going to be upfront with you. If I was making a choice of choosing a DJ or a band, I would probably steer towards choosing a band and the reason for that is I’ve thought that the live music can actually provide energy for all the people out there, more so than recorded wedding music can. What do you think about that?

Kevin: I wouldn’t disagree with you to an extent. I mean live wedding music is fantastic. Where a DJ can really influence a crowd is by switching up genres very quickly. If things aren’t working, I believe bands go into sets with certain playlists.

Warren: Sure.

Kevin: And depending on the quality of the band, they can change up very quickly but on the other hand, a DJ can read a crowd very quickly and if need to be, change the genre and the feel very fast.

Warren: Yeah, that’s great, because I mean that was my next question. I mean how do you go about getting people up on the dance floor when things are a bit slow?

Kevin: Well, we’ve got the old classics in the little black book that we like to play out all the time but a lot of the time, the good DJs will know the crowd and will visualize the crowd during the meal section and will get a feel straight away of what type of crowd this is. I think that’s something that I do well and by meeting the couples in advance, you already go into a wedding knowing what they like and what’s going to pull them over. I’ve done a hard rock wedding three weeks ago.

Warren: Hard rock, what’s that?

Kevin: Like heavy metal.

Warren: I know what hard rock is but I mean describe a hard rock wedding to me.

Kevin: Which was – it was surprising to me because I didn’t think that could work in a wedding but the bride and groom knew their crowd so well, it just worked. Whereas other weddings I’ve done have been second or third marriages where they’re slightly older so they’re looking at the classics and things like that. So it varies and then you’ve got the younger couples who are really into all the charts and things like that.

Warren: How do you go about customizing the wedding music experience for each couple? Is it in your first one-on-one meeting or …

Kevin: Yeah, a lot of couples are surprised at the amount of input sometimes they need to put into a wedding, so there’s formalities throughout the night and there’s often music associated with this, entrance music for the bridal party, for the bride and groom, cake cutting, first dances, father of the bride dances, farewell circles, garter, bouquet, all those types of things, which can add a nice touch to the nights. So you know… Obviously I’ve got my own suggestions for those types of things but a lot of times, that’s a personal choice for the bride and groom because they all got special songs associated with those types of things.

Warren: Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah.

Warren: What about if someone comes up to you and they want to supply a full list of the night? What do you think about that? Is it restrictive?

Kevin: It is restrictive and I’m all for it but at the same time, I tell couples when you play at weddings, your taste is not going to be – may not cover the whole demographic of your crowd.

Warren: Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin: And you need to keep that in mind. So a lot of time, I will go off script but I try to keep the bride and groom as happy as possible by playing as many of their requested songs throughout the night whether it be slow songs throughout the dinner period or the up tempo ones throughout the night. So there’s a bit of give and take with those request lists.

Warren: Yeah. Well, I guess what you said before about getting a feel for the crowd and getting a feel for the vibe at the time and you can quickly swap and change genres of wedding music. I mean you can’t do that with a structured list.

Kevin: No. You can’t. But to be a good DJ, that’s one of the fundamentals, reading your crowd. You can mix well. You can have the greatest material. I mean the greatest equipment, greatest sound, greatest lighting. But if you can’t read a crowd, then you’re already behind the eight ball.

Warren: OK. What about halfway through the night you’ve got Uncle Bob rushing to you with a CD and goes …

Kevin: Has he got a beer in his hand?

Warren: Probably has by that time. Requests. If he says he wants to play a request, and maybe more than one request, what do you do?

Kevin: Well, DJs have standard lines, you know. I left it in my car or …

Warren: No, he has got the CD with him. He has got …

Kevin: If he has got the wedding music with him and it fits and if it doesn’t go against some instructions I’ve got from the bride and groom, then I’m sure I will give it a shot. But I will try to fit it into the natural flow of the evening, not just drop it and then clear the dance floor because that’s what you don’t want to do.

Warren: That’s great. That’s great Kev. All right. We’re coming to an end to the interview. Just want to ask you, what advice would you give to the people looking at hiring a friend to do the DJ work for the night? I mean they might have someone who might DJ on the weekends in a night club or something like that and they go, “We’re thinking about getting them to do it.”

Kevin: I think there’s a clear distinction between night club DJs and DJs who work at weddings and I had to make that transition myself where you basically have to broaden your genres and I know a lot of club DJs and it’s kind of going out their comfort zone because they feel a lot of stress working at weddings because there’s a lot at stake whereas in a club, people are there to dance. People are there to drink. But weddings, there’s a lot more at stake for the bride and groom so there’s less room to move if you make a mistake.

So I would say speak with your friend. Make sure he has got the relative experience and he knows what type of wedding music you exactly want at the night and if in doubt, then go for someone who has got a lot more experience for weddings basically.

Warren: And also he looks professional. He doesn’t come in dressed up like he’s at a night club or something like that.

Kevin: Yeah, and those small little things are very important. I think the crowd respects someone who’s well-presented and who’s there to do a quality job basically.

Warren: OK, great. So we’ve covered a lot of stuff today Kev. Thanks for that and just to summarize, if you have to give five top tips that a couple need to ask either a DJ or a band, what would they be, so that they can feel comfortable in their final choice?

Kevin: Yeah, I think these aren’t even questions that they would ask. These are things that they should think about before and so I’ve got five things listed here. I think personal taste is very important so that would be one. So your own musical background really influences whether you choose live music or DJ and the particular genres you want played on the night.

I would definitely suggest to meet the musicians, the DJs and the band. A lot of bands will have performance evenings where they will invite guests out, so those things are very important.

Value customer feedback, number three. I think reading testimonials, getting referrals from close friends, all those things are very important, and I think they carry a lot of weight, particularly for DJs.

Warren: Yeah.

Kevin: Like I said earlier, number four, music can really make or break the nights. I think function venue, food, all those things are very important. People are going to forget a lot of things from a wedding but people come away from a wedding and have a fun night dancing and that’s all you really want. I find the best weddings that I’ve worked at where the bride and groom are nice and relaxed, they’re there to have a good time and they’re there to party and they’re there to dance and that’s how the best weddings always work.

Finally I think like in anything in life, you get what you pay for basically. So whether you’re on a limited budget or whether you’re really keen to splurge out a lot of money on your musical act, that would really influence how the night pans out. So I always tell couples who have issues with the budget that that’s a fact. You really do get what you pay for and hopefully that puts some faith in paying a bit more extra money and getting the professionals to do their wedding.

Warren: That’s awesome. That’s some really great tips there. Look, thank you so much for joining me today. It has been a pleasure and I just want to say that we will have all the links to your website and other places that you mentioned on the blog. Also listeners can come and go and ask you any questions that they might have in the future about hiring a DJ or anything else they need clarification from today’s interview. So yeah, we will have those on the website.

Also if anyone is out there who needs to ask questions, they can also do that through the comments section below and Kev, you’re happy to come back and answer some questions if there are?

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely and once you give out all those links, people can go into my website and view my previous testimonials, my video gig logs, YouTube channel, SoundCloud channels.

Warren: Fantastic.

Kevin: The whole works are there.

Warren: All right. So guys don’t forget to jot down those questions below and Kevin will come back and answer them as best he can. OK. So thank you once again Kev. I’m sure you’ve provided a lot of useful bits of information to anyone out there looking at planning out their big day and yeah, thank you.

Kevin: No problem. All the best.

Warren: Take care.

 

Well, there you go. Some fantastic tips there from Kevin. If you are planning a future wedding or know someone who is, then definitely get them to have a listen to that interview. I’m sure it will be well worth their time.

Now just a couple of reminders before we go. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook. Facebook page is Volare Photography and we’re also on Twitter. Our handle there is @VolarePhoto. By doing so, you can find out more about some upcoming shows and also you can post any questions that you have that I may have forgotten to ask our past interviewees or ask a question to a future guest on the show.

Speaking about future guests, I’m super excited about our next one. She’s an awesome person to talk to with a wealth of knowledge. I don’t want to give too much away but let’s just say her favourite subject of conversation has four legs and wags a tail. So I will leave that up to you.

Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to hearing everyone’s feedback in the comments section below and until next time, take care.