Meet Spencer Bruno: Duke’s superstar DJ signed with Avicii

Spencer Brown or Spencer Bruno, as he’s called around campus, is a 21-year-old Pratt student that spends his free time making excellent EDM music.

If the name Spencer Brown sound’s a bit familiar to you, it’s because you probably saw him on LDOC last year – on stage, performing. Not only has his passion for music caught the ears of the LDOC Committee, but this guy is signed to none other than Avicii’s Label, Le7els.

The Tab got the chance to sit down and talk to the man and the musician, Duke senior Spencer Brown.

What got you into music?

I started drumming when I was 2 years old. I’ve had music playing in my head 24/7 ever since I can remember. From there it continued, I took up drums, then guitar, piano, bass, and quite a bit of other instruments I taught myself how to play. I definitely still play the instruments, but I’m ggst focused on the electronic stuff.

How’d you get your start DJ-ing?

When I was in fifth grade, I would go to parties like bar mitzvahs and would also be “that kid” who bugged the DJs to play my requests. So I saved some money and bought record players and a mixer, and eventually bought Serato so I could control the music myself. I finally got hired in eighth grade for my first gig for a school dance. Word spread quickly about my DJing and friends’ moms around town started to reach out to me to play little birthday parties for their 13-year-olds.

So did you make a business out of DJing? 

I had a vast DJ background from all of [the little gigs] – those little parties really helped me understand how to read a crowd because it’s nearly impossible to control a crowd with 13-year-old attention spans. I had to learn how to interact with the crowd and understand that, “Hey, this track doesn’t work with this crowd but this one does,” which helped me understand how to quickly adapt to DJing in a club environment.

What do DJs actually do during live sets? 

For me personally, I’ll play my first song, which I usually have planned. But from there, anything goes. Certain keys are compatible with each other and you have to listen before you play that song if it will mesh, and if it doesn’t you cue up another one. There’s all these different paths and they all need to mesh.

To truly make a two- or three-hour musical journey of a set, the track selection must interact with the people, it has to harmonically work, the tempo and everything has to mesh together; it should feel like a flow of energy. Once you capture the crowd—and it’s not hard to tell when you do–that’s when you can experiment and push them in unexpected ways.

So you’re always thinking on your feet behind the turn table. 

Exactly. Unless you know the people in the crowd, you can’t magically predict what they’ll vibe to.

What was it like performing for Duke at LDOC? 

It was awesome because there are so many familiar faces in the crowd. It was cool exposing Duke to some of the stuff I’ve been digging, so thankful for the drop reactions and feedback from everyone. It was an honor to play the festival.

How did you link up with Avicii? Did he give you a cosign first? 

I made this one track my senior year of high school, it was a bootleg of Superstition by Stevie Wonder. On a whim, I sent it in a Facebook message to Avicii’s manager Ash – this is back when Avicii had just released “Levels” so this is early in his career. I also said, “Please give me one chance” like not even capitalized or anything, it was like, “pls give me 1 chance” – no period, no nothing. I was thinking to myself there’s no chance he’ll respond anyway.

But a couple of days later, he said something like, “This isn’t fully professional but I can see something there,” so I worked with Ash for a couple years developing a better mixdown and a better sound. Once he thought the music was professional enough for the industry, I signed and began releasing my music.

That’s awesome, so it was basically a shot in the dark?

Yeah. I got ignored and rejected by like 15 labels before I got to Avicii’s. I was that pesky 14-year-old spamming Youtube comments and label emails with my music trying to get recognized. Good music promotes itself.

In regards to touring, how strenuous is it? Do you go all around the world? 

I’ve been all around North America. It’s the best experience someone who makes music can have. You are living in this euphoria of playing your music for a city, seeing the city react in such a positive way and vibing to the energy of it all. Like you spend months pouring your heart into a song and then get to see fill-in-the-blank city take a first listen and react.

Does all that traveling influence your sound?

After traveling I was exposed to music that you can’t hear anyone in North Carolina playing. Like in big cities, listening to all the other underground DJs, there are some really sick trends brewing. You sit there and listen like,  “Wow, I’ve never heard anything like this.”

After looking you up on SoundCloud, Spotify, and iTunes, it seems as if you don’t put out music as often as a lot of other artists. Are you going on a hiatus to build live show rep? 

I’ve been holding back a lot, and people have been asking me if I had stopped making music anymore. The answer is no. I’ve been building a new, better, and distinct sound with a lot more professional mixing.

In addition to DJing, you’re a ECE major and a CS minor. How’d you get into that? 

ECE fits with signal processing which is music production. So, it fills in the math behind the music stuff I’ve been doing for the past ten years. Previously I’d done everything by ear – like, if I turn this knob it sounds good, but now I’m actually learning all of the math behind the processing.

Are there any current projects you’re working on in terms of engineering? 

I’m doing a research project on an omnidirectional spherical loud speaker. I’m doing some work in Duke’s anechoic chamber, a fully soundproofed room. We’re working on running tests on the spherical loudspeaker and analyzing directivity patterns, with the ultimate goal of having full directivity control with minimal phase, which has a lot of applications.

What makes all the hard work worthwhile? You’re juggling engineering at Duke, and now a blooming, worldwide DJ-ing career.

If you step off the gas, others will pass you.

Lastly, is there anything you want people to know about Spencer Brown? 

I want people to know that my musical journey is a long-term exploration. If you blow up overnight, your career can fail overnight too.

You’ll never become a legend if you don’t believe you can be a legend. That goes for anything in life really.

Later in life, I want to be creating timeless masterpieces, not just writing music.