Today we’d like to introduce you to Neema Vedadi
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’d always had a passion for performance. It first started with school plays. I was always on stage from middle school through college. I loved the feeling of giving all my energy to a crowd. I was scared that acting was too risky of a bet for a career path so in college I majored in Broadcast Journalism. That way I could still use my presence and voice but actually have a salary at the same time. I was also obsessed with music from a very early age, making mixtapes on cassettes and then rapping and making beats in college (UT AUSTIN). I bought my first DJ set up so I could DJ at my own rap show at some art party in east Austin. When I got my first job at a TV Station in Wyoming (KTWO-ABC), I brought all my music equipment with me. There wasn’t much of a music scene there buy I did get to interview Tech-9 when he came for a concert and I rapped on air to introduce the segment! When I got my second job in TV in a bigger market, I absolutely hated it. It was so negative and the type of stories my news director wanted me to write made me rethink my whole path. I quit after a year and headed back to Austin with my new wife whose whole family lived here. I didn’t know what I would do next. I had a podcast with a friend who I had made a documentary with back in my TV days and it was somewhat successful. I started DJing weddings on the side for a bit of extra money and I was working as a cable guy as my main income. When my daughter was born my wife told me I needed to pick 1 side hustle and focus on that. I was spread too thin. DJing was bringing in more money and I had started to really love it so I stuck with it. I was bringing a more musical mixing style than most wedding guest had seen back then. I had noticed that the energy died whenever the beats stopped, I focused on a lot of different techniques to keep the beat going the whole time. One seamless mix with a constant pulse throughout so that people wouldn’t leave the dance floor. I was working for a few different DJ companies but I treated every wedding like it was the Super Bowl. I would practice my dance set based on their playlist the night before. When one of the companies I worked for went bankrupt, I still personally DJ’d the weddings that were on my calendar for that company. I then partnered with Aaron Waldock who had just rebranded his company as Spark the Night Entertainment. He taught me so much about the business side of things and I was ready to quit my day job and just focus only on DJing. Aaron had to move to California for personal circumstances and at about the same time my day job got bought out by a different company. So, I started Bat City Beats! I moved my family of four to 8 acres in rural Leander that my step father-in-law owned. He was following his dream of having a family commune in the woods and had offered us a little spot. We bought a big RV and a 12×20 music shed. It was an amazingly beautiful landscape and our kids were young and loved running around the woods and swimming in the creek. I didn’t have a giant rent bill to pay as I was starting out with nothing but a dream to DJ full time. It was slow growing at first and my relationship with Eclipse Event Co. really got me through those early days. I am eternally grateful for all the amazing planners there that believed in me. My partnership with Full Scope Entertainment also helped out a lot. When I wasn’t booked on my Bat City Beats gigs I often had a Full Scope gig to DJ. I also started getting gigs at clubs downtown, I would fill in for a DJ and then the owners would ask me to keep coming back. Things were going great! The pandemic hit but I was in a perfect position to weather the storm. We lived in the kind of situation people think about living in during apocalyptic scenarios and I had just had a great December and January. I was scared but luckily things opened up quick! I was back DJing at Buckwild on 6th street by May. I told all my clients that needed to cancel spring 2020 events that I would apply their deposits and balances toward any future booking. I didn’t have to refund anything! They all understood completely! My fall 2020 and spring 2021 were more booked than ever because of all the rescheduled events. Aaron came back in 2021 and we joined forces once again, helping me make hard decisions that pushed the business further, like hiring our amazing admin Tammy! Since then we’ve been able to provide amazing entertainment to hundreds of private events all over the Hill Country. As our family grew we needed to move out of the woods and get a proper house. I was able to buy a home in a beautiful neighborhood based on just my DJ business! It felt like such a triumph.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The actually events and performances have always been a complete pleasure. The challenges there can be stressful but lead to great stories. Trying to get a corporate party dancing after their CEO just threatened to lay them off, finding a tactful way to get a Father of the Groom to end his pre-dinner speech after he’s gone on for 20 minutes already (I swear he started his story at the Groom’s conception) or consoling a planner who’s just been physically grabbed and threatened by a Father of the Bride after he took offense at something the Best Man said in a toast. “The Show Must Go On” is a motto I live by. The struggles I find way more challenging are paperwork, taxes, regulations. All the stuff that I balk at on a philosophical level. I’ll try not to rant about it here but I think the world would be better if we let the doers do their thing instead of letting Bureaucratic trolls block their path until the toll is paid.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a musical DJ. I think of my sets as live production. I use pieces of songs, samples and drum sounds as my instruments and I am layering them together live for you. I have a full drum kit of drum sounds laid out on the sampler pad of my DJ controller and I am always adding percussion to songs and transitions wherever I think the set would benefit from it. Playing fills before a drop to increase the tension and bring it to a satisfying release or adding a simple kick during a minimal part of a song to keep the groove bouncing. When I’m not DJing live I occasionally make short instagram videos where I try to Showcase my skills. Letting a Vinyl record play then looping the best part of it and chopping it up and adding drums on the fly, turning something old into something new that I made. I’ve dove head first into Stem separation technology. This is something we used to dream about and it is finally fully realized. I can bring in or banish different instruments in a song on the fly with just the tap of a sample pad. It’s breathed new creativity into my sets and into DJing as a whole, and made it easier for all my DJs to follow my advice and “PUT A BEAT ON IT”. Now it can be as simple as leaving the drums from the outgoing song playing as you stem out the other instruments and vocals.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I think success is a very personal thing. It’s something unique to every individual. When I was young I thought it would be defined in terms of money or fame. But as I mature I think it’s better measured by happiness. I am so happy that something I love to do is sustaining my family. Watching my kids grow up in my home, getting to see their projects at their private micro school, their classmates exclaiming “DJ Neema! DJ Neema!” When I arrive at their demo day or school play. That all makes me feel successful. Also, being respected enough in my field that people reach out to me for advice. When one of our associate DJs calls me to pick my brain about how to play this gig or that gig or to chat about mixing techniques, or when a fellow DJ in my tier recommends a client to me because they think my style is the right fit. Those are all things that can’t be bought with lottery winnings.
Pricing:
- A master DJ for a wedding starts at $220o for 4 hours
- If your ceremony is at the same venue as your reception you’ll likely need us to provide mics and speakers even if you’re not using us for ceremony music. We do a Ceremony set up included all the audio equipment and an extra hour in our $300 ceremony add-on
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.batcitybeats.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/batcitybeats/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BatCityBeats/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWdh_jEOTm6T7HSH_b9Xshg
- Other: https://www.mixcloud.com/neema-vedadi/
Image Credits
Tim Laielli
Gypcgirl photography
