Life & Work with Daniel Herrera of Pomona, Ca

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Herrera

Hi Daniel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I just briefly started with this new organization called “Darkroom.” This is a community based organization that gives back to the community for a fun and fulfilling Thursday night life. This is a place for everyone to come have some drinks, and get on the dance floor to enjoy themselves. We book new and upcoming artists, or artists with experience already to give them a platform to DJ, and show everyone what they got. I’ve jumped on this organization, for I saw potential in growth and development with this group, and little did I know, I was right. This group has been growing rapidly for the last three to four months, due to the commitment coming out of this team and being consistent to host weekly Thursday night events. This group is made up of photographers, videographers, vendors, DJs, promoters, lighting and sound engineers, graphic designers, stage set up crews, and hosts. The targeted genres of music we focus on is Electronic Dance Music such as techno, bass, and trance. The Darkroom team is always welcoming everyone who would like to join us and gain some experience and knowledge, and would like to implement those teachings into the music industry once they part ways from our team. We also offer a free hand to those who would just like to contribute and help us with our vision. That vision is to provide a safe space for everyone to come out and enjoy themselves on the dance floor. Behind the scenes, we bring up as many talented artists who are either constantly being overlooked by other places, or would just like to showcase their talent with the experience they’ve already gained. Now that we built this platform, our next goal is to expand our Darkroom brand to other venues, and other cities. Which is now in the works…

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road, just like any other place getting started, there has been lots of bumps on the road. One of our issues has been finding a lighting and sound engineer; in fact, this was one of our biggest challenges. With help from the venue, we were able to find someone who’s really great at setting up the speakers, getting the lighting production going, sound checks, stage set up, and anything else we need. His name is Hunter by the way! However, we also had issues like getting a team together to carry out our visions and goals. Commitment is so tough, dedication is also hard, but the one thing I find most difficult than those two is consistency! That’s where finding a team to be consistent becomes a challenge since we have to keep this up weekly and on schedule. To be able to have a good results, our team has to keep this momentum on a consistent basis.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Daily, weekly, monthly… I’m a DJ. A part from being a booking agent, and event curator, I’m still a DJ! I DJ private events, festivals, clubs, bars, and raves. Sometimes I charge, and sometimes I don’t. It really just depend on the circumstance if I want to charge somebody or not. My rates come different, and that’s also depending on the circumstance and it’s usually by the hour. Other than the business side of it, I practice at home almost everyday to sharpen my techniques and skills. At home, I’ll even have people come over to my house, and I’ll teach the basics to help people get started. What makes me stand out is I’m very versatile when it comes to moving to different venues and cities, and the music genres I perform. Not a lot of DJs I know bounce around in different genres and not a lot of DJs play in a lot of different cities or venues. So, Djing multi genre music is what I really specialize in like Hip Hop, Reggaeton, EDM, R&B, and much more. Being versatile is the one thing I’m proud of, for it has opened many doors for me. I’ve got into a lot of cool places, and I’ve been all over Southern California just because I’m so versatile in the music I perform, and I like to travel.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was always into music. I annoyed my family with making noises hahaha and I learned how to play a guitar. My mother was really the one who got influenced by music. She showed me a lot of old school music, Spanish music, and much more. While I was being influenced by music, I was also into gaming and playing sports. I got into playing baseball, football, basketball, MMA, wrestling, and boxing from my pre teen years to my high school days. I’ve tried many different sports, and again was versatile in every position in every sport. However, on my free time, I’ve also got into playing chess, checkers, and Chinese checkers, which is something not everyone can do either. I was really good at using my critical thinking skills to play some of these board games, and now use my critical thinking to my everyday life. To conclude, I was really well-rounded growing up and being influenced by many different things. It even came down to being artsy like drawing, graphic designing, painting, and photo editing. I really had no major influences, these are just things I wanted to tryout and saw myself enjoying while it lasted. I always made the best out of everything and enjoyed doing what I loved the most with my friends and family.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dizziedj?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/pamm7xXTPTzQDRaV9

Image Credits
Shoutout to the amazing photographers for their work! Carlos (losvisualarts) Karen (Comaspice), Aneyl (terra.neillphotography) and Ramses (Manilabear). The credit for the images goes to them! Also, shoutout to the team and our leaders for putting out the work to make these Thursday nights the best! Big thank you to the Cosmos Ultra Lounge for having my team there every Thursday as well! As you can see everyone that attends our events looks happy to be there and is enjoying themselves, and that’s what we want. So thank you all for joining us on Thursday nights! Shout to DARKROOM!!!!