Rising Stars: Meet Carlos Torres of Moreno Valley, CA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlos Torres.

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?
My journey began in the late 2000s, sparked by a Virtual DJ session and the rising “Dirty Dutch” era. After a five-year grind playing weddings, quinces and house parties, I pivoted to production in 2016 under the alias HUSKI. This led to a 2018 festival debut at Lost Lands and support slots for heavyweights like Virtual Riot, Eliminate, FuntCase and many more around North America. Today, I’ve expanded my footprint in the scene by founding the bass music imprint, HUSKI BASS and also launched Low End Ent. and Lose The Tempo, which focus on the intersection of live events and EDM DJ culture.

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?
It hasn’t always been a smooth road, particularly when it came to navigating the ‘blueprint’ of an emerging EDM dj/artist. Early on, I struggled with how to bridge the gap between being a local performer and a professional brand. I wasn’t the greatest technical engineer either so I spent lots of time troubleshooting what did this and what did that whenever I opened up FL Studio. It took a while to get my groove and special sound down. Around 2016-17, I invested in my education by taking an EDM DJ Marketing academy course with Budi Voogt (San Holo’s manager). That academy and the results and industry secrets Budy was willing to share was priceless. It provided the industry framework I needed to manage my career as a business, leading to more strategic label signings, releases and the founding of my own imprint, HUSKI BASS. After completing the course, releases & projects were more intentional and the music administration of my catalogue were mad sharp because of it. I don’t think I would have accomplished a lot of the things in my timeline if it wasn’t for that marketing academy, Heroic Academy I believe was the name. I don’t think the academy exists anymore so I am glad I got in when I did. Still get dividends to this day since 2016.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I work as a banquet technician aide assisting organizations and companies with hosting conferences and parties which involve setting up the floor plan for their events and managing A/V operations such as audio mixing and video projection.

I am definitely the employee that is the sound/music guy of their department. I generally create music playlists for our clients based off the theme and tone of their events and the majority of them really enjoy the selections that gets played in our facility, which makes me very proud because a big reason why I became a DJ was to share my music taste and hoping others enjoyed it. When clients tell me at the end of the day that the music was great and the amenities were useful, that indicates a great day for me.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Risk tasking can and is a scary thing one will experience. I view risk-taking as a necessary bridge between having a vision and making it a reality. One major risk I can identify was investing my funds and my time creating a live dance music event in my local community fearing that people wouldn’t come to the shows but I recognized a void that needed filling in my local area. Despite the fear of low attendance, I used the marketing strategies I’d learned from industry mentors to mitigate that risk as much as possible. Throwing events is not cheap either, so financially it was weighing on me and I wanted these series of events to be ongoing and build to do even bigger better things for the local dance music scene. reputation was on the line too. Some shows that were had were winners and some weren’t winners but the events managed to gain a community since 2018 and has continued since to create exciting dance music events for the I.E. within the Low End Entertainment brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://solo.to/huskibass
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/huskibass
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/huskibass
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@huskibass
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/huskibass