Industry Weekly

[Architect]

Curator of sound Warren Peace continues to make moves

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DJ Warren Peace has been instrumental in curating the sound of Las Vegas.
Photo: Steve Marcus

Warren Peace is one of the few true pioneers of sound in Las Vegas, a DJ who has truly left an impact and helped shape musical trends in nightclubs and beyond.

He first made a dent in the scene playing some of the first hip-hop club events on the Strip at venues like Luxor’s Ra. After that, an unlikely but significant career development found Peace playing ’80s tracks at the former Polly Esthers nightclub at the Stratosphere. “Doing that for six months really got me on my game, because it taught me how to hold the crowd even better,” he says.

Peace then teamed with Dave Fogg to work on a local house-music radio mix show called Vibrate, which led the duo to construct what came to be known as the “XS format” when the Encore megaclub opened in 2008. “We took what we were doing on the radio and put it in the club at the right time,” he says, explaining the mashup of Euro-flavored dance music with different tempos, hip-hop and more. “That is something that is really dope to hear in music now, the way those genre walls are being broken down.”

Today, Peace is focused more on private gigs and festivals, along with expanding his DJ record pool business DirectMusicService.com—used by every Vegas DJ you can think of. He executive-produced the recent documentary film As I AM: The Life and Times of DJ AM, and he keeps busy being a dad, too.

“It’s funny, because I was pigeonholed as the hip-hop dude, and I’m kind of pigeonholed as a house DJ now,” he says. “At this point in my career I’m looking at a bigger stage.”

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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of managing editor at Las Vegas Weekly ...

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