BUILT ON
THE DANCE
FLOOR.

I came up around tagging, backyard parties, and people who lived for the music. Before I was behind the decks, I was out there dancing.

I was around 10 or 12 when I first heard techno on Power 106’s Power Tools, listening late at night. Years later, I’d end up on that same show.

I was a tagger as a kid. I made art and entered street-tag competitions. The graffiti you see here comes from that part of my life.

We were called groovers. Dancers, ravers, kids battling to old-school breakbeat and techno. Rabbit in the Moon, Acen. I was part of the foundation of that backyard-party scene. Those are my roots.

Circa in 1992 pulled me into the rave scene. Then came collecting records and Pure Acid mixtapes around Melrose. I got deep into hardcore techno and started playing as DJ OMEN in the mid-’90s. Journey ’98 was my first major rave booking. Urban Phenomenon at the LA Sports Arena followed in 1999.

When my records and equipment were stolen, I stepped away. It was roughly six years before I came back, around 2006. By then I was moving into electro and progressive house.

As Steve Omen, I released music and played Groove Cruise and Sundown Music Festival. In 2015, I appeared on Power Tools in connection with Sundown. Hearing that show as a kid is part of why that matters to me. Of my releases, Ever After, with Madd Massive featuring 3PM, still feels the most like me. It’s the energy.

Now I’m bringing that into AFTERDARK. Bass house, tech house, dirty bass, funky beats, and those haunting sounds I’ve always been drawn to. I still want to feel the music the way I did on the floor.