I was kind of um, I was a nerd, so I was really into electronic music, like the idea of composing electronic music, but I'd never gotten into dance music at all. Um, I always thought it was a little, you know, I just was a little, I had a kind of an aversion to it. I think like a lot of um, you know, rock musicians did, you know, because it's like, oh, it's so repetitive and nothing happens and and whatever. And then uh my girlfriend took me to uh my first rave and I was, you know, I was pretty, I was probably like 23. Yeah, it totally changed my opinion.

I totally saw that this thing where it can bring a lot of people together in kind of a communal setting and, you know, get people excited about something together, you know. And and also the cool thing about it, uh, is is is that it it's music designed for being played over loud PAs, you know, with lots of low end and and stuff like that. And and it was something I'd never really considered and and and kind of the that, you know, the dynamic arc of that music really, you know, it kind of made me excited about it. And I immediately went home and started making uh dance music from there. From nothing. The end. The end. Things will never go our way. The end. The end. Things will never go.

You just take it in on what you're breath. The bottoms are I found, we can't get higher than we can. On the long way down. On the long way. Yo, what's up? I'm Robert DeLong. Welcome to my Young Hollywood Backstage Diary. Let me show you uh my live setup, what it's like to be me on stage. Yeah, so uh the Natural History Museum, they do this uh First Fridays thing, and this is the first one they're doing this year. Um, and it's uh put on by like KCRW and it's kind of a this really cool event that's been going on for a few years and um, I think we're performing in the the ancient North American uh mammals exhibit.

Uh, there's like saber-toothed tigers and and woolly mammoths and all sorts of crazy stuff all around me. And, well, I mean, I love, I love the giant T-Rex. Um, you know, that's always cool to see that. Uh, this uh, this kind of super massive uh eel thing is a little terrifying right over here. I think that uh, I mean, I think just in general my my sort of love for popular science and and you know, just kind of my whole aesthetic of being kind of a tech nerd kind of thing. I think this is a fitting setting in a way because it's uh, you know, it's a nerdy place to be, but it's also cool. It's also beautiful and it's uh, look good on camera, hopefully, you know. I'll see the people that I use.

I see the substance I abuse. The ugly places that I live. Did I make money? Was I proud? Did I play my songs too loud? Did I leave my life to chance? Or did I make you proud? I'm gonna show you my uh, live setup. So uh, it's a bunch of a bunch of stuff. Um, it starts here. I have a bunch of MIDI controllers, you know. Knobs and sliders and keyboards, so kind of standard stuff. And then uh, got some weirder stuff like a uh, joystick uh, right here. Got a steering wheel for video games. Uh, got some buttons. Got the game controller, Wii remote, drum pad.

Yeah, you know, it was, I kind of discovered the whole hacking video game controllers and using them as MIDI controllers through, it was in college and and just surfing the web, and I think a couple of my friends had mentioned that people were messing around with using, you know, Wii Remotes or game pads or joysticks. And, you know, it's kind of funny to think about, but uh, you know, um, I'm a lot better at playing Tony Hawk or or flying a flight simulator, uh, than I am uh, at playing keyboard or something like that. So it's kind of a fun kind of natural way to use these things.

It was like a novelty, you know, people really uh, reacted strongly and positively to it, like, that's so crazy, you know, because it was something totally different. So, you know. And uh, basically when I'm playing, I'm running around uh, singing into these microphones, uh, playing all these instruments, making loops. Uh, and it's uh, kind of a one-man live dance party. And then uh, the whole time we have these uh, little cameras set up here, which are projected onto these uh, TVs, uh, mixed with some video content. So uh, face painting has been kind of a part of the show since the outset.

Um, basically my girlfriend and her friends uh, would uh, you know, get their faces painted up before they went out to, you know, kind of rave events, electronic festivals and stuff. And um, you know, as I started performing live, uh, you know, kind of right after I made some of my tunes, um, they would just, you know, come to my shows in the same sort of uh, face paint thing. And and other people would come to my shows and say, hey, I want that, that's cool.

And so my girlfriend would bring her paints and paint them up and slowly it kind of evolved to the point where now it's uh, kind of a main part of our show, you know, it's uh, every show there's always uh, face painters and and the audience gets face painted and I always have face paint on and it's kind of a cool thing because it kind of brings, you know, it makes it so it's like wearing a mask for people, you know, it makes them somehow have more fun like they can party or something. Hey, what's up? I'm Robert DeLong. Thanks so much for joining me on my Young Hollywood Backstage Diary. Have a good one. On the long way down.