We recently connected with Peter Croce and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Peter, so happy to have you with us today and there is so much we want to ask you about. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others developed certain skills or qualities that we are struggling with can be helpful. Along those lines, we’d love to hear from you about how you developed your ability to take risk?
I have a higher tolerance for risk than many of my peers. I didn’t know this until recently, but this seems true when looking back on my 34 years of life. The thing is, I don’t feel like it’s risk for risk’s sake. It’s calculated, and my confidence to take risks grows little by little.
When I was in 4th grade my friends and I all had Mongoose Wal-Mart BMX bikes that we liked to huck off homemade wood ramps. We’d always wear helmets, and occasionally pads. Naturally this would turn into a long jump contest. But it’s not like I just pedaled in as hard as I could and yanked off the lip the first try. On the first attempt I would try to clear 2 sidewalk squares. Once I felt comfortable with that I would go for 3. Then get comfortable and push it to 4. At a certain point I wasn’t comfortable going any further. Just through my intuition I was able to tell how far was far enough.
When I started Rocksteady Disco, our first release was produced as cheap as it could be. It was just a white label record that I stamped myself, in the most affordable cover jacket possible. Over the years though I would go bigger and bigger, ultimately putting out our most involved and expensive release, a 2xLP with an insert called The Art Of Us by Blair French.
I also keep overhead low so that I can be nimble and take chances without having to put a bunch of employees out if it doesn’t work as planned. Being nimble and supple is a super power!
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
It only took getting a Masters of Social Work for me to fully realize that I A) wanted to, and B) could actually make a living in the music industry. But since it’s 2024 I wear many hats to make it all work.
Daily: I make sure DJs and bands are booked for a variety of venues around Metro Detroit and sometimes Chicago. I dig for new music for my own DJ sets. I pack up and ship records. I listen to demos and submissions for my record labels. I interface with the vinyl pressing plant I use here in Detroit to get releases manufactured (shout out to the almost 60 year old Archer Record Pressing). I work with visual artists to make label art for my record labels. Some weeks before a record comes out I send out promos to select DJs and pre-order information to my retailers/distributors. If I have gigs coming up I will spend a lot of time in my “studio” pulling records and re-familiarizing myself with the music I want to pack for the party. I spend a fair amount of time booking travel and lodging for travel gigs since I don’t have an agent. I spend more time than I would like on Instagram promoting upcoming gigs and releases. And if there’s any time left I try to write some new music, or record a bassline or guitar part on a friend’s track. All of these tasks are a delicate dance. For example, if there’s a big gig weekend coming up (like Movement Festival a few weeks back), I spend a lot more time with the records I own figuring out what to play, and virtually no time making new music or putting out new records. But when gigs slow down a bit my focus goes more towards the label. Rinse, repeat!
The next couple weeks in particular are a pretty perfect example of the best parts about my job. Friday I present on my monthly radio show on Love Will Save The Day dot FM out of the UK. Saturday night I get to play a hip little vinyl room with my friend (and monster DJ) Whodat. Sunday I’m playing a chill-out Balearic brunch set at a classy restaurant.
And in between preparing for these gigs I am getting the next MotorCity Wine Recordings release, What Happened To Yesterday? Vol. 2 by Glenn Echo & Daniel Meinecke, ready to be at all of my retailers/distributors by the June 26th release date. I’m also in the midst of putting the finishing touches on the artwork for 10 Years Of Rocksteady Disco Vol. 1, which includes tracks from Sol Power All-Stars, Eddie Logix, Blair French, and Topher Horn. I’m also interfacing with both an artist and mixing engineer on a future record (from Dennis Liber and friends), and interfacing with another mixing engineer for two other future releases (one from Son Of Lee, one from Tommaso). Sheesh, just typing all of this out makes me realize why I have so many sticky notes all over my house!
Summer in Detroit is really the best, so my gig calendar is pretty stacked. I’m most excited to continue my monthly Sunday Revival party at MotorCity Wine with some friends from around the world (check RA for details), and head back to Seattle for Hot & Spicy Disco and Moonlighter’s brilliant Disco Dust party in July.
Despite all of these hats, I am still drawn particularly to the art of DJ’ing. These days I think most folks either associate DJs with private events, radio, or, like, Marshmello. But the tradition of DJ’ing that I’m in is so much deeper and nuanced. I’m not a performer, I’m a curator and enthusiast. My goal is to provide the soundtrack of someone’s night, and depending on the gig I want to make folks dance with reckless abandon. I’m not here to play rare records for the sake of it, but I do want to dig in the crates and make the unfamiliar familiar. I find this is best achieved when the soundsystem is cared for and not too loud, when I can play for *at least* 3 hours (I played for 11 with Son Of Lee back in April and it was the best ever), and when I am in an open-hearted space combined with the crowd being open-minded to music from around the world at a variety of tempos. At the end of the day DJ’ing is a communication between the DJ and the crowd, the crowd and the DJ. I regret to say that I don’t think most folks have experienced these kinds of parties, but they’re out there and they’re incredible.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
It’s definitely some cocktail of being intrinsically motivated, extremely passionate, and naïve. I guess all three of those qualities are in a similar lane, which could be described as “doing you!” But I feel genuinely lucky to possess those qualities for some reason.
But to make the abstract a little more concrete:
1) Intrinsically motivated: Chances are if you’re an artist there’s a flame or voice or something inside of you that you need to get out. A lot of times the best art is channeled or birthed by us– it’s not even our art per se. So I find I have to get out of my own way (through overthinking or searching for external validation) to let the art come to bear. That being said, making art is absolutely a practice. You get good at making sushi because you make a lot of sushi. You make great timeless art because you’ve made some duds that never come out. At the end of the day though, you gotta make art because you believe in it. And if you believe in it you gotta believe that that other people need to hear it. To borrow from Seth Godin, you’re doing people a disservice if you *don’t* put your art out. Also, please don’t look at what’s hot right now and follow that. Do what you love and believe in, not what will get you some hits on Tik Tok for a couple weeks. That’s just a race to the bottom.
2) Passion: When I get into something, I really get into something. During the heights of COVID, when gigs were non-existent, I got really into bicycling (again). I learned a ton about bike geometry, tires, and home mechanics. When I was first getting into music and DJ’ing I was constantly reading music history books and memoirs to try to clean some wisdom from those that came before me. It helps to learn the traditions and rules, and if you want to break them or push the envelope after learning them have at it! But being passionate about your work is metaphysical– have you heard the Italian food proverb about how you can taste what mood the chef was in when they made your food? I’m convinced that applies to all of our work, especially art.
3) Naïveté: I don’t really know how to teach this, but sometimes not knowing what is going on around you is an ideal situation. The city of Detroit, where I live, is basically a rural city. Sure, we have urbanized areas, but even the neighborhoods are basically suburbs. And there’s many parcels of land and neighborhoods that can technically be referred to as prairies, complete with pheasants, foxes, and bald eagles. I sometimes consider moving to New York to be in the hustle and bustle of it all, but I really do love living in such a mellow quiet place. It keeps my mind clear to focus on my art and my work. Also, while Detroit cranks out a ton of incredible artists, we really don’t have a music industry at all. If I knew what was “selling” or “hot” in the music industry I don’t think I would’ve started my record labels. If I knew the direction that the independent vinyl industry was headed, I don’t think I would’ve started my record labels. But since I was naïve, I did it anyway. And since I was armed with both intrinsic motivation and passion it’s working out!
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
For basically all of my life I’ve been able to just get by just by keeping track of things in my head. Given my work from home for myself lifestyle I used to be able to just do what I needed to do whenever I needed to it. But the pandemic and maybe just growing older has really broken my brain (in a good way, I think) and forced me to have practices and scheduled work time instead of just going off vibes and good fortune. So this means using the Do Not Disturb function on my devices. It means setting time aside every day (using my phone timer) to respond to emails, and only respond to emails. It means scheduled promo listening. It means scheduled bike rides and subsequent stretch sessions. It means actually putting the records away after a gig instead of putting them on the floor. It means scheduled meditation.
And on a more deeper note, with the help of my incredible therapist I’ve been doing a lot of work on improving my inner monologue, and bringing more of my authentic self to interactions in my life.
I suspect all of the above practices will be the rest of my life’s work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.petercroce.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petercroce_rsd/
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/petercroce
- Other: https://rocksteadydisco.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
1, 6, 7, 8: Graham Bewley
2, 4: Dave Jeffers
3: Phriz Da Beatz
5: Lizz Wilkinson
9: Tunes By Teo
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
