A longtime EDM enthusiast, men’s crew co-captain Michael LesStrang ’26 — otherwise known as DJ LesStrang — has transformed his love of house music into a self-taught passion for mixing. When he first started performing as an underclassman, LesStrang could not imagine the impact his music would have on campus life. “I used to get really really nervous as a sophomore because I would have to beg the captains or seniors on my team and be like, ‘Hey, trust me, I’m going to do a good job,’” he said. Since those early days on the decks, LesStrang has honed his craft and made a name for himself in the Purple Valley.

“It has just become a lot more fun [over the years],”  he said. “The people I’m playing for, they’ll recognize me. They kind of know the music that I like to play. They can anticipate that. And it’s just a really good time.”

With his mix of house, EDM, and pop, LesStrang hopes listeners can melt into the music while also discovering new sounds. “I want them to be able to sing, I want them to be able to dance, and I want them to be able to hear at least one new song that they didn’t know that they liked by the time they leave,” he said. “I believe that this sort of music deserves to be listened to loud, it deserves to be listened to in a large space with a lot of people.”

LesStrang’s DJing journey first began with his brother, who bought a DJ board while studying at Kenyon College to improve the music at parties. “I remember I visited my brother in college when I was a senior in high school, and I messed around on his DJ board, and I was terrible, but I thought it was really, really fun,” he said.

A year later, LesStrang purchased that same DJ board from his brother and went straight to work. With music pulsing through the walls of the Willy 1B common room, LesStrang regularly shared his early skills with five or six friends on weeknights. With more and more practice, his confidence grew, and he graduated to DJing for dozens of friends and teammates on weekends.

“After a while, I started to figure things out, had cleaner transitions, figured out how to play a more diverse set of songs, and really started to take off from there,” he said.

From his time experimenting in his Frosh Quad common room to now DJing formals, parties, and Hoxsey Street gatherings, LesStrang’s craft has been entirely self-taught. “It’s mostly trial and error,” he explained. “I think I’ve gotten a lot better over the last two, three years of understanding the fundamentals of when to mix music. [I’ve learned] how to align beats, how to find songs that match up in terms of key, vibe, tempo, while also making it so that you’re not sticking with the same type of music every song.”

Part of curating a good set comes from learning to cater to the crowd, LesStrang explained. While DJing, he tries to find a balance between playing what he personally loves and what he knows people want, combining his house music favorites with popular EDM and pop hits.

“You have to keep the energy really high,” he said. “If you play two songs in a row that people don’t like or the energy is low, people will leave, so you have to be really deliberate about just dropping banger after banger, basically.” 

His goal is to keep his sound fresh and improve his mixes while still engaging his audience. “Even though I love house, I have to play a lot of pop … so people are just having fun and really enjoying it,” he added.

Although most parties on campus rely on a Spotify playlist and a Bluetooth speaker for music, live performances add an element of excitement, LesStrang noted. “If you have a live DJ, people are oriented in one direction,” he said. “People are anticipating the next song a little bit more.” 

The element of performance that comes with DJing allows LesStrang to build a relationship with the audience while still getting lost in the music himself. “Sometimes I like to do a transition with word play, something people aren’t expecting in a moment, and it’s really cool when you’ve got the whole crowd already facing in one direction and you can see everyone’s reaction,” he said. “I think that’s what keeps it fun.”

Looking ahead, LesStrang shared that he plans to continue to perform for his friends as he further explores his passion for DJing, but a professional DJ career is not in his plans. 

“I think it would be tough to find gigs at bars and places like that,” LesStrang said. “But definitely if I’m having a party or a get together with my friends, one hundred percent. I love music. I love mixing.”