"The party had it all, with former Columbians Cousin Cole and Chris Hires — now big deals in Brooklyn — manning the decks, leading to plenty of dancing and not too much blasting over discussions in various rooms on different levels. It was probably True/False's best bash yet."
- The Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, MO)
Chris Hires is a no-frills party DJ, one who prefers to eschew the formalities and focus on the beats and the ass-shaking. “I don’t have a DJ name because I couldn’t think of anything that was at the same time clever and not overflowing with irony,” Hires says, “Plus there were a lot of people who already knew my name, so I just stuck with that.”
Hires is known for genre spanning sets that include anything with a groove, with a hint of dance floor irony thrown in for good measure. Songs like “Dancing In The Moonlight,” the Foo Fighters’ “Everlong” and Hires’ own remix of Petula Clark’s “Downtown” are known to make appearances sandwiched between the hip hop and techno du jour. While his tapes mostly focus on blending hip hop with the latest indie rock dance tracks, Hires has also released mixes that focus on booty bass and Baltimore club (“Tits Not a Party Without You”), minimal German techno (“Microtronix”), and slow love songs designed for intimate nights at home (“Baby It’s Cold Outside”).
“I’ll always love doing dance parties, but I’d love to get a job being an anonymous DJ in some overly hip restaurant, just creating an atmosphere. I’d love a job where I could just blend into the background and do my own thing. It’s about balance, I guess.”
After learning the craft in Columbia, Missouri, where he quickly became a tastemaker with his weekly club residency and late night house party sets, Chris set his sights on the east coast. A recent New York City transplant (he celebrates his anniversary in the city in September), Hires is slowly making a name for himself as one of New York nightlife’s best-kept secrets.
“When I moved to New York I didn’t really know a lot of people, and it took a while to get into the scene and the way things work here. I just spent the first six months holed up in my bedroom, DJing for myself since I didn’t have a crowd yet. It turned out to be really helpful, I improved a lot as a musician during that time.”
As far as his plans for the immediate future, Hires says he’s content to keep on grinding in the city that never sleeps, taking things one step at a time. “I’m a DJ in New York City,” Hires says, “I think that alone will keep me plenty busy for a while.”
