How To Be a DJ, Not a Playlist with Tom Nash

How To! with Mike Pesca

Peach Fish Projects

How To, Education

4.3 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2026

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Stewart has built a respectable career as a lawyer in Montreal, but he's yearning to chase a very different dream: becoming a club DJ. He knows how to curate a killer playlist, but the leap to commanding a live room feels intimidating and technically out of reach. On this episode: How To!'s Mike Pesca brings on Tom Nash, a former top Sydney club DJ (known as DJ Hookie) who spins using prosthetic hooks. Tom offers Stewart guidance on bypassing the technical hurdles to truly read a crowd, building a music brand from "scratch"—and why the DJ's one true job is to delight the audience.

Executive Producer Corey Wara

Edited by Geoff Craig

Booking by Lya Yanne

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Once I got to the point where I was DJing in front of thousands of people,
0:03.6	you then begin to enjoy the solace of not being around any of them.
0:07.4	And what that is is the moment that you're actually DJing,
0:10.8	because it's the only moment that nobody can fucking talk to you.
0:16.0	Welcome to how to, I'm Mike Pesca.
0:18.0	Everyone's a critic and most people are DJs.
0:20.6	Craig Finn of the
0:21.3	hold steady said that but kind of saying it he sings says and that was back in
0:25.9	2003 but was he right well I'll tell you Craig Finn's a smart guy but no he wasn't
0:32.7	right and by that I'm not saying that he was being dismissive or insulting to
0:37.3	DJs I'm saying saying that he was being dismissive or insulting to DJs.
0:38.4	I'm saying most people are in fact not DJs even if they think they are.
0:44.5	And I came across this idea in a more recent piece of media than an alt rock album from 23 years
0:50.7	ago. It was an addition of that TikTok YouTube-ish series Subway Takes where a guy
0:56.3	interviews someone on the subway and then says if he agrees or disagrees. There are not
1:01.2	enough DJs in the world. 100% fuck everyone's going to get mad of me. Disagree. There are a lot of
1:06.9	people who play music. It doesn't mean they're DJs. Oh. Huh. Interesting. And it's not often that the subway take guy has pushed off his thesis so
1:16.8	easily. But I thought a really compelling point was being made. And I also thought there had to be
1:22.3	someone out there who was sort of a human playlist at this point and yet yearned to be a DJ. And indeed there was.
1:34.7	Hey, I'm Stuart. My friends call me Stu. Um, not a DJ. Don't have a DJ name yet. Trying to work on that.
1:41.5	You know, I was thinking DJ S2, Stu, that looks good on a sticker
1:45.6	on the back of a laptop, so maybe that can work down the road or something like that.
	...

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