DJ Brandon Fullmer of V2 Events
A DJ Saved My Life: V2 Events co-owner and DJ Brandon Fullmer is a man of many talents.
By Austen Diamond
“Every girl wants to be a go-go dancer,” Fullmer says, pointing to a poster of the troupe. Similarly, then, does every boy want to be a DJ and owner of a nationally recognized production company? Fullmer knew at a young age that he did.
Fullmer wears crisp, fashionable street wear, has a wry, likeable side-smile when joking and constantly darting eyes—always scanning and planning. These traits have no doubt helped him in his line of work for 15 years.
His journey to DJ-dom started in junior high when an older kid moved to the neighborhood. “At that time, I loved that teenybopper, technotronic shit,” he says, self-deprecatingly.
“At 13, [the neighbor] took me to this rave and introduced me to the real scene. I was kinda scared, but, you know, I loved it and got hooked,” he says. “Two years later, I said, ‘I want to do that’ ... to be a bigger part of it.”
He started V2 Events/Bondad Productions with Jeremy Moreland, and their parties were steadily gaining momentum until an event happened that was simultaneously a big break and a pain in the ass.
In 2005, Versus II, a rave in Spanish Fork that Fullmer promoted, was raided by a SWAT team and shut down. The national attention was crazy—Rolling Stone to High Times—as Fullmer was in court for nine months suing Utah County for excessive force and not having proper warrants. The case was eventually dropped, but the hoopla put V2 on the map.
Just in the past year, V2 has booked giants like The Glitch Mob, Chase and Status, Pendulum and Pretty Lights, to name a few. Their theme parties range from the Saint Patrick’s Day Green Party to the aptly named Dayglow Party; attendance hits 9,000 people at times.
That’s a lot of electronica in, presumably, an unlikely demographic. “Honestly, I think we have one of the biggest crowds [compared to other cities]. We’re an A market in a B-market town,” Fullmer says. “The kids are just excited about the scene.”
During shows, Fullmer manages production, be it lighting, props, visuals and so on. But his talents are more far-reaching.
As DJ Loki, Fullmer is a sought-after breakbeat soundsmith, playing half his gigs out of state. On March 18, 2011, he signed to illeven eleven, a Chicago-based record label focusing on breakbeat and dubstep artists.
The benefit therein is marketability, and, most importantly, access to unreleased and interesting digital music—hard to find on vinyl. “I play all digital now. Unfortunately, I’m not crate-digging. I just couldn’t find any more good records—definitely nothing new-sounding,” he says. “It came to a point where I had to do something if I wanted to continue to grow.”
For the past two years, his 6,000-piece vinyl collection has stayed in his home office as he relies on flash drives and CDs—played on a CDJ-2000—to drop grimy bass, kickin’ breaks and a funky groove behind the decks.
“I just like the sound [of breakbeat]. It’s very bass-heavy—the bassier the music, the better,” Fullmer says. “I did hip-hop for a long time [as part-owner of Uprok Records]. Breakbeat integrates hip-hop and dance. It’s the perfect blend.”
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Adam Freeland |
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| Kanye West “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” Late Registration This intro reminds me of a James Bond theme. Kanye is probably my favorite hip-hop artist. Although I don’t technically think he’s an awesome person, he’s a genius. Every album by him I’ve ever bought I’ll listen to over and over, and then get the new one and do the same, then go back to the old one. It’s a cycle. |
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| Moby “Beautiful” Go-the very best of Moby Moby was one of the first dance-music acts I ever got into. He was a very influential part of the culture. I don’t necessarily think all of his music is that good—that’s why I have the Best Of. This isn’t one of my favorite songs, but I see why it’s on the album. He incorporates a lot more live music material, instead of synthesized music productions, which is hard to do sometimes. |
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| J Dilla “Bye” Donuts All I can ever think of when he comes on is Adult Swim. When they go to commercial, it’s a lot of the stuff he did. When this album came out, I was still working at Uprok Records. It’s got that smooth hip-hop beat, but he was using massive samples. Always entertaining to listen to. |
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| Pendulum “Masochist” Ministry of Sound: Addicted to Bass I like Pendulum. They’re a drum-and-bass group from Australia. They do a little dubstep and some hip-hop. They’re now a full-piece band, but the project started as something real small. We’ve brought them out here twice. I’ve heard some people refer to it as clown-step, but I wouldn’t go that far. |
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