DJ Colleen Shannon: World’s Sexiest DJ
DJ Colleen Shannon looks like she’s early to the party when I meet her mid-day at Toronto’s Wet Bar. Decked out in tight jeans, a glittering top, smoky eye shadow, and glossy lips, you can tell she takes the her moniker “World’s Sexiest DJ” quite seriously.After ten years in the industry, she’s learned to take her Playboy Playmate status in stride and silences her critics by focusing on her music—a slick combination of electro and house. Her remix of My Life Would Suck Without You certainly gave Kelly Clarkson a bit more street cred. With a new album, Red Hot 2010 and her recent gig at the closing party of Toronto’s Fashion Week, the L.A. native is fired up and shows no signs of stopping.
“I was DJing strictly as a hobby and doing it for free at clubs at small places that only had thirty people.” begins Shannon, idly playing with her hair, “I don’t think there was anything I cared about more. Anything I could do to educate myself on anything about it, that’s all I was about.”
After signing with a manager her acting and modeling career took off starting with her most famous job, Playboy Playmate. “Basically, I had done a photo shoot and I thought it was for Maxim at the time. But then my manager said it was for Playboy. It was something I was not quite sure if I wanted to do. And I went and met with one of the vice presidents and she was like, I want you to start shooting today. They took five photos and drove them up to Hef’s house. They said you’re going to be here for the next two weeks but we’re going to shoot everything with a DJ theme. After that I flew to Miami and had one of my first DJing gigs. I’ve been touring internationally for six years non-stop.”
She speaks fondly of her experience with the iconic magazine. Just as the photos were coming out, however, her DJ career was taking off in a big way, “There was an overlap but my priority was always DJing. In a way that might have upset Playboy, I didn’t want to sit there and sign head shots. So I was off just doing my own thing. But it definitely helped.”
By immersing herself in DJ culture she’s gained legitimacy, built up a loyal and substantial following and amassed the necessary DJ skills. No matter where she plays around the world she can always break down an audience. “It’s an intuition I guess. You look at the way they’re dressed, their age group, what they’re drinking. Are they having shots of Patron or red wine? And if it’s Patron I’ll be playing LMFAO off the wall and if they’re drinking red wine I’ll probably be playing the Ting Tings.”
For such a diverse DJ who can name drop her friend Tiësto without missing a beat, I wanted to know what the first record that started her collection was?
“The Violent Femmes,” she says. “My boyfriend is nine years younger and he’s like, how do you know this music, and I’m like, ‘How do you not?’”
