My name is Justin DeRoy, I’m 21 years old and I’m a new member of the EDMTunes team from Vancouver, Canada and most people know me as being a fitness personality. I’ve competed in physique shows and done fitness modelling for the past 3 years, and have managed to amass a pretty healthy following on social media. But something less well known about is that my other passion is electronic music and raving. My exploration in the world of dance music back around 2010-2011 is what led to my passion for fitness. Since then my love for both worlds has continue to grow and I have learned a lot about balancing the discipline and hard work of fitness with the energy and fun of dance music.
That is also something I hope to bring to EDMTunes and share with you all. I hope to make a career out of bringing those world’s together, but first I want to tell you how I fell in love with EDM and how it led me to my passion for fitness.
Before dance music I had only gone to heavy metal/rock concerts, but I always loved live music and the energy of shows. Once I discovered dance music, it made me feel like nothing else and I kept going back for more. My introduction to EDM was through dubstep in 2010, then shortly after that I got introduced to Afrojack and fell down the rabbit hole of “house music”. Before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver back in 2010, I had no clue who deadmau5 was, but I had some friends from school who said they were gonna go catch his show, so i tagged along and had a blast. You get the idea, so from there I continued exploring in that way and taking in as much new music as I could. I took about a year break from going to events since I was still in high school and had to occasionally do the whole academic thing, but the next show I went to blew my mind all over again.
Shortly after that, I was browsing through Youtube and discovered Tiesto and ‘Adagio for Strings’. It was that moment that i discovered what trance was and that I needed to see it live. Unfortunately I never got to see Trance Tiesto, but the first trance artist I ever saw was Dash Berlin and loved every minute of the show. Now the genre that tops my list has to be Trap. I still like emotional trance, but I love the heavy face-melting bass music more than anything. My favorite trap DJ has to be Snails. Ive seen him twice now and words can’t even describe the feeling of being in the middle of the crowd during one of his shows. Far from being a stereotype, I’ve been in the EDM world for years and have explored many of its subgenres and artists.
The first festival that I ever did was Center of Gravity in 2014. Since Vancouver is usually cold for most of the year, all the events are indoors until summer time. COG was my first outdoor event and Calvin Harris was the headliner. I remember how amazing a time I had dancing and listening to my favorite types of music, in a care-free scene , good vibes from everybody, surrounded by my closest friends making memories. It was surreal, and its an experience that I want to keep doing for as long as I’m physically able, even if I become “that guy” who is older than everybody else in the crowd (but still going twice as hard as everyone else).
My exploration in the world of dance music is actually what sparked my love of fitness in 2012 when Skrillex came to Vancouver for his Full Flex Express Tour, back in the days of “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites”. Back then I was skinny and not really into fitness. All my friends were taking off their shirts because of how hot it was in the venue, but I wouldn’t because I was self conscious about how I looked. This will sound cliche but I saw all these huge guys with girls in crazy costumes all over them and in a way I envied them for how they looked and social energy that radiated from them. From then onwards I dedicated myself to getting in better shape and have made a life out of it. This wasn’t just to get attention from girls, but it was about gaining self confidence and feeling better about myself, which feeds into the overall feeling at dance music events in general. From there my growth in both areas came fast.
As my career in fitness began to get serious in 2012-2013 I didn’t go to many events because I wanted to pursue fitness modeling and competing. Unfortunately all the biggest and best events were always going on when I was in the middle of contest prep, and anyone who’s ever competed knows that it requires 110% dedication to be able to have even the slightest bit of success. So I was not only tempted by food all the time, but I was constantly tempted by fomo from various festivals. I was lucky to find others like me and I have made some of my closest friends through raving. It has become our group bonding experience for us each time we go to a show together because my rave crew shares my mindset in music and in life. They all are in great shape and are as passionate about fitness as I am, but occasionally we feel the need to cut loose from our strict routines and raving is that outlet for us.
Ultimately, I aspire to make a career in both the world of fitness and hopefully the world of dance music as well. That’s what led me to EDMTunes and someday I hope to be personal trainer for artists, as I understand the difficulties of balancing fitness and fun. As Spring approaches I will talk about how to get “festival ready” for those of you who have your eyes on Miami Music Week, Ultra, and the like so be on the lookout for more from me.