DJ Billy Ocean just wants folks to have a good time

ALBANY — Whether at clubs, parties, dances, bars or weddings, for more than 20 years Albany’s Sean Hatcher has been making sure everybody is having a great time.

Hatcher, better known to Albany music fans as DJ Billy Ocean, was recently named Albany’s favorite DJ in the Albany Herald’s Friday JAM music poll. The results shocked the part-time musician, who said he is somewhat conflicted about earning the honor.

“I thought the music polls were great,” Hatcher said. “Anything that brings attention to the musicians in Albany and puts a positive light on them is important. Really it’s the musicians, though, the guys who spend years learning how to play instruments, that deserve the recognition and need the exposure. They’re the ones busting their tails. For me, this isn’t my career. I mean it takes a little work to DJ, but these guys playing instruments. Those are my heroes.”

Despite his reservations about having the spotlight on himself, Hatcher is happy to know that what he’s been doing as a DJ in Albany over the past two decades has brought pleasure to so many people.

“I’m very grateful and thankful and blessed,” he said. “It’s a great feeling to have somebody take the time to vote for me because they like what I’m doing, which is something that I really love.”

What Hatcher said he loves most about being a DJ is having the ability to entertain people and help them escape from the stress of their lives and enjoy themselves for a little while.

“Anytime you can be involved in people having a good time, that’s awesome,” the DJ said. “You just want to play what people want to hear and for people to have fun. When they do, that’s a good feeling.”

Hatcher first decided he wanted to help folks have a good time back in the mid-’90s when he went to see one of music’s most well-known and influential groups.

“I went to see the Beastie Boys in Atlanta,” he said. “Mix Master Mike was the DJ for them, and he was just unbelievable. It was awesome. He was doing all kinds of amazing stuff, and that really sparked an interest for me.”

Not long after returning home from the show, Hatcher started to notice that the music being played in a lot of area bars and clubs seemed out of touch and didn’t always fit the vibe of the location.

Inspired to do something about that, Hatcher invested in a couple of turntables and started working on his scratching techniques while also building a suitable record collection, which was fairly difficult before the advent of digital music.

“I was constantly going to garage sales and flea markets, looking for vinyl records,” said Hatcher. “Finding music back then that I could build playlists out of was a lot harder than it is today.”

Once Hatcher had a large enough record collection, he started playing at friends’ parties, which eventually led to playing at some weddings and then at some local bars and restaurants, like Harvest Moon.

As the gigs became more frequent, Hatcher continued to hone his craft. He was given his stage name when he and some friends were watching TV one day.

“I didn’t pick the name, it was kind of given to me,” he explained. “We were watching MTV Cribs, and the show featured Outkast. Well, I love Outkast. So we were watching and they were at Big Boi’s house and he has this aquarium and he said, ‘There’s my fish, Billy Ocean.’ My friends were like, ‘That’s it; you should be DJ Billy Ocean.’ And it stuck.”

Since that time, DJ Billy Ocean has become a fixture around town, playing at various clubs, parties and functions for vastly differing crowds.

“The other weekend, I DJed for a friend of mine’s daughter for her 6th birthday, and then later that night I DJed a guy’s 40th birthday,” said Hatcher. “I went from one extreme to the next. It was good, though. I’ve played all kinds of things: corporate functions, birthdays, Christmas parties, bars, clubs, fashion shows, sock hops, proms, homecomings, school dances, field days, private parties, weddings, you name it.”

Handling the music for such a wide variety of audiences creates one of the challenges that Hatcher truly relishes — reading a crowd and knowing what he needs to play to keep the party going and keep people on the dance floor.

“Well, I’m playing for the people, and there’s an art to reading a crowd,” Hatcher said. “You’ve got to feel them out and know what to play to keep the most people on the dance floor. Of course, every once in a while you’re going to throw one out there and they’re going to walk off, so you need to know how to recover, too.”

In addition to feeling out the crowd, Hatcher said there’s a technical side to DJing where he has to make sure that when he changes from one song to the next that the beats of the music match up properly, which provides a good flow for the crowd.

“Matching the beat isn’t as important at parties or weddings, but it is at the bigger clubs,” he said. “What you want when you change songs is for the next song to be within five to eight beats per minute of the last one. One hundred twenty-eight bpm is good for an average dance song, so you don’t want to have a song at 128 bpm and then drop to 100. It just doesn’t work well.”

Hatcher said another challenge at certain functions is having to shift between different genres of music if there’s a diverse crowd.

“Weddings are the toughest by far,” he said. “You’ve got such a wide variety of ages at weddings. The younger kids want to hear things like Taylor Swift, and the older crowd wants the Temptations. I’ve got to play those and everything in between. And I do play everything: oldies, country, Motown, disco, soul, hip-hop, dance music, rock and everything else you can think of.”

Hatcher said being able to play everything has gotten a lot easier over the years as the industry has shifted to digital music. Having originally started with vinyl, Hatcher eventually switched to compact discs, and ultimately went with moving picture experts group level 3 audio files, or mp3s.

In addition to his massive collection of music, Hatcher has also invested in a versatile PA system that allows him to play varying sized venues with ease.

“I have gone to mp3s,” the DJ said. “Those records and CDs are nowhere near as mobile. I wanted the lightest and quickest thing. There’s a lot of places that have their own PA that I can plug into, but I have a PA system I can use that’s good in different-sized rooms.”

While some of the technology has changed during the past two decades since Hatcher was first inspired at that Beastie Boys concert, one thing has remained exactly the same.

“It’s not my career, but I still have a passion for it,” Hatcher said. “I can’t tell you how many events I play where I’d just as soon play it for free. I just love doing it. I also love keeping up with the new music and knowing what people want to hear. In fact, when I do get out of touch with what the crowds want, that’s when I’ll hang it up.”

Anyone interested in learning more about Hatcher or in booking an event can get information on his DJ Billy Ocean Facebook page or email him at [email protected].