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Uncut with Jay Cutler: Country Music DJ Dee Jay Silver Talks Graduating at 16, Developing the Country-Remix Style, & Touring With the ‘Jackass’ Crew

The newest episode of Uncut with Jay Cutler released earlier today as the podcast welcomed country music DJ superstar Dee Jay Silver to the show. The musician stopped by Outsider Studios recently to talk about his life and unique career within the country music industry in Nashville.

Dee Jay Silver, real name John Perdue, takes us back to his grade school days and talks about graduating high school at only 16 years old. He’d go on to attend college early as well, even without being able to drive a car at such a young age. Perdue goes on to share stories about touring with the guys from MTV’s Jackass early on in his music career as well, which came complete with all the shenanigans you’d imagine.

This week’s special guest also opened up about his signature country-remix style. Dee Jay Silver talks about how he got his start in the music business, recalls meeting country star Jason Aldean, and explains how his country-remix style came to be. Perdue chats about that and much more in this week’s episode of Uncut with Jay Cutler.

Dee Jay Silver Opens Up to Jay Cutler About Graduating High School at 16

While growing up in Texas, Dee Jay Silver’s parents often played music around the house and that helped him garner a wide-range of musical tastes. By high school, Perdue already owned a solid collection of CDs from all different genres. At house parties he frequently manned the CD player and switched out the discs throughout the night. Those early parties in high school and college would eventually lead him to DJing.

Although that seems like a natural origin story as to how Perdue got into DJing, he shared an even more fascinating fact about his high school days. Since he started kindergarten early at only four years old and skipped a grade, that meant he ended up graduating high school early.

“I was an awkward kid, graduated when I was 16. I was still losing teeth. Started early, and then to be honest, I could speak English so they skipped me up a grade in Texas,” he joked with Jay Cutler.

During his first year of college, Perdue played on his JuCo’s baseball team. However, since he had just turned 16 and didn’t even have his drivers license yet, he had to get dropped off at practice for the first part of his freshman year. Dee Jay Silver said his teammates didn’t really care for their youngest member of the squad.

Perdue joked that he hadn’t hit puberty yet and his mom was in the car in the parking lot during practices. So he understood why the older kids didn’t take a liking to him. While that doesn’t sound like the most fun college experience, he’d start making the best of it soon as a professional DJ. Sororities and fraternities began paying him to DJ at campuses across the nation, and that’s when his music career began to take off.

Meeting Jason Aldean and Developing the Country-Remix Style

Considering his Texas roots, Dee Jay Silver always felt connected to country music. Historically that’s not exactly the first genre that comes to mind when thinking of DJs. However, it came naturally to him to incorporate country music into his DJ sets. Some promoters and artists would give him a hard time about it, but soon enough it would catch on across the genre.

Perdue would blend all kinds of music into his DJ sets, including hip-hop, rock, house, and country. Yet other DJs in the business would discourage him from playing country in his mixes. He stuck to his guns though and helped bring the country-remix style into prominence after meeting Jason Aldean a dozen years back.

“I met Aldean in 2010, and he brought us out [on tour with him]. No one had ever done that,” he said to host Jay Cutler. “Now you see every festival and every tour and every show has a DJ playing in front of them.”

Ever since, Dee Jay Silver has watched the country-remix style blow up and become part of the genre. In fact, he became the first DJ to ever sign with a major Nashville label. He’s had residencies at 13 of the top-100 clubs in the world and has worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry. Some may not have thought that country music belonged on a DJ’s turntables, but Dee Jay Silver almost single-handedly proved those doubters wrong.

Wild Stories From His Touring Days With the Crew of MTV’s ‘Jackass’

During the heyday of Jackass, Dee Jay Silver went on a world tour with some of the cast and crew of the hit show and movies. For four years he toured with them promoting their movies and taking part in the Jackass crew’s crazy antics. Host Jay Cutler jokingly asked Perdue, “How are you still alive?”

“It was sketchy, touch-and-go for a minute,” Dee Jay Silver responded. “That’s when I realized you have to have two hotel rooms – one under your government name and one under Justin Case.”

That’s because he never knew when the Jackass crew would be up to no good and pulling pranks everywhere they went. During his last tour, he grew tired of randomly getting tased by stun guns, which led to his two hotel room policy so he could sneak into the second one and get some actual rest while on tour. As Cutler points out, Perdue lasted quite a few years with the celebrity pranksters. Dee Jay Silver boiled it down to being “young and stupid,” but admits it was fun since he was only 21 years old at the time.

Make sure to check out Jay Cutler and Dee Jay Silver’s full conversation in the video above, or tune in and listen to Uncut with Jay Cutler on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you listen to your favorite podcasts.