We had the good fortune of connecting with Future Joy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Future Joy, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Starting a business wasn’t our initial goal, but it’s how things fell into place. We just wanted to play music all the time and answer only to the groove. In 2018 Zach created the group Future Joy. He went on a few cross-country tours before meeting Emily in 2019. With the events of 2020, we had to pivot from our separate DJ residencies and decided it was time to hit the road to focus on Future Joy full-time. We moved into an RV with a stage on the back so we were able to play concerts anywhere and everywhere. We have traveled over 100,000 miles since 2020, from coast to coast to coast. When we got to Florida, we discovered the beautiful music venue, Spirit of the Suwannee in Live Oak. We started playing renegade parties off the back of our RV in the campground during festivals. They became popular enough that the park hired us for festivals like Hulaween, Brainquility and Resonate which we have coming up at the end of March. We like to say that we renegaded our way to the stage. Once we started to gain momentum, we realized this was a viable business opportunity. We’ve seen a lot of success here in Florida, which is one of the reasons we decided to move here, and we absolutely love it! We still plan on traveling as much as we can, but we are happy to have St. Pete as our home base.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We both started out individually as DJs, a decade ago. When we realized we could combine our talents with each other plus instrumentation, we knew we had something special. We have a unique sound that pulls from many genres and since we DJ, MC and play instruments, we are finding that we can reach a wide audience. We moved into our RV and hit the road on full-time tour in August 2020. The road has been filled with challenges and it’s a lot of work, but it’s what we love to do, so it’s worth it. This month we got a house in St. Petersburg, Florida. We are enjoying establishing roots and having a home base.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We’re pretty new to the area, so we’re still exploring. So far, our favorite food spot is Love Food Central and we can’t get enough of Plant Loves Ice Cream. We love how versatile the food scene is here and how there are so many options for a plant-based diet. The music scene is also awesome here. We have played shows at The Movement Sanctuary and The Blueberry Patch, which are both beautifully creative artist spaces. Zach has been busking on The St. Pete Pier and Tuesday Gulfport street market which we also enjoy spending time at. Emily was a guest host at a Women’s Open Jam that happens every Wednesday at Ringside Cafe. We also sat in with the Family Funk Band that plays every Sunday night at Ruby’s. We love the community here, it’s been super welcoming to us. We also love the Saturday morning farmers market next to Tropicana Field. We really want to check out the Sunday night drum circle on Treasure Island Beach and the interactive art exhibit called Fairgrounds, we’ve heard amazing things. And don’t forget the beach! There are so many incredible beaches here including St. Pete Beach and Clearwater Beach. After so much traveling and living in our RV for the past 2.5 years, it feels really great to finally have a home base.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Shoutout to Jordan Polovina. He is our good friend and producer who believed in our vision from the start. He has helped us write and produce two EPs. He lives in Las Vegas working as a full time musician with his project Grim & Darling whom we also have a song out with titled “It’s Okay”.

Website: www.FutureJoyMusic.com

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/futurejoymusic

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/futurejoymusic

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FutureJoyMusic

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@FutureJoy

Other: www.futurejoymusic.com/merch

Image Credits
Live Photos- Bryan Edward Press Photos- Jessica VanTassel

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