Trent Cantrelle Wants You To Dance

This summer, if you're looking for a quiet place to chill and sip cocktails with your crew, Trent Cantrelle's Sounds Like Summer Terrace party in Hollywood is not it.

"This type of thing is strictly geared for dancing," Cantrelle explains. "We play music that's not necessarily music you just hang out to. You walk into a Sounds Like party, you know you're here, not just to have a few drinks and see some friends, there's more to it."

Since arriving in Los Angeles from New Orleans nearly a dozen years ago, Cantrelle has established himself as a go-to DJ for authentic club sounds. Cutting his teeth as a resident for Disco Donnie events in the South, Cantrelle was quick to cement a reputation on the West Coast through early gigs with a then much-smaller promoter called Insomniac. In 2007, he began the first Sounds Like series as part of his residency at Avalon, running until 2010. While Cantrelle had toured the globe, often as an opener for Pete Tong, Swedish House Mafia, Sander Kleinenberg and Gabriel & Dresden, he longed for the creative outlet only a residency can provide.

"That is, to me, the ultimate type of DJing—playing the same club, week in and out—the experience is unlike any other, artistically," he says. "The places you can go because the crowd knows you and trusts you; it's this bond you get that's unlike any other DJ experience. Wanting that experience again led me to go, 'you know what? Let me try to resurrect what I originally intended.'"

Last summer, Sounds Like was reborn as a Sunday evening party at Room 86, an overlooked venue in Hollywood that features a combination of outdoor space and modern amenities (a full bar, functional restrooms) that every promoter would covet. While many weekly and monthly events target a specific age group or type of person, Sounds Like Summer Terrace is decidedly open, partly the result of Cantrelle's own steeping in the New York house music club circuit.

"There's no real age limit," Cantrelle boasts. "We get kids college all the way to people who are retired. We get every walk of life, every color, gay people, drag queens, you name it. Everybody's hanging out at this party. It reminds me of the type of New York parties I used to fly up to all the time. Any chance I could get on a plane, I would head to New York and go catch Danny [Tenaglia] at Vinyl on Friday and Junior [Vasquez] at Twilo on a Saturday, and anything else that was going on."

Given Cantrelle's experience and connections, he could easily slide into the trap of trying to appeal to the young and new "EDM" audience with pop hooks, cloying drops and bombastic bass. Perhaps because of his experience, he's less inclined to take the shortview.

"I think one of the tricks of this industry is trying to stick around with longevity; being able to adapt but still not selling your soul to turn into a completely different person," he admits. "I'm just kinda going with the flow. It's what's kept me able to do this for a living for so long and not have to give up. I'm not living in a mansion in the hills, but i'm definitely happy and love being able to do this, full-time, 100%, and have been since I moved to LA."

"I was at EDC watching the main stage and a lot of the guys up there are 18 years old," he continues. "It's an interesting thing to have been into it for this long. I feel like there's different types of careers in this industry. There are ones that have a whole lot of success in a short period of time, but there are also careers that just get better over time. For me, what makes a good DJ is experience. The more someone does it, the more someone plays in front of a crowd, the more someone has a terrible night or a really great night, it just build the skills and experience that someone has. Some of my favorite DJs from the old school are the ones who have been doing it forever. The longer you do it, the better you get."

With Sound Like Summer Terrace, those in the LA dance scene get to benefit from that experience.

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