Party hard

The guys from Hall of Fame are worried that their group photo (see right) makes them look like the Backstreet Boys. And for good reason: It does kinda make them look like the Backstreet Boys. But that’s OK. The five dudes—Tony Christian, Curtis Currier, Damian Lynch, Robbie Metcalf, Byron Neville—are anything but phony or lame. These under-25-year-olds are party starters. They throw legit bangers that draw in sick deejays and crowds by the thousands—in addition to managing artists, blogging, shooting photography and videos, and running social marketing and a record label. Their soirees rise so much higher than the others that one has to wonder, “Is Hall of Fame using performance-enhancing drugs?”

What Sacto neighborhood parties the best?

Curtis Currier: Natomas. Natomians. Natomasinians. They go hard.

Tony Christian: They definitely go the hardest.

And here I thought Natomas just sucked.

Currier: There’s nothing to do out there, man, so … if you get a good party going, they’re going to make sure that doesn’t stop.

Christian: Natomas and Elk Grove.

What do Sacramentans want from a party?

Christian: I think they want something cheap, and they want to meet a lot of people … because it’s really cliquey out here, and a lot of people don’t hang.

How much should a good party cost?

Christian: Less than $10.

Byron Neville: Five dollars is the magical number.

You all started off doing house parties. Now you do legal venues. Which are more fun?

Neville: I love house parties.

Currier: Deejaying house parties is such a raw experience. The crowd isn’t there to be at a club; they’re there to party, so you can really move people. The sweaty people in a room, fogged windows, equipment getting wet—all the shit from a house party, the craziness, is so much fun.

What’s the gnarliest thing you’ve seen at a house party?

Currier: I chased some thief down for my laptop once.

Christian: Remember that time in Davis where … somebody crowd-surfed at one of our house parties? It was pretty sick. I was like, “You know what? That was a legit house party.” … We’d like to keep on doing house parties, but today, we can’t. If we throw a house party, a couple thousand people show up.

How do you make your parties safe?

Currier: We’ve actually talked about throwing a party that no one drives to. We really want to promote bicycle use or Regional Transit or buses.

If you could throw any party …

Currier: Something at Cal Expo, kind of like [Electric Daisy Carnival] meets South by Southwest, like hip-hop and house and electro music all in one spot, where everyone can go and realize that music isn’t separated by “You like this genre, I like that genre.”

Neville: I definitely want to throw a party on the top of a parking garage in downtown.

On a scale of one to 10, how difficult do city rules make your job?

Damian Lynch: Ten.

Christian: Ten.

Lynch: Memorial Auditorium, they got to be closed by 11 o’clock. Ace of Spades has to be done by 11 o’clock. There’s no real big venue downtown that can facilitate a party.

You and the city don’t get along?

Christian: We went to court for some permit issues. We had already got permits, we worked with a nonprofit, and it was one of our biggest parties, Gametime—3,000 people showed up. This was on 12th and C [streets]. We had permits, we had fire marshals out there—we had hired off-duty fire marshals to be there.

But then police came, they didn’t care about the fire marshals. … And it really came down to them saying, “We’re shutting this down, we don’t care what permits you have. Whatever’s happening, we’re shutting it down.”

Neville: But there was no liquor, no nothing.

Currier: They have this preconceived notion that we’re just throwing illegal parties, that we’re trying to corrupt the youth of Sacramento.

Do you tell your parents that you’re in the party business?

Robbie Metcalf: That we’re in the music business.

Christian: My mom kind of just started taking it seriously, really.

Currier: There’s so much you can do to provide a sick party. We want people to say, “Holy shit, that was an amazing night. I made memories, I got home safe, we had a bus to take me fucking home.” … All the bad experiences that I know I’ve been involved with and everyone else has, we try to fix them.

Christian: It’s basically a business now. We’re already finding ways to generate money.

So, you’re rich?

Currier: We don’t make money.

Neville: We have no money. We’re still broke.