Joe Gambardella made waves on the ice this past year with UMass-Lowell, earning the Walter Brown Award as the top U.S.-born college player in New England. His team-leading 52-point campaign, which was a 15-point improvement on his junior year and 42 points better than his rookie total, allowed the undrafted senior to sign a professional contract with the Edmonton Oilers organization.
Gambardella will now try to make a career and a name for himself in Edmonton or, for starters, Bakersfield, Calif., home of the Oilers’ AHL partner. But back in and around his native New York City, he is known by a different name: DJ Joey Gamz.
Gambardella grew up on Staten Island, where he found himself on the DJ scene nearly a decade ago. Originally working with his brother, Robert, as a break dancer, he hopped on the turntables for a brief stint at a wedding and fell in love with it.
“I didn’t really know much at the time,” he told Pucks and Recreation. “My boss just kind of handed me, a 14-year-old, the DJ stuff at a 400-person wedding. That’s when my brother came up with the name, DJ Joey Gamz.”
This quickly turned into a passion for him, and he took after his brother in learning the ins and outs of spinning music. For a time, the two Gambardellas both worked for NV Entertainment, which described Joe in a bio as having a “vast energetic style” that “keeps the degree of motivation to the highest level” and an “unsung talent” that “lies behind the voice and music of NV Entertainment family, orchestrating all lighting and video production to be perfectly in sync.”
“My older brother got me into it,” said the younger Gambardella. “I shadowed him, and then worked for him. We did parties, weddings, sweet sixteens mostly.”
When he moved away to college, Gambardella was unable to take his equipment with him, which affected his ability to work on his craft. And while his teammates knew about his DJing abilities, they would only see it for themselves in his senior year when a teammate brought a starter set to school with him. Toward the end of last year, he began to DJ at his team’s house parties.
Originally entering the industry with NV Entertainment as a break dancer, Gambardella learned DJing and eventually went independent with his brother. From there, he found some of his favorite venues to work at.
“In New Jersey, it was the Venetian, which was very upscale,” said Gambardella. “On Staten Island, it was a place called ‘The Statens,’ they had huge parties there.”
He was not always hired for big venues like these. Gambardella’s first gig was at a small club in Brooklyn before he ultimately found himself playing to crowds of around 1,000 people, and even doing a March of Dimes walk. Working in front of crowds was something he loved from the start.
“Just the atmosphere, and seeing how people responded to what you played was great,” stated Gambardella. “You had to read the crowd and listen to the feedback, but once you got it, it was awesome.”
Being a DJ and break dancer when he was younger has helped Gambardella in multiple ways. One of the less thought-of benefits is confidence.
“I used to be a dancer, and it got me to not be afraid,” said Gambardella. “I come from an Italian family, and we are always dancing, so I took a break-dancing class.”
Most DJs create many of their own beats. Being in college, Gambardella has not had the time to dive deep into the beat-making realm, but has dabbled in it.
“My cousin had a beat machine, so we started mixing things on it,” recalled Gambardella. “My brother still does make beats.”
Making beats takes a significant amount of time, which he simply does not have enough of. Even with the offseason underway following a six-game amateur tryout with the Condors, Gambardella spends the majority of his time working out and getting ready for his first full year as a professional hockey player.
“People don’t understand how much time it takes to make beats,” he said. “I can sit down and work on music every once in a while, but hockey is my career now.”
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