Edna Grant
Staff Writer
It happened during class last spring semester. Steven Petersen’s phone displayed a vague text message from his older brother. It read, “B-Dubs, this Thursday. I have a business opportunity.”
Curious to know what his brother could be talking about, Peterson found himself sitting in the dim Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant with his older brother Andrew. There, the eldest Petersen presented his idea.
“I think it’d be cool if we started a DJ company,” he said.
The younger Petersen didn’t hesitate or question this idea.
“I agree,” he said.
Steven Petersen is in charge of Vibe Mobile Sound’s public image, running the company’s social media pages while his older brother runs the business aspect. Petersen took on the role of social media manager naturally, due to the fact that he currently studies Corporate Communications at ISU and has a public affairs internship with the Idaho National Laboratory.
Being a full-time student and a business professional has opened many doors for Petersen, such as gaining the experience he needs to make sure his company’s public image can be a successful one. Running a business on top of it all, however, it can sometimes be a bit tricky.
“I don’t like sitting on my ass,” Steven said. “Keeping up with all three keeps me busy.”
The Petersen brothers, Steven and Andrew, had a musical father. Their dad, Dan Petersen, moved to southeast Idaho for school and fell in love. He met Kirstin Hicks, who agreed to marry him and begin a music journey with him, from owning a record shop and dance club in Rexburg to spending his time working with the popular music station Z103, according to Andrew Petersen.
Andrew would join his father at work when he was younger, running the lighting while dad handled the music.
“I still have very clear memories of going to gigs with my father,” said Petersen.
When Idaho State University student Steven Petersen, the youngest of the two brothers, was only a year and a half old, their father passed away.
“I don’t have any real memories of him,” he said. “Literally everything I know about him has been through the basis of other people’s stories and memories.”
Though the younger Petersen admitted to not being a rather spiritual individual, he claimed the connection he has with music is his connection to his father.
“I’ve always had a passion for music. I’d listen to a song in the car or at home and feel a connection to it, and my mom would say that my dad used to love that song,” he said. “There is no way this is coincidental.”
In the first week of June in 2019, Vibe Mobile Sound had its first job. The brothers’ company booked an outdoor wedding and hoped to deliver the best possible experience for the bride and groom. The 50-degree weather, however, had a different effect on the party guests.
“We thought we were playing good music,” said Steven Petersen, “but no one was dancing.”
There are a lot of factors to reading a room. Unfortunately, one of those can be the unpredictable weather.
Being a DJ is a lot more work than simply creating a playlist and plugging a music device into the sound system. A DJ needs to be able to read the audience and instinctively know what will continue to make them dance and enjoy their time.
“Each song has, like, a beat-per-minute count. You want to find something along those same count, or even something that sounds similar,” Petersen said. “You know, if you’re playing something older, like 80’s rock, you don’t want to move on to something like New Age. You want to make as smooth a transition as possible.”
Petersen learned this lesson through the failures of other DJ’s, he admits. “I’ve been to so many weddings where the DJ has actually sucked, and I’d think ‘Why is he playing this,’ or ‘this is what I would have played instead,’” he said.
Their inherited love of music, brought Andrew and Steven closer together as children. Their relationship is strong, and their bond continues to strengthen when they work together, especially in remembrance of their father.
“Obviously we’re two different people that may have different perspectives, but overall, we collaborate really well,” Andrew said about working with his younger brother.
“It would be so cool,” said Steven, “if I were able to show my dad what we’re doing. Look what we’re doing — it’s all because of you.”
