Morris and Simon Faks are 2 of the top DJs in New York. They’ve performed for thousands of people, worked with celebrities like Marshmello and Alesso, and played sets all over the world—from France to Morocco to Italy.
From immigrating to America as teenagers to pulling 72-hour shifts to becoming uber-successful DJs, this is their story.
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Transcript
Victor M. Braca: You’ve worked with some of the biggest artists in the world: Justin Bieber, Axwell & Ingrosso, Marshmello, Alesso.
Morris Faks: You know what it was to play with Alesso in Masada? Massive stage.
Victor M. Braca: Between the two of you guys, you DJ over 200 parties per year. I would come into Shaare Zion on Saturday night for a bar mitzvah and leave Shaare Zion on Monday night after a wedding. I’m not kidding.
Victor M. Braca: How did you guys establish yourselves as the prominent DJs in the community?
Simon Faks: Marrakech, Casablanca, Rome, Sardinia, Israel, Saint Barths and Saint-Tropez—all over the world. It’s a very, very, very hard life. Think about it now. You’re planning what are you going to do for Memorial Weekend? We can’t. New Year? We can’t. My cousin, who we love, is going for a bar mitzvah soon to Israel. We can’t go because we’re busy. You can’t plan ahead. My grandma passed away and the same day I had to go put on a suit and go do a wedding. Wow. It’s not an easy life.
Victor M. Braca: Simon and Morris Faks are the most in-demand DJs in the Syrian community, doing over 200 events per year, performing for crowds of thousands of people and sharing the stage with artists like Justin Bieber, Marshmello, Alesso, Axwell & Ingrosso. The list goes on. But what most people don’t know is how they got here.
In this episode, we talk about the insane grind behind the scenes: pulling 72-hour shifts without sleep, working full-time in jewelry by day while DJing parties every night of the week, and the exact moment they realized that their side hustle could become their lifelong business. We get into how they scaled their $200 bar mitzvahs to full-scale international productions, flying their own equipment to remote islands like Anguilla, DJing three events a day in Italy, and staging incredible setups in places like Masada. And yes, I’m referring to the mountain in Israel’s desert. Crazy story.
I’m Victor Braca, and Momentum is where I dive deep with exceptional leaders to uncover the key decisions, defining moments, and lessons that propel them to success, and how those insights can inspire your journey forward. And beyond the parties and grand stages, this conversation is about sacrifice. We talk about what it’s really like to miss major life cycle milestones, family vacations, or even your own brother’s engagement party. Because when you’re the name everybody wants on their wedding, there’s no backup plan. If you’ve ever wanted to turn a passion into a business or understand what it really takes to build a premium brand, this episode is for you. Let’s get into it. This episode is brought to you by PitchPlace. More on them later.
Simon and Morris Faks, welcome to the podcast.
Morris Faks: Thank you for having us.
Victor M. Braca: If I’m not mistaken, between the two of you guys, you DJ over 200 parties per year.
Morris Faks: Yes, just about.
Victor M. Braca: That’s a lot. That’s a big production, huge operation. So, I want to take it back to the beginning a little bit. You guys were born in Syria. Did you always have a passion for music, for creativity? Tell me about that.
Morris Faks: I’ve always liked the show business. It was always in me. I loved the show business, the production, the stage, DJs, lighting. That was always my passion and Simon loved music.
Victor M. Braca: And so when did you guys come to America?
Morris Faks: 1992, August.
Victor M. Braca: You were how old?
Morris Faks: I was think about 16.
Simon Faks: 16 and 17.
Victor M. Braca: 16 and 17. You guys are one year apart.
Simon Faks: Yes.
Victor M. Braca: That’s pretty young. It’s a formative time to not just change countries and geographical locations but change your whole life. How did your life change when you guys moved to America?
Morris Faks: Well, remember we didn’t come as just one family; we came as 4,500 people. So, it’s a little bit different when you come with this amount of people. You still see the same people you saw in Syria, just in a different country, different state. You know, you’re learning together. They put us all in school. I went to Shaare with 40 of my friends. They put us in a separate class, then they picked the ones that spoke better English. I was one of them. They put me with the American students for a year and then I left.
Victor M. Braca: And you think that—did that put you ahead in terms of the education?
Morris Faks: No, because four years later I realized that I was working in a jewelry store, I couldn’t read and write and I didn’t want to live like that. I went to Kingsborough telling them I want to go to college and they said, “Okay, let’s do some testing.” No, I’m sorry—I went to Kingsborough and I said I want to get my GED so I can go to college. I wanted to do tech—air conditioning and stuff. I love technology. When they tested me, they said you can’t even get [in], you need to take pre-GED. I did pre-GED and then I did GED. Then I stopped. We opened up a jewelry store.
Victor M. Braca: And Simon, what about you? Graduating high school for you—did you go into business early on? You guys opened up a jewelry store. Was that your first working experience?
Simon Faks: We opened up jewelry right away, like a year or two years after we came here.
Victor M. Braca: Oh wow. So you guys instantly saw opportunity in the new land and you opened up a business just like that. You always knew that you wanted to run your own business, to work for yourselves.
Simon Faks: Yeah. We worked for someone here earlier then we just wanted to do our own business.
Morris Faks: I started working two days after we came to America. Two days later I was in a jewelry store on 42nd Street. Listen, you got to make money. You can’t come here without a plan.
Victor M. Braca: Started getting into DJing for you guys—was it always DJing or was it like, we never thought about it like that?
Morris Faks: It was for my birthday party, I think when I was 19, I believe. We decided I’d do a party in my house. I called up a few DJs. They were $800 each one. I thought it was expensive. And next door to the jewelry store, they sold DJ equipment. I priced the DJ equipment and it was almost $1,200 maybe. So, I called him up. I said, “Let’s put 600 each,” and we bought the equipment. Then I hired someone that day for $100 to play at my birthday party.
Victor M. Braca: You found someone to play for $100?
Morris Faks: $100. And so, we bought the equipment.
Victor M. Braca: Did you guys know how to use the equipment?
Morris Faks: We learned. We put the equipment after my party in the basement and we started playing with it every night. We had one turntable and one tape deck. We didn’t have two turntables. So we mixed with one record and a tape.
Victor M. Braca: That just means that basically you can’t play two songs at once if you don’t have [two] turntables.
Morris Faks: You could, but you really couldn’t mix because you can’t move the speed of the songs. You can’t speed up a tape; you can’t speed up the tempo. Record you could. Until we bought another turntable.
Victor M. Braca: Now we have all the digital equipment, right? Back then it was nothing like that.
Simon Faks: It was different. We used to go to a party with one car for only records and one car for equipment.
Victor M. Braca: Really? One car full of records for music and then one car had the speakers and the turntables. This was before you clicked download, way before CDs came out.
Morris Faks: This was only turntables and records.
Victor M. Braca: And why did you guys put in that monetary investment? Did you want to make it into a business?
Simon Faks: No, we bought it for fun in the beginning and then we started throwing parties, renting spots and throwing parties there until we started doing all the bar mitzvahs and all these other parties. Slowly, slowly we ended up doing weddings.
Victor M. Braca: When did the Faks brothers open up shop for real as the DJs in the community?
Morris Faks: It’s hard to answer that question this way because we started in ’93. By ’95—remember the 4,500 people that came also didn’t know better. So now they’re having parties. One has a bar mitzvah; they’re not calling a guy that’s going to charge $2,000. So they hear that these two guys are playing music, they can do a party. They would call and say, “Hey, I have a singer coming, but I would like you to play for $200 for the first half hour.” The parties were really for $200 a night.
Victor M. Braca: $200?
Morris Faks: Yes. So, we would play for $200, do a bar mitzvah here, a bar mitzvah there. Then they started to call us for weddings because they had a band. So we learned as they—like, us and our clientele learned together until we became good at it. Then it started to go to… the newcomers had friends that were Magen David, right? And those friends from Magen David were getting married or the newcomers were getting married and they would invite their American friends. So they would come and they would see us. We brought in a new flavor to the music there. People didn’t play other languages in weddings; we came in and played Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew. We brought a whole new flavor. Then we started to become more and more popular where jewelry and DJing was not going to work at the same time.
Victor M. Braca: So you were doing both until—but DJing was on the side?
Morris Faks: Right. It was mainly jewelry. Technically, daytime was jewelry and nighttime was music.
Victor M. Braca: Yes.
Morris Faks: We would call the DJ days 20-hour days.
Victor M. Braca: Wow.
Morris Faks: We would call the DJing back then our side business.
Victor M. Braca: At what point did you guys say the DJing was enough to make it your main business?
Morris Faks: I think we didn’t have a choice in 2001. After September 11, the jewelry started to go a little bit down and we didn’t know if it was because we didn’t have enough time for it or [something else]. So, we had to let one go. We decided we’d rather let go [of jewelry] because, you know, we worked in jewelry, worked on Shabbat, worked on holidays. Little by little we left our two young brothers in the jewelry store until we started to close them down and we opened up a “wedding center” on Coney Island.
Victor M. Braca: What’s a wedding center?
Morris Faks: We had our office. We had a tuxedo store. Every guy and all the bridal party would come and get tuxedos from us.
Victor M. Braca: It was a one-stop shop.
Morris Faks: Invitation, limousine. I think at one point we thought we were going to do wedding gowns or we did a little bit with someone, but it didn’t [stick]. So that went on for about four years. We wanted a big wedding operation where if you had a guy come, let him come and shop for everything.
Victor M. Braca: And you wanted to be involved in the happiness of the occasions.
Morris Faks: Yes. We liked it. Lighting started to become more known at the weddings. It used to be very selective people that would do lighting. A wedding having lighting was very rare.
Victor M. Braca: Hard to believe nowadays.
Morris Faks: We saw that there was going to be business in it. One day I told them I’m going to go to China to buy the equipment. I called a friend who’s a travel agent. I said, “Book me a plane.” She booked me a plane. I went with no agent, nothing. Layover four hours in Korea, then to Hong Kong, then to Guangzhou. It took me about 28 hours to get there.
Victor M. Braca: Was that the point when you guys said you’re going all in on DJing? Because you guys are not the one-stop shop for weddings anymore.
Morris Faks: No. At that point, we were about to close that one-stop shop and go full production. We wanted to be in the production business strictly—DJ, sound, lighting.
Victor M. Braca: And so, you’re expanding into lighting, which was a new thing at the time. Did you have to convince people why they had to have lights at their wedding?
Morris Faks: In the beginning, yes, you had to educate them. I mean the young generation was seeing the difference between a wedding that had the right lighting and it looked “wow” where other weddings didn’t. But then you have to explain why it is so expensive.
Victor M. Braca: Were there other producers in the community that you guys had to set yourself apart from?
Morris Faks: At the time, I think it was a few. But they were all designed for a certain crowd. It wasn’t like today. There was a DJ that was just for the Israeli community. You could tell them Simon and Morris are the best, they’d say, “No, we have our guy.” There was a guy for the Russian community. There were two brothers for the Persian community and then there were three or four Syrian DJs. Ali Esses, may he rest in peace, was one who had his crowd that loved him. He had his unique style. And then Eric Segura came in the picture. It wasn’t a competition like today. People chose the DJ based on who they believed was the right fit. It wasn’t about money or competitors back then.
Victor M. Braca: How old were you guys when you went into DJing and production full-time?
Morris Faks: I was 27, 28.
Simon Faks: I was 25, 26.
Victor M. Braca: And you guys were married with kids at that point?
Morris Faks: I had just got married. A year after I got married, I said, “That’s it. I can’t do the retail.”
Victor M. Braca: How do you make a career jump when you just got married? It’s risky.
Morris Faks: It was, but it was better than back then. We used to have a lot of parties every week, so we had the clientele.
Simon Faks: Yeah, at that time we were already doing six, seven jobs between the two of us per week.
Victor M. Braca: Oh wow. You’re not charging $200 per night anymore?
Morris Faks: No. I think timewise we were busier then than now because we were a lot cheaper. We were willing to do it seven nights a week. I would come into Shaare Zion on Saturday night for a bar mitzvah and leave on Monday night after a wedding. I’m not kidding. I would do a Saturday night bar mitzvah. Then there would be a Sunday morning bar mitzvah; I’d stay there. We would play cards until they turned over the room. Do the bar mitzvah. There’d be a bridal shower from 12:00 to 4:00. Play the bridal shower and then set up for the wedding. Play the wedding. Monday, because they set for Torah, another bar mitzvah and then a wedding Monday night.
Victor M. Braca: Wow. 72 hours.
Morris Faks: It used to be 72 hours. We were busier hour-wise then. There was no going to Israel for bar mitzvahs then, so every bar mitzvah we did here. People hired DJs for bridal showers. We did almost every bridal shower, even milas—they used to hire us. Baby girl parties. There were no bat mitzvahs in this community at the time.
Victor M. Braca: You guys were doing six or seven nights a week, pulling 72-hour shifts.
Morris Faks: There were weeks where we would do a minimum of 72 hours straight. Sleep in the van, go from Brooklyn to the city, set up, come back. You got to start somewhere. We would turn over lighting after the wedding was over because they wanted a different look for the next day. So we would finish the party, then stay there and finish up. Imagine: all the stuff that’s set up in Shaare Zion now was not there. We had to bring it in every single day, take it out, bring it back in, reset it. Lighting was much more power-hungry then. You couldn’t plug that stuff into a regular outlet. You had to bring in a special device to run from the kitchen, different power to a panel, then to the equipment. It was a much harder setup. But it was more fun.
Victor M. Braca: Do you guys have any other crazy stories to show the grind in the beginning?
Simon Faks: We worked almost every night except Friday night. And mornings. There were a lot of morning jobs then. You did three a week—all the bar mitzvahs. If you weren’t doing a night party, you were doing a morning seuda.
Victor M. Braca: How did you build up the premium brand image within the community? People walk into weddings hoping you guys are DJing. What else sets you guys apart?
Morris Faks: We treat every job as if it’s our first job ever. We don’t take the business for granted like, “Oh, I’m already established, I don’t have to prove myself.” We take every single job very, very seriously. Each one of us, until today, the night we perform, we dedicate three hours of music setup for that night. It doesn’t matter if we’ve played for the bride’s seven sisters already; we still prepare. We still come to the job during the day, oversee the sound, test the sound, test the light. We make sure everything is perfect in a live production.
Victor M. Braca: There are so many moving parts; is there ever a time where something went wrong last minute?
Morris Faks: One time he was fixing something in an electric panel box and it blew up almost in my face. The show must go on. I blew the power to a whole building once. This was maybe 1990-something. We were tying into a building—taking power before it gets to the panel so you have all the juice. I had just received a power panel from a company in LA. With all the movement in shipping, a wire was loose in there. I’m plugging in one at a time. Once I got to the last one, boom, it blew.
Victor M. Braca: And you guys had backups?
Morris Faks: We had to go down to the building, reset it, open the box to see which wire was loose, fix it, and go back. The show must go on.
Victor M. Braca: What’s a DJ’s worst nightmare?
Simon Faks: Equipment failure in the middle of the job. And that’s happened.
Morris Faks: I once had a Red Bull I was drinking at the beginning of a wedding and I kicked it by mistake. It fell over the CD players and it shut them down. So now I had to mix the whole night with one CD player. People had no idea really that this happened.
Victor M. Braca: It must be good if they had no idea.
Morris Faks: It was my worst night of DJing. I was calling my workers, nobody answered. I was mixing from one CD player, so I had to do a loop on one song and then go into the next.
Victor M. Braca: For non-technical people, that basically means that when DJs mix two songs, they’ll usually play both at once for a time. But you couldn’t do that?
Morris Faks: I only had 10 seconds to mix to the next song. I had to find the next song and mix it. If you leave the loop for too long, people realize something is wrong—you’re hearing the same beat. I had 10 to 15 seconds to move. Look, you’re dealing with electronic things; you got to protect yourself.
When we used to use a computer to perform, my hard drive fell on me. It was one of the best weddings, most successful. Five minutes before the last dance, the hard drive fell. I couldn’t play the last dance. I got so nervous I ended up in the hospital that night.
Victor M. Braca: What happened?
Morris Faks: I had a panic attack. I guess I had a cavity from being so nervous that it triggered the nerve. I went home, couldn’t sleep. They called Hatzalah for me and said I had a root canal that was triggered because of how nervous I was.
Victor M. Braca: What happened to the music?
Morris Faks: It was the end of the night. It was just me being upset that I couldn’t play that last dance for them. The hard drive fell—you can’t do anything about that. I think someone kicked the power cable. Back then, the hard drive was big because there wasn’t enough computer space to hold all the music. So you walked around with an external hard drive that needed its own power and USB. Someone kicked the power, the hard drive shut off, and the music stopped. There are many stories like that.
Victor M. Braca: Now you guys have multiple backups and you know what you’re doing.
Morris Faks: There’s no perfect backup. Don’t let anyone fool you. We’ve been on the biggest shows with the most expensive setups. We had one of the biggest artists of a lifetime—I won’t say names—and the soundboard just fried. Nothing.
Victor M. Braca: That’s a big responsibility. You mentioned working with celebrities—Justin Bieber, Axwell & Ingrosso, Marshmello, Alesso. Did you guys ever envision your side hustle turning into something this big?
Morris Faks: We learned that through the years. We never wanted to be like those big DJs ourselves; we didn’t want to be on the big stages like that.
Victor M. Braca: Why is that?
Morris Faks: Because we’re like this—it’s not a married man’s life. That lifestyle doesn’t fit the community. It turns you into a celebrity. I was pushing to get there, but I’m not interested in traveling for audiences of 10,000 now.
Victor M. Braca: It seems like you guys are happy where you are. You’re up until late hours of the night.
Morris Faks: I did a wedding in Jersey once, got on a plane, went to China for one and a half days, came back, did a wedding in Shaare Zion, never went home, went back on a plane to Panama, did a wedding there, and then came home.
Victor M. Braca: What does the work-life balance look like? You don’t spend many nights at home. How do you make time for your families?
Morris Faks: About eight or nine years ago, I changed. Before that, I used to just set up and stay. Now, I go home for every party, no matter what. I’ll go home at 4:00, wait for the kids, have dinner with them, then get dressed and go to my party.
Victor M. Braca: So you don’t set up anymore?
Morris Faks: I do, but I bring everybody early. I’m done by 2:00 or 3:00. I leave someone there to watch what’s going on. I go home, eat with the kids, see them, change at 5:00 or 6:00, and then go to my party.
Victor M. Braca: And what does your schedule look like? You get home at 1:00 a.m.?
Morris Faks: Yeah, 12:00 or 1:00. Weddings don’t go as late as they used to.
Simon Faks: Sleep at 2:00. I’m up at 7:00.
Morris Faks: He’s up at 10:00. I sleep later than him. I’m used to it.
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You guys have done production in some of the coolest places: Anguilla, Cabo, South of France, Paris, Bahamas, Panama, Marrakech, Casablanca, Rome, Sardinia, Israel, St. Barts, Saint-Tropez, Cannes. What are some of the coolest events you’ve done?
Morris Faks: One that stands out is Anguilla. It’s an island that has nothing to offer for production. Zero. Usually when we do destinations, we rent equipment locally. In Anguilla, we had to ship in two 40-foot high-cube containers of equipment—sound, electric, lighting, everything. It was six months worth of work. It was very hard but very challenging and fun. Coming back and knowing you produced a job in the Caribbean with your own equipment was a very good feeling.
We did Morocco in an area where Game of Thrones was filmed. That was very cool. Watching the snow melting to become a lake in the summertime there. Every party has its unique fun. Puglia was out of control: 11 days in Italy, three parties a day. Non-stop. People went home on their plane limping, that’s how tired they were. I DJed on the plane going from Sardinia to Israel.
Morris Faks: You know what it was to play with Alesso in Masada on a massive stage? Sick experience.
Victor M. Braca: They build a stage on the mountain?
Morris Faks: They build a stage, kitchens, bathrooms, staging, food. It was a sick setup.
Victor M. Braca: Did you guys perform alongside Marshmello?
Morris Faks: It depends on the DJ’s personality. Marshmello was very easygoing. He came on while I was still playing, shook my hand, watched me mix in a few songs, and then took over.
Victor M. Braca: Did you see his face?
Morris Faks: No.
Victor M. Braca: You don’t know what he looks like?
Morris Faks: No, honestly I don’t.
Victor M. Braca: What do you do about requests?
Morris Faks: We don’t take requests.
Victor M. Braca: You don’t take requests?
Morris Faks: I say, “Yes, yes, yes,” and then it’s “No, no, no.” Listen, if they request a song that fits with what I’m going to play 40 minutes later, I’ll do it. But if you’re playing house music and someone asks for a Spanish song, it doesn’t match. I shouldn’t change the whole wedding around just for that. So we say, “No problem, come back later.” It looks bad when people come up with their phones like, “Play this now.” I don’t have to do this now. If you listen to everyone, you’ll just be Z100; you won’t have a set.
Victor M. Braca: What do you say to young adults who are worried about turning their passion into a business?
Morris Faks: It’s a hard business. I don’t recommend it for everyone. You work at night every night. Music is a lot of fun, but it’s a very, very hard life. We see it now as we’re getting older. You’re planning what are you going to do for Memorial Weekend? We can’t. barbecue for 4th of July? We can’t. New Year’s? We can’t. My cousin is going for a bar mitzvah to Israel soon; we can’t go because we’re busy. You can’t plan ahead. Someone calls you now for July 2026, and you see the date is available, you book it. Six months later, a cousin says, “I’m getting married in Mexico,” and you can’t show up. We’re missing my nephew’s bar mitzvah in November because we’re booked.
Victor M. Braca: What does scaling back look like?
Morris Faks: We did a lot of scaling back. When my oldest son was born, I had to leave the hospital to go do a wedding. My wife was in the hospital. I couldn’t tell the people no. My grandmother passed away and the same day I had to go put on a suit and do a wedding. It’s not all just fun.
I missed his engagement party! We booked the party…
Simon Faks: I don’t think he had [a choice].
Victor M. Braca: Wait, you missed your brother’s engagement party?
Morris Faks: I couldn’t go; I was booked. My first son was born on a Sunday. The bris was the following Sunday. Back then—this is 2004—we were not usually that booked in the morning. We were double-booked. Both of us. So I had to make my son’s bris in the afternoon because we had two jobs in the morning. Fast forward 30 days to the Pidyon HaBen—we’re double-booked again for the night. So I did my son’s Pidyon in the morning and the party at night. You have to do what you have to do. The timing is tough. You learn to live with it.
Victor M. Braca: And it’s not like you could send somebody to replace you.
Morris Faks: No. People request Morris or Simon specifically. You don’t want to tell somebody, “I’m sending someone else to cover.” This is their dream day. You can’t plan vacations. This year, I left my family in Aruba because I took a job at the end of the trip. I don’t want to lose a client. Last year I delayed my vacation because I took a job here. Even for the holidays, I went to Los Cabos to do parties while my family was in Cancun. I had to fly to Cancun after the last party. It’s a big commitment. It’s a beautiful job, it’s fun, and there’s no better feeling than when that bride comes to you the next morning and says, “Thank you so much.” But it’s hard.
Victor M. Braca: Did you guys ever consider bringing on more DJs and training them in your style?
Simon Faks: We tried it but it didn’t work. The clientele would call us and say they weren’t happy. So we said it’s not even worth it to bother. My son is part of us now; I give him all my remixes. But we don’t really want to give our music to anyone else.
Victor M. Braca: Did you ever consider producing your own music?
Morris Faks: We never had the time. Producing usually leads to those big stages, and we don’t really want to do that. We’re family guys; we want to stay here. Leaving the house for 10 days at a time becomes too much.
Victor M. Braca: Did you guys have to learn the business end—billing, making sure you’re profitable?
Morris Faks: It has to do with your background—how you grow up in the family and learn from your uncles, your dad, your grandparents. We were never money-motivated. Money was not the one moving us. It was just: “This is the job, let’s get it done the best way.”
Victor M. Braca: Do you think that’s what set you guys apart?
Morris Faks: Yeah. A lot of people in the wedding industry lasted a very short time because they were very money-hungry. In 30 years, we never once told someone they owe us overtime. If we’re booked for an event and we get a better-paying offer, I won’t turn down the first job because you made a commitment. We don’t even use contracts for 70% of the jobs. We just make a deal on the price, and that’s it. We finish the job and two days later the client calls and asks when I want to come get paid. We know we’re going to deliver. Only someone who’s afraid they won’t deliver would say, “I need to get paid right now.”
Victor M. Braca: What are the top business principles that have stuck with you?
Morris Faks: You have to have a nice attitude. You’re in a service business. People are trusting you with the most important day of their life. The father worked all his life to make his daughter this beautiful wedding and he’s putting it in your hands. Why should he pick you if you’re not a stand-up guy with the right attitude? Everybody always told us, “It’s been hell planning until we get to your office.” You have to make it fun. It’s not just a business. You have to be honest and you have to be nice. You can’t be a “pig,” like they say. You can put any price on a service, but if you promise, you have to deliver.
Victor M. Braca: Should people follow their passion?
Morris Faks: Yes. There’s nothing better than going into a business you love 100%. Obviously within reason. I hated the jewelry business. I went there every day miserable. I hated working on holidays until 10:00 at night standing behind the showcase. When we decided to go full force with the DJ business, it was like waking up at 6:00 a.m. excited to pick up the phone and call party planners.
Simon Faks: I’m on my laptop making remixes all day long—on the plane, in the car. That’s my passion.
Morris Faks: I sit till 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning every day researching what new equipment came out. He handles one part and I handle the other. I handle production, employees, cars, warehousing, equipment, and relationships with venues. We’re preferred vendors at a lot of New York City hotels because of the relationships we built with GMs, planners, and florists. We never tried to undercut people or steal jobs.
Victor M. Braca: What’s it like working as brothers?
Simon Faks: You have to know your place. You do what you’re capable of. He knows how to do the lighting; I don’t even know how to open that stuff up. I make remixes and he doesn’t like that part. That’s why we’re a good team; we complement each other.
Morris Faks: I try to sit home and make a song and I give up after half an hour; I don’t have patience for it. But I can sit for hours programming lights. On a flight to Cabo, I was able to program 10 days of shows on a flash drive.
Simon Faks: I can mix a song, but I don’t have the patience to sit in a studio and remake one. He comes to me every month with new remixes and I play them. I go to him and tell him about a new light or mixer we’re using. Everybody does what they’re good at.
Victor M. Braca: I’ve heard that if someone is struggling financially, you guys will help them out with your pricing. Why?
Morris Faks: You don’t know the feeling of a bride when she realizes you’re there for free. The way she blesses you at the end of the night—it’s better than any big job where you got paid $150,000. That feeling is a different touch. It feels right.
Simon Faks: If it’s a busy day, of course we can’t always do that. But if there’s a bride who really needs help and her family cannot afford it, we do it. It’s a blessing. You always want to be the one giving, not taking.
Victor M. Braca: What was your Momentum Moment—the turning point for you?
Simon Faks: When we got busier with parties every week. We started having five parties a week, so we knew we could be successful.
Morris Faks: The other business wasn’t doing well at that time, so we shut it down and went full-time with this. We made the wedding center on Coney Island so the bride and groom could come for everything. We lasted there five years until it became too much to handle along with the nightlife business, so we scaled down to an office on Avenue T for just production and music.
Victor M. Braca: Simon and Morris, thank you guys for coming. It was very interesting to hear what’s behind the curtain. You guys have performed for thousands of people with the top names in music, yet you’re family guys rooted in community. I personally found it very interesting to hear about the grind—missing family events is something no one else could relate to.
Morris Faks: My son was born and I had to leave the hospital to go do a wedding!
Victor M. Braca: Crazy. I hope we were able to show people there are no shortcuts. You got to climb the ladder step by step.
Morris Faks: We’ve had a lot of opportunities that were too big for us to handle, and we didn’t take them. You have to know what you can do. If you can’t do it, don’t take it. I’ve walked away from jobs and people respect me for it now. They know the Faks are not money-hungry guys jumping to make an extra buck. If I can handle it, I want it. But if I can’t, I’m not going to take it and fail.
Victor M. Braca: Great mindset. Thank you guys so much.
Morris Faks: Thank you for having us.
Victor M. Braca: Thank you so much for listening until the end. Here are my top three takeaways.
First, treat every job like it’s your first. Simon echoed this many times. After decades in the business, they still show up to every gig early and spend hours prepping. That level of commitment separates good from great.
Second, success doesn’t come from chasing money. The Faks brothers made it clear: if money is your primary motivator, you’ll burn out. They built a business by focusing on quality and honesty.
And finally, your values matter more than your value. They’ve DJed entire weddings for free just to help a bride in need. That’s success—integrity.
If you enjoyed this episode, I think you’ll love my conversation with Yaakov Shwekey. He opened up about turning his passion for music into a career while staying grounded in family and faith. Search “Momentum Yaakov Shwekey” on any platform. Please rate the show five stars and share with a friend. Until next time.
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