Shane McCormick
Audio By Carbonatix
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Eric Estornel, AKA Maceo Plex, is a class of ’97 Lewisville High School alum, but doesn’t exactly ooze Fighting Farmer pride because his time there kinda sucked. At 5-foot-nothing, 100-nothing — Estornel was of no use to the football team. In JNCO jeans and over-the-ear headphones, he stuck out like a sore thumb from a crowd of Wranglers and boots. Little did they know the small guy in big pants would become a bona fide DJ global superstar headlining one of Dallas’ biggest dance clubs later this month.
Estornel, who relocated to Barcelona more than 15 years ago to pursue his passion, is in the trenches of a busy summer full of international headlining gigs, many of which capitalized on the partying season brought by the World Cup. It’s an especially exciting, victorious summer for DJs living in Spain.
“I moved to Spain in 2009, and Spain won the World Cup in 2010,” he says. “There were old ladies with walkers partying in the streets for two days straight. The whole country partied for days.”
The origin story
A European transplantation is a glamorous feat for any Texas DJ, but the path wasn’t direct.
The journey that started with his first set of turntables and led to Spain spans 15 years of hyperfocused commitment to electronic music. It begins with a childhood in Miami, where Estornel was introduced to electro and breakbeats. After moving to the Dallas suburbs at 13, he found a new world of techno and house music. As soon as he could, he worked at record stores to support his vinyl addiction, even performing shop chores for bargain deals on shiny new vinyls from the owner of the legendary one-man show, Bill’s Records. Local radio shows, DJs and the Dallas underground scene molded the burgeoning artist.
“Jeff K changed my life,” Estornel says. “He and Red Eye, and later DJ Merritt — the EdgeClub every Saturday night on 94.5 The Edge was appointment listening for me, and I recorded every EdgeClub show from ’93 up to around 2000.”
After high school, he enrolled at the University of North Texas, took a job with UPS, and lived at home with his parents to save money and invest in his studio. He was never a raver, though, as he went to shows to actually study the DJ. Two years as a commuter student in Denton was enough, and a few years later he was getting booked in Europe often enough to make the move overseas.
Estornel has more aliases than a felon on the run, predominantly operating as Maceo Plex, but moonlighting as Eric Entity and Maetrik, partly due to his wide array of musical interests. Early on, his lesser-known identities emerged; then Maceo Plex was born in ’09, followed by another electro moniker, Mariel Ito, in 2018. At one point, Estornel had the top-selling track on Beatport in three different genres under three different aliases.
“If you haven’t blown up, then reinvent yourself,” he says.
The rise
Maceo Plex is Estornel’s largest reinvention. The project exploded at gabber BPM speed and blindsided the dance music scene. He went from getting $500 for shows to $10,000, but it was a blood, sweat and tears marathon.
If there was a specific turning point Estornel can pinpoint, it’s the celebrated and appropriately named album, “Life Index,” released in 2011 on Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels label. That album helped Estornel join other Lazarus endorsees like Jaime Jones, Art Department and Seth Troxler, all elite company in the techno and house world.
Estornel is quick to thank so many in Dallas who inspired him — Kelly Reverb’s touring in Europe; local DJ Brett Johnson encouraged Estornel to move to the continent; and he remembers hometown hero Rob Vaughan as the greatest DJ he’d ever heard.
One of the things Estornel says he likes best about coming back to Dallas is feeling like a nobody. He’s just Eric here, until sometime around midnight on a Saturday when he’ll put on his Maceo Plex cape and rip the roof off Silo with his multi-genre arsenal of tracks. From the kid sweeping the record shop for deals to a summer loop of Greece, Ibiza, Italy, the South of France and back home, it took an incredible display of discipline, but it was Estornel’s chosen fate.
“I was ambitious at an early age; I was never interested in being the best DJ in Dallas,” he says. “I wanted to be one of the best in the world.”
Paradigm Shift, the local DJ-producer duo with Coy Wright and Trent Pawley, will open for Maceo Plex at SILO Dallas (1340 Manufacturing St.) on Friday, July 31. Tickets start at $23.
