Dance Up-And-Comer of the Month Riordon Parlayed a Job in Influencer Marketing Into a Fast-Rising DJ Career
Categoria: Musica
This weekend, the producer releases a new track, premieres his Boiler Room set and plays gigs at DC10 in Ibiza and Reading Festival and Creamfields in his native U.K.
Por Billboard | 27/08/2026
Riordon knew he was on to something when he was first asked to play Coachella 2023. But the request didn’t come through an agent or manager, and the performance wasn’t actually at the festival. “I had this millionaire reach out to me on TikTok” Riordon says. “He was like, ‘Yo, I throw the craziest Coachella afters every year. I’ll fly you out if you want to come be the resident DJ for the weekend.” It was the U.K. producer’s first big gig. “I hadn’t even put out any like full sets at that point,” he recalls. “He just told me that he likes seeing young people grinding, and he could see I was trying to make something of myself, and he saw some potential.” For the then 19-year-old artist, the offer was a clear sign that the efforts he’d been making — producing and posting tracks, along with remixes, photos, videos and other assorted social content — were breaking through. While “you can imagine how my mum felt when I told her this random guy with an NFT as his profile picture was gonna fly me out to America,” says Riordon, he accepted the gig. Out in the SoCal desert, he spent the weekend playing for a crowd that included Wiz Khalifa and Logan Paul. Two years later, Riordon returned to Coachella as part of the actual lineup, playing the festival’s beloved Do Lab stage in April of 2025. This past April, he returned to play its Yuma Tent club space. This year he even secured one of the famous billboards located on the side of the interstate near the fest, with his jokingly proclaiming “Pronounced Riordon, Not Riordon.” (The proper pronunciation of his name rhymes with “Jordan.”) These shows are among the many highlights of Riordon’s current rise, which also includes getting signed to Darkroom Records, home to artists including Billie Eilish and John Summit , a series of highly streamed releases including a Beatport No. 1 and a Boiler Room set premiering tomorrow, Aug. 28, the same day as the release of his latest track “Friction,” a house/UKG collab with London producer Locky. Riordon’s Boiler Room set in London Sandra Nagel Riordon grew up on the South Coast of England, with performance always part of his life. As a kid he had roles in traveling productions of shows including Oliver! and planned to attend drama school with the goal of working in film and television. But when the pandemic hit and schools went virtual, his plans shifted too. Recalling a glorious party moment when he’d grabbed the aux cord, played MK’s 1993 track “Burning” and watched the room go crazy, he was interested in making dance music. As the world shut down during COVID, “I ended up going all-in,” he says. “With acting, it’s hard to sit at home during COVID and take career steps, whereas with music I could actually make something happen for myself just from being at home and ma