Hidden Gems: Meet Michael Shepard of Your Vibes Entertainment

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Shepard.

Hi Michael, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
It all started at the age of 15 with a boombox and CDs for my sister’s birthday in my parent’s garage.

That quickly turned into her friends’ parents calling me to DJ their kid’s parties and off I went. It was slow at first, doing about 1 party per month. About a year later, I had a gig almost every single weekend, ranging from birthday parties, weddings, church dances, anniversaries, and backyard BBQs. I soon realized that I was going to need some help, so my best friend at the time decided to join me on my adventure and we started the JAM DJ Company. His connections combined with my experience worked us into premier locations as the go-to DJ company for the majority of private schools, churches, and families in the middle TN area.

Every weekend, and often multiple times a weekend we would load up our gear in the back of my partner’s old Volkswagen and hit the road. Making more money than we knew what to do with as teenagers, we knew we were on to something. This continued throughout the rest of high school. After graduation, we went our separate ways and JAM DJ was no more. I continued to gig several times a month through college for fraternities, sororities, weddings, and anything that came my way. Until one night at a wild fraternity party, I stepped away from the decks for a few minutes and when I returned my lights had been busted and the speakers were maxed out and blown. That was the end of my gigs for several years.

I decided it would be best to focus on my studies and work towards getting a “real job”. About a year later, to my surprise, I found out I was about to have my first child at the age of 22. While me and his mother did not stay together, everything was starting on the right foot. After graduating from college, I settled into a comfortable sales position to support my newborn boy. While things were going pretty well, something just didn’t feel right. I decided to fix up my speakers and slowly start advertising again. As luck may have it weddings and other miscellaneous parties started to pick back up.

At the time I had moved back in with my parents for support. That lasted about 6 months when I decided to move out of Nashville and head to a small town about 40 miles west called Dickson. Before moving there, I was a “holiday Dicksonian”. Visiting my family for holidays and other gatherings but in 2013, I officially became a resident and settled in another sales job as a commercial insurance agent. Still DJing for about 15 weddings a year I was staying busy. Shortly after, I met my wife who I married in 2015, and had our first daughter in 2016. The entertainment company was just a side gig providing a little extra cash but around 2018 things took a turn in an unexpected direction.

There was a small little brewery on Main Street in Dickson that had just opened. I initially met them through the insurance channel and eventually picked them up as a client. In casual conversation, they were discussing opportunities that would drive more business their way. I told them about my side gig and after some conversation, we decided that Trivia would be a good option. There was only 1 other business in the entire county that was hosting a trivia night, so we gave it a shot. About a month in, the place was packed.

Every Thursday night, Furnace Brewing was the place to be. Every seat in the house was taken and people were having a blast. Things were going so well that we decided to add on karaoke. Again, another great success. As we continued, live music and booking bands worked their way into the mix. This lasted a couple of years until the original owners decided they wanted to go in another direction with their personal and professional careers and settled on selling the place.

When I heard the news, I was pretty shocked but knew things were going to work out. During all of this, I started a podcast called Your Vibes Podcast where I interviewed business owners, investors, elected officials, and other movers and shakers in Dickson County. One evening, I was contacted by someone who is now my best friend, Morgan Kincaid. She wanted to be on the podcast. When I received the message, I checked her out on Facebook and saw she was the GM of Skulls Rainbow Room on Printers Alley in Downtown Nashville. It was an immediate yes. After the interview, we stayed in constant contact.

When the brewery went up for sale, I immediately contacted Morgan. Fast forward a few weeks, she and her family decided to purchase and keep the vibe alive. Her dad, Dick, and Uncle Duke were living in Ohio at the time. They both decided to retire and move to Dickson to start this new venture. With Duke in the brewery and Dick running the back-of-house operations, Morgan was tasked with creating an environment of success. After several discussions with the new owners, they decided to keep me on as the director of entertainment which ushered in the birth of Your Vibes Entertainment in partnership with the rebranded establishment One19 Craft Kitchen and Brewery. The beer tap selection was expanded and a full food menu was developed.

Butts in the seats and booties on the dance floor was my new mission. While Trivia missed a couple of months, it came back stronger than ever, but we needed to continue to spice things up a bit. So, we decided that live music needed to be an every weekend occurrence. At the time, I had only booked the bands, and they ran their sound, because well, I only knew how to DJ, not run sound. With a little trial by fire, I had to figure it out. Eventually, we had artists kicking down the door to play at our establishment. I knew I was going to have to become more proficient with my gear and sound engineering capabilities if we were going to keep this momentum going. With some investment money from myself and my family, I did a complete overhaul of my entire sound and lighting system. Purchasing some of the best gear that money can buy.

After about a year, One19 had developed a strong reputation for great live music, beer, and food. Often referred to as Mothership, it became very evident that Dickson had a ton of musical talent that was looking for a place to express themselves and we wanted to be that place. Nashville eventually started to work its way onto our stage. This shed some light on the fact that there were so many artists who wanted to get off Broadway and play for a different type of crowd. A crowd that enjoyed fun covers, but more importantly supported ORIGINAL music. We pride ourselves on a place where these artists don’t have to beat the same drum of popular covers but can also test out some of their stuff. We now have had artists grace our stage from every state in the southeast and a few beyond.

Fast forward, YVE started to build its reputation as the go-to entertainment company in Dickson County. This soon developed into a full-blown entertainment and hospitality multi-operational consulting company servicing a wide range of clients. Currently, we book 200+ live music shows, run 12+ festivals, have 3 trivia locations running over 160 nights, a podcast, and have just partnered with one of the largest multi-op entertainment companies in the Southeast, Premier, The Entertainment Company, as one of their large corporate entertainers.

While weddings are what got me started and I still do for about 10 years, I am starting to find passion in live music. Music is the mystery of the universe. It just does something to you. I truly enjoy the feeling of giving the artists a place to show the masses who they are and what they can do. Reading the frequency bands on my iPad while running sound gives me the opportunity to dial in the vocals and instruments to bring out the best sounding experience possible.

All that said, I named my company Your Vibes Entertainment because it’s not about me. My job is to give YOU the vibe you’re looking for. That is something I have always been good at. Reading the energy of the room and focusing on what needs to happen to elevate the experience. My vibe is giving you YOUR VIBE, whatever that may be. We will do our best to provide you with something truly unforgettable.

So where is this all going? While I realize that nothing is ever truly finished, my overarching goal for this whole movement is to eventually have my own event space. Not just a building, but a fully immersive event and retreat venue. A large piece of land where people can step away from their current reality and get back in touch with who they are. A place where people can come and experience anything their heart desires. Live music, cabins, treehouses, hobbit homes, fishing, hiking, wellness retreats, team-building opportunities, and even a funny farm with all sorts of animals that make you smile.

I am so grateful for everyone up to this point who has trusted me and supported me in my mission. While I could go on for days listing all the artists I love and work with, I would hate to not include anyone on this list, but you know who you are. That said, I would like to specifically thank Morgan and her family at One19 for giving me the opportunity to use their space as a science lab, testing out all my crazy ideas to see if they would work out in the world!

Giving people a unique and entertaining experience has always been in my blood. I may be a little crazy, but it’s the crazy ones that change the world.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As with any business, the road is never smooth. Nor should it be, because it is only within the chaos that one learns. It is the struggles that help build a strong foundation.

My sole job with my clients is to keep butts in the seats and booties on the dance floor. My commercial clients must see a return on their investment in me to continue our relationship. My private clients expect to have memories that last a lifetime. I am laser-focused on providing an experience that no one else can give them. To provide them with a vibe that they may not have even known was possible.

With an attitude like that, I challenge myself to push the boundaries. Bend the rules until they almost break, and remain on the cutting edge of what is possible. I must also be fearless in my pursuit to keep things moving in a positive direction.

Anyone who has tasked themselves with a dream like this, knows that being on the front lines of innovation comes with great responsibility. From failed experiments, sound and equipment issues in real-time, tough conversations, and always trying to stay ahead of the curve, the obstacles are endless, but I welcome them.

I use them as a stepping stone to grow not just my business, but who I am as a person.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Your Vibes Entertainment?
I am in essence a professional partier. I have been doing it for almost 20 years. In those 20 years, I have seen and done it all. From small birthday parties to hosting gatherings for some of the most well-to-do families in the country as well as some of the largest corporations on the planet.

While I am proficient at setting the stage for a good time to be had, one of the things that seems to set me apart is my MC (emcee) capabilities. You can have all the best equipment and technical talent imaginable, but unless you have a good frontman, none of it is truly able to come to life. Being extremely comfortable and quick-witted behind a mic in front of both small and large groups (they both have similar challenges) I believe is one of the most challenging aspects of it all. People fear public speaking over death.

If someone could work a crowd, the world could be on fire behind the scenes, but the audience wouldn’t even notice. This comes into play when I am hosting Karaoke. It is no easy task, especially when I can’t sing. My job is to be your biggest fan. Sometimes I am the only one on the dance floor shouting and screaming for you. There is also a ton of encouragement to get people up there to sing. I recently did a large corporate gig in downtown Nashville for a 250-person karaoke. While it took a little time to get people lubed up, about a 30 minutes in, the stage was packed with people and the queue for singers was full. While I have a list of about 20 songs that fit my vocal range, I have found that songs that get the crowd to sing along are what get the party started.

My job is to create YOUR vibe. That’s it. With the network I have developed over the past 20 years, I am confident that I could provide you with pretty much any experience you could think of.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
A persistent pursuit of something that is uniquely meaningful to you! So long as you wake up every morning with a service mindset and a realization that this life is much bigger than just you, things tend to work in your favor.

Happiness isn’t always the ultimate goal. Money isn’t either. It is that feeling of knowing you are actively doing what you know you were put on this earth to do. Something meaningful to you. And within that pursuit, it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. It is the relationships you develop along the way and the number of lives you change for the better.

I asked myself, if money wasn’t an issue, what would I do for free, and well… I did that. While now, most of my gigs are paid, it sure didn’t start that way. And I still give back to the community with my time, talent, and treasures as much as I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yourvibesentertainment.com
• Instagram: @yourvibesentertainment
• Facebook: @yourvibesentertainment

Image Credits
Thayne Media & One19 Craft Kitchen and Brewery