August 26, 2004

S. San Jose DJ Rich Amooi is ‘wedded’ to his work

By Shari Kaplan
Editor

In the past two decades, Rich Amooi has attended more than 1,000 weddings. Far from going broke as a result, the longtime South San Jose resident always comes away from the splendid affairs with more money than he started with.

It seems impossible only until Amooi reveals the reason behind his amazing wedding track record: he provides the entertainment. And while he may answer to many things, his favorite is “Hey, Mr. DJ!” For Amooi, it’s not just an exclamation for his disc jockey services—it’s also the name of his business.

A 1980 graduate of Oak Grove High School, Amooi has gone from taking hundreds of requests each day as a radio DJ to answering hundreds of requests each year to serve as a wedding DJ. He also works as a DJ at occasional anniversaries, birthdays or corporate parties as well. However, like many people in the entertainment business, Amooi started small.

“In my junior and senior years of high school, I was listening to the radio 24/7. I had a radio in every room of the house, even in the backyard! I’ve always had a passion for music,” says Amooi, who enrolled in the Ron Baillie School of Broadcasting as soon as he graduated high school. “I was looking for options for after high school, and I wanted the fastest way to get into a radio career.”

At the South Bay school, which no longer exists, Amooi studied six hours a day, five days a week for approximately one year, at which time he graduated in the top five percent of his class. Following his 1981 graduation, the only employer willing to hire him was a small radio station in the Northern California town of Willows.

Between the summer heat wave and the lack of things to do—both on and off the airwaves—Amooi quit the Willows morning show after three months and became a DJ for a Top 40 radio station in Livermore. That position lasted several years, after which time he moved back to San Jose, where he’s been ever since, working for a string of local stations including KRVE, KWSS, KEZR, KFRC, Hot 97.7 and KARA.

Although Amooi began working at weddings long before he quit his on-air career, it wasn’t until the late-1990s, after he left KARA, that he began pursuing “Hey Mr. DJ” full-time. And he says he couldn’t be happier.

“Even in a down economy, people still get married. That’s the beauty of being in this industry. It’s as close as you can get to recession-proof,” notes Amooi, who lives at the border of Blossom Valley and Santa Teresa. “Another neat thing about my job is that it’s a very happy job. I get to help people celebrate one of the most important days of their life. That’s pretty cool!

“I absolutely love everything about weddings. I still get goose-bumps watching the bride and groom’s first dance. Or the father-daughter dance; that’s a misty-eyed moment too,” he adds. “And I love wedding movies; I’ve seen them all many times. In fact, I’m currently writing a wedding movie.”

No stranger to the film industry, Amooi has already written four screenplays and has acted in five independent flicks—three of which made it to the Cinequest Film Festival. He won’t reveal much about his wedding movie, aside from the fact that his script should be done by Christmas, it will have an ensemble cast and the plot is “a unique idea that hasn’t been done before.”

What he can reveal are some memorable moments he’s encountered at his weddings. One time, he recalls, he announced the bridal bouquet toss and encouraged all single women—regardless of age—to head to the dance floor. Among the 30 or so women eagerly awaiting the prize was the bride’s 100-year-old grandmother, who ended up catching the bouquet. “They all went crazy laughing. It turned into a standing ovation!” Amooi remembers.

Another time, he was DJ for the wedding of a couple both in their 60s who were each getting married for the first time. “They’d been in the Armed Forces and had traveled a lot and were just busy with life, so they had never gotten married,” he says of the happy couple, who looked to him for advice on how to plan the whole affair.

Amooi has something in common with that couple. Although at least two decades their junior, he too has never married. Although he obviously meets many intelligent, attractive and eligible women in the course of his work, he says he would never dream of hitting on anyone—it’s simply not professional, he says. But this wedding DJ hasn’t given up on marrying. Nor has he given up his sense of humor.

“After 1,000 weddings, I’m still single—always a groomsman, never a groom! All of my friends have been married for years and have lots of children. Where is my true love?” he asks. “I’m not sure. I guess the girls are just intimidated because they know I could probably plan a wedding better than they could!”

Along with planning and being a DJ at weddings, Amooi stays busy in other ways too. He offers free DJ service to anyone celebrating a 90th or 100th birthday on a Friday night; he also provides free Friday night service for non-profit organizations twice each month. He even provides free DJ services to any member of the U.S. military returning from Iraq and getting married on a Sunday. In his spare time, he volunteers for the Humane Society Silicon Valley and donates a portion of his monthly income to the Humane Society and the Second Harvest Food Bank.

For more information, contact Amooi at (408) 223-1400 or visit www.heymrdj.com on the Internet.