About DJ Ozone

From an eighth-grade house party to commercial radio, clubs, festivals, national travel and now DJ Ozone Radio, the story has always come back to the same thing: the music, the crowd, and the connection between them.

It started by accident

DJ Ozone’s story began in 1988, during his eighth-grade year. At a party thrown by friends, someone had pieced together a makeshift DJ setup using old home stereo systems and house speakers. There was no mixer—just two stereo consoles being switched back and forth.

Everyone wanted to dance, but nobody wanted to stay behind the table choosing the music. Orlando Guerra, the self-described wallflower at the party, took over.

The first record he put on was Prince’s When Doves Cry, a song he already loved playing at home. Without knowing anything about DJ technique, he instinctively began timing records so the energy never completely dropped between songs. It was not beatmatching yet, but the idea was already there: keep the floor moving.

By the end of the night, people were thanking him for “saving the party.” Before that night, he barely even knew what a DJ was.

Chicago radio changed everything

Friends and relatives from his old East Chicago Harbor neighborhood introduced him to Chicago’s weekend mix-show culture, including the WBMX Hot Mix Show. Hearing DJs blend records so seamlessly that one song seemed to disappear into the next became an obsession.

The name Ozone came from one of his favorite movies, Breakin’. Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quiñones played the character Ozone, whose name in the film was Orlando. Friends made the connection immediately, and the nickname stuck.

With help from his father and money he had earned babysitting his nieces and nephews, Orlando bought his first pair of turntables and a Numark mixer. At first, he had no plans to become a working DJ. He simply wanted to sit in his bedroom, experiment with music and sounds, and figure out how mixing worked.

Then someone offered him money to play a party.

The realization was immediate: he could actually get paid to do something he loved. He was a freshman in high school, and one paid party quickly led to another. By age 15, Ozone was already playing bars throughout Northwest Indiana.

A Chicago DJ style—not a genre box

Ozone’s foundation is Chicago, but not because he considers himself only a Chicago House DJ. House is part of the foundation; the real signature is the Chicago approach to DJing: quick mixes, hard-hitting transitions, relentless momentum, and taking the strongest moments from every record.

He absorbed the influence of mixmasters including Bad Boy Bill, Tim “Spinnin’” Schommer, Frankie “Hollywood” Rodriguez and Julian “Jumpin’” Perez. Jammin’ Juan Rios also played an important early role by recruiting Ozone into Sonic Sounds Productions and giving him some of his first opportunities to perform for larger crowds.

That quick-mix mentality became a calling card. Ozone still laughs about club managers asking him to ease up—not because the crowd was not responding, but because they needed people to sit down long enough to buy another drink.

Taking Chicago south

For years, Ozone admired the DJs he heard on Chicago radio and hoped one of them might eventually notice his work. The breakthrough never came the way he expected.

In 2013, Orlando moved to Huntsville, Alabama, for his career as a technical trainer. Once he settled into life in the South, the urge to play for crowds returned. Club gigs in Huntsville led to connections in Nashville, then to more venues, festivals and travel throughout the Southeast and eventually across the country.

The Chicago-influenced style traveled well. Recognition followed, including being unexpectedly voted one of the region’s top DJs after supporters submitted his name without him even knowing a ranking was taking place.

From the clubs to KISS FM

Ozone had already been reaching out to the program director at 106.5 KISS FM in Huntsville. The first answers were no, but the conversations continued. The station wanted to know that a club DJ accustomed to unrestricted records understood radio censorship, FCC requirements and the responsibility that came with being on the air.

At the same time, Ozone had developed a relationship with Bluegrass Hospitality Group and its Drake’s locations throughout the Southeast. When that relationship helped create an advertising opportunity for the station, the door finally opened.

106.5 KISS FM’s Rocket City Remix at 5 was born.

The kid who once sat in his bedroom trying to understand how radio DJs made records blend together was now doing it himself on commercial radio.

That period brought major clubs, flights, hotels, festivals, commercial work, appearances and opportunities connected to the I Love the ’90s Tour, including opening for ’90s artists in front of concert audiences.

Stepping away—and coming back differently

At the height of that run, the workload became relentless. Radio, clubs, travel, events, appearances and commercial commitments could turn weekends into 10-, 15- or even 20-hour workdays. Eventually, serious health challenges forced Orlando to step back.

After a major cardiac event near the end of 2025, he made his health the priority. As his health improved, the weight came down, his strength returned and his mobility improved. And somewhere in that process, he realized he had never stopped loving DJing. He had only lost the physical ability and energy to keep doing it.

The DJ Ozone returning now is not trying to recreate the most exhausting years of his career. He is older, wiser, more selective and more protective of the reason he fell in love with DJing in the first place.

The music. The crowd. The connection.

If money comes with it, that is a bonus. The real payoff is still the reaction from the people in front of him. He never wants DJing to feel like a job again.

The Seven Fs

These days, Orlando measures success differently. His priorities are grounded in what he calls his Seven Fs: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finance, Function, Future and Freedom. DJing still matters deeply, but it now has to fit into a life built around all seven rather than consuming it.

Away from the decks, Orlando is a father of two, a hard worker, a problem solver and someone who cares deeply about following through on what he says he will do. He is comfortable addressing large crowds, obsessive about details when his name is attached to something, and committed to doing right by the people around him.

The DJ Ozone sound

Trying to describe DJ Ozone by genre misses the point. His live open-format sets are built around the surprise factor. House, Freestyle, R&B, Latin, pop, rock, hip-hop, throwbacks, samples and musical fragments are all fair game if they serve the room.

The crowd is part of the mix. Their reactions tell him when to stay, when to pivot, when to throw the curveball and where to take the room next. His philosophy is simple: take the best part of everything and build the best possible vibe.

That is also why he does not try to recreate his live open-format sets in prerecorded studio mixes. Without a crowd reacting in real time, the equation changes. His studio mixes have their own identity: clean, polished, tightly constructed and relentlessly danceable—the kind of mixes listeners regularly tell him make great gym soundtracks.

Weddings and mixed-generation celebrations naturally play to his strengths. Nostalgia, guilty pleasures, sing-alongs, classics, new records and the occasional gloriously cheesy throwback give him exactly the kind of room where instinct and crowd-reading matter most.

DJ Ozone Radio

The newest chapter is DJ Ozone Radio, an open-format internet station rooted in Chicago music culture and built around the same refusal to stay inside genre walls.

The goal is not to turn it into another obsession. Ozone wants to build something respectable, sustainable and bigger than himself—something that can grow without consuming his life.

The long-term vision includes collaboration and mentorship. Ozone remembers being the young DJ hoping someone would hear him, guide him and open a door. Now he wants to be the person who opens that door for somebody else: helping like-minded DJs and personalities grow alongside the station and its audience.

Maybe, along the way, he proves something to himself too: what worked when he took a little bit of Chicago to the South can work anywhere.

Nearly four decades after an eighth-grade wallflower reluctantly took over the music at a house party, DJ Ozone is back behind the controls.

But this time, there is nothing accidental about it.

DJ Ozone Radio — Music Lives Here.