At Netflix HQ, a Pro DJ Turned Protest Emcee Pumps Up the Strike Jams

As hundreds of black-shirted SAG-AFTRA performers joined Writers Guild of America members outside Netflix’s headquarters for the first day of a historic Hollywood labor double strike, the first in more than six decades, actor and professional DJ Evan Shafran had the volume pumped along Van Ness Ave. He’d queued up his remix of Hall & Oates’ “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do),” its apropos chorus underscored by a clip he’d sampled from a breaking TV news report about the strike going into effect after the union couldn’t agree to a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. As he periodically upheld one of his amplifiers, like John Cusack in “Say Anything,” toward the streaming giant’s office across the street, marchers urge him on: “You’re killing it, dude.”

Shafran, 40, who has an underground following as EVeryman and has played sets from Coachella to Brooklyn Bowl, has turned himself into a dedicated strike DJ since the WGA work stoppage began in May, creating hours-long curated protest-specific sets. (The playlists are available below.)

He’s done the rounds at Universal, Warner Bros., CBS Radford and Paramount — where a studio official asked him to turn the volume down. (“I laughed at him.”) But his adopted home base is Netflix, where he likes to remix on-point pop songs like the Beatles’ “Revolution” and Marvin Gayes’ “What’s Going On” (looping the line “picket lines and picket signs”) with broadcast television segments explaining the high stakes and momentous nature of the work stoppage. “I like the sound of that specific style of TV reporter ‘voice,’ as opposed to radio,” he explains. “It has a certain quality to it, that enunciation, and you can also hear it more clearly over the lower sound frequencies of the beat.”

Shafran’s been out most days and is currently lugging his equipment — including a Fender Passport Venue Series 2 Portable Powered PA System — via Uber because his car was stolen last week. He feels the music, both making it and playing it, is necessary, both for the other marchers (keeping them engaged through the doldrums of long shifts), and for himself. “Artists gotta art,” he says. “If we don’t, we’ll go crazy.”

Shafran, who’s from the East Coast and has been pursuing his career in Los Angeles for 15 years, has secured bit parts of late on shows like Perry Mason (as a dock worker), Barry (a prisoner) and Shrinking (an AA attendee). Next up he’s a booking officer in Barbie — that’s him fingerprinting Margot Robbie in the trailer — and has also shot small roles in other forthcoming features, including as Eddie Murphy’s neighbor in the holiday comedy Candy Cane Lane and a businessman in the Chris Pine-led mystery Poolman.

As for the SAG strike, “I can’t believe it’s come to this, and I’m particularly appalled and disgusted by the last two weeks, how [the AMPTP] intentionally wasted our time [with the contract negotiation extension]. It’s sick and sadistic. They’re trying to run our union into the ground.”

Shafran hopes his contribution can help encourage resolve on the picket line. “No amount of money on the other side can beat our own positive energy, our own solidarity,” he insists. “When we’re out here, our networking gets better. You know Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? That’s a real thing, created over time, and it’s growing stronger, like a mesh shield.”