Dawna Montell was interested in music right from the start; she loved the music she heard when they played ‘Musical Chairs’ as a child. As she grew up, she started spending all her allowance buying singles at the record store and by the time she was in high school, she was supplying the music for her high school’s basketball games. It was around this time that Dawna visited her first nightclub, Rumor Hazzit in Orange County, and she was hooked.
Dawna started hanging out in DJ booths in nightclubs, borrowing records and recording them at home. Finally, she asked one of the DJs…they were all men…if he would teach her how to DJ. He told her nope; it would be a waste of time since girls can’t hold a crowd. But eventually, DJ Chuck at Robbie’s in Pomona did show Dawna the ropes and took her under his wing for her first professional DJ job in 1980. But it didn’t last…they found out Dawna wasn’t yet 21 years old and wasn’t legal to even be in the club.
Once she turned 21 a year later, she got a second start at Que Sera Sera in Long Beach, where she played Wednesday nights in-between Melissa Ethridge sets. She also landed a gig at a record store… all while slowly making her way to West Hollywood, or WeHo, long considered the major leagues of DJing.
In 1986, Dawna began stepping into broadcast when she invited KROQ-FM host Swedish Egil to the store and after they hit it off, Egil asked Dawna to take over his mix show duties for the 'All Night Radio Rock' mix on the world-renown Southern California radio station.
This started Dawna on a path following Swedish Egil first to Los Angeles’ MARS-FM, then Groove Radio International and finally to 103.1 Groove Radio, where she spun the ‘Lunch Groove Mix’ show and the ‘Saturday Night House Groove show.’
Today, Dawna is established as a premier DJ across the globe, having played everywhere from The Bay Area and Southern California to Tel Aviv to Puerto Villarta. She is a 20-year resident DJ at The Abbey & The Chapel in West Hollywood as well as a resident DJ at Chill Bar Palm Springs.
And Dawna’s broadcasting career has come full circle; she’s is back on-air once more, as resident DJ at 100.9NRG.
