Dee Jay Silver: The 11 Minutes That Changed Everything & His Son's Room Next to the Vegas Shooter

What happens when a DJ finishes one of the best sets of his life in Las Vegas and 11 minutes later finds himself in the middle of the most tragic mass shooting in American history with his one year old son in a hotel room next to the active shooter? This week on The AJ Buckley Show, AJ sits down with Dee Jay Silver (John Perdue), the DJ who played Route 91 Harvest Festival the night everything changed, whose story of survival, faith, and fatherhood will leave you shaken to your core.

This story that will break you. John walks AJ through Route 91 Harvest Festival, the perfect weekend in Vegas, his wife Jenna and one year old son Wake coming to town, and the moment he walked off stage after playing one of the best sets of his life. He shares the relief of sitting down, the sound he thought was fireworks, and the 11 minutes that changed everything when the shooting started. John opens up about grabbing Jenna and Brittany Aldean and running, hiding under the bus that got shot 15 times, and the text message that said shooter 32nd floor, the same floor where his son Wake was sleeping in a room connected to the active shooter.

John takes AJ through the chaos, the screaming, the helicopters and the ricochets off the ground. He shares the moment he told his wife the safest place was the hotel when he knew his son was five feet from the first window that was busted open, the evacuation of Mandalay Bay, and the terror of tearing through buses looking for his kid. John also opens up about the nanny who kept checking on Wake, the door that was left ajar, and the security guard who got shot responding to that door alarm and was dragged into her room.

John also shares the four days of questioning, the Homeland Security interrogation, the pictures of him walking down the hall with the shooter, holding the elevator door, at the House of Blues, at Katsuya, and the realization that the shooter had followed him for three days. He talks about the notepad by the bed with his entire family's names and his schedule, the tick from Benghazi who told him he'd drop to the ground for the rest of his life, and the breakfast in Montana where he finally met Officer William Matchick, the man who saved his son.

00:00 Intro: The 11 Minutes That Changed Everything

01:35 Meeting DJ Silver: Nashville Life & The Bass Pro Connection

08:44 Growing Up in Church: Preachers, Pews & Star Wars Toys

10:07 The Man Who Raised Four Kids That Weren't His

12:27 Music, Barry Manilow & The Guitar That Connect