Lucas Duplan drops debut single ‘Skipped 45’: Listen

“Skipped 45” begins with the records nobody wanted. Lucas Duplan, the Los Angeles-based DJ and music producer, has released his debut single, translating the spontaneity of his one-night-only edits into a track listeners can finally revisit. It is a fitting introduction to Lucas Duplan’s music and the producer-first thinking behind the Lucas Duplan DJ project.

Growing up in Echo Park, Duplan watched his father repair jukeboxes for dive bars along Sunset. His father regularly brought home the 45s customers skipped, leaving Duplan surrounded by songs that had repeatedly lost the jukebox vote.

Those unwanted records inspired the question that still drives his work: What makes listeners choose one track and reject another?

Electronic music gave him two ways to investigate. DJing allowed him to test audience response in real time, while production gave him the ability to alter the material according to what he learned. Duplan began producing at 16 with a cracked copy of Ableton, then played his first paid set at a backyard quinceañera where the power failed twice.

Every Lucas Duplan live set now contains at least one edit created specifically for that venue and night. Once the performance ends, Duplan says he deletes it: “Most DJs curate; I manufacture on-site.”

The practice gives his appearances an intentionally temporary quality. In a scene where IDs and exclusives can circulate almost instantly through recorded sets and social clips, a Lucas Duplan set asks the audience to experience something that will not be reproduced elsewhere.

That philosophy grew partly from failure. At a 2023 showcase, Duplan misread the room and cleared the dance floor within eight minutes. He responded by sending the promoter a post-mortem explaining what he had misjudged and requesting another chance. The resulting Tuesday residency became his laboratory for studying crowd response, eventually developing into a heavily waitlisted Silver Lake night.

“In this industry, the obstacle is never talent, it’s whether you can survive being bad in public once,” he says.

The Edit That Became the Single

The clearest route from functional editing to “Skipped 45” began at a wedding. When Duplan could not locate a couple’s vinyl-only song, he rebuilt it by ear from stems overnight and played his version at the reception. The groom cried, although Duplan did not learn about his reaction until the toast.

That edit ultimately became connected to “Skipped 45,” giving the debut a human origin beyond its jukebox inspiration. By preserving an idea that might otherwise have disappeared after one room and one night, Duplan is placing his crowd-tested production philosophy into recorded form.

From “Skipped 45” to Room Tone

The single also introduces Duplan’s next project, the debut Lucas Duplan EP, Room Tone. His longer-term plan is to develop the title into a series, with each installment produced live inside a different iconic Los Angeles space. The concept extends his belief that the physical room should influence the music created inside it.

A first summer festival appearance is also confirmed, although the event has not yet been announced. Listeners can stream “Skipped 45” now and follow Duplan ahead of Room Tone and his upcoming performances.

The records everyone skipped taught Duplan to obsess over what makes people listen. With “Skipped 45,” he gets to put that theory in front of the crowd himself.