Some college students spend their free time hanging out with friends, drinking beer or taking up permanent residence at Ellis Library. MU senior Evan Weiss has chosen a much different path — he DJs under the alias UberVice all around Columbia and even the world.

Weiss’ music career traces back to his middle school days. In eighth grade, he started playing drums and formed a band with two of his best friends. The trio had to break up before going to different colleges, but Weiss didn’t give up the dream.

“I still had all these songs, and obviously I couldn’t play them out because I didn’t have a band anymore,” Weiss says. “So I started thinking about DJing because that’s how you play electronic music out.”

Weiss bought some turntables his first semester of college and started performing at frat parties including parties for his own fraternity, Delta Sigma Phi.

With those parties, Weiss began to make a name for himself on campus.

“You meet sorority girls there, and sorority girls want DJs for their events, so it just kind of snowballed,” Weiss says.

Weiss also got involved with Mizzou Dance Marathon and now participates in it every year. He says it also helped him a lot with getting campus exposure.

Now, most of Weiss’ performances are held at clubs and venues like Tonic, Bengals and The Blue Note. Recently, he opened for a Daft Punk tribute band in Columbia and for Clinton Sparks at a Mardi Gras celebration in St. Louis.

“The quality of gigs are going up,” Weiss says.

For spring break this year, Weiss will be heading to Mexico for a college trip sponsored by Xtreme Trips. He’ll be performing at pool parties by day and clubs by night.

“Last year, I was in Panama City Beach and I played at Harpoon Harry’s,” Weiss says. “They liked me in Panama so much that they wanted to bring me to Puerto Vallarta.”

But just because you can’t swing a plane ticket to Mexico doesn’t mean you don’t have to miss out on Weiss’ music. On Feb. 25, Weiss will release his “Anonymous EP” with Kodiak Collective Records. It includes four songs and two remixes, and Weiss is even shooting a music video for one of the songs.

“I’ve been producing since I was 15, but now it’s to the point where I can actually make some money off of it,” he says. “Not a whole lot, but enough to get my name out there.”

This May, Weiss will be graduating with a major in strategic communications and a minor in psychology. Don’t count on seeing him work the typical 9-to-5 job any time soon, though.

“I wanna keep DJing full time, and the way it’s going I think I can,” he says. “But the way I see it, I have the best back-up plan — having a journalism degree from Mizzou. I have a lot of options and I’m just going to see what kind of opportunities come up before graduation.”

Although it’s hard to balance school with DJing, Weiss doesn’t think his schoolwork has suffered because of it. He says most of his gigs have been on the weekends, too.

“I get my homework done and then spend hours looking for new songs,” Weiss says. “It’s a nice way to relax.”

And just in case he isn’t busy enough, Weiss is also quite involved on campus. At Delta Sigma Phi, he has served as vice president and rush chair. Not to mention he’s also co-vice president of the Wine Club.

“We meet twice a semester, and we get hammered off of wine,” Weiss says. “You have to wear a blazer. Otherwise you’re not allowed in. We play pool, smoke cigars and drink wine.”

Any other interesting facts about this blazer-wearing DJ/journalism student?

“I have two little sisters,” Weiss says. “A dog, a mother, friends. I dunno.”