PR.com (Allison Kugel): What has sudden fame taught you about human nature?

DJ Pauly D (Paul DelVecchio): Everybody thinks that it completely changes you. I don’t think it does. I think it changes everybody around you. Before, nobody knew me. Now everybody knows me, but I’m still the same person I was when I was just deejaying around [locally]. Now I’m deejaying all over the world. So I think it changes the people around you more than it changes you.

PR.com: You see changes in your friends and family, and people you work with?

DJ Pauly D (Paul DelVecchio): I find it with everybody, basically. You find out who your real friends are, who’s going to stick by you, because you don’t see them as much anymore. The ones that are genuinely happy for you, those are your real friends. The ones who hate or are mad at you because you didn’t take them along… that’s how you know who your real friends are.

PR.com: Would you describe yourself as a struggling deejay before you got Jersey Shore?

DJ Pauly D (Paul DelVecchio): A struggling deejay? I was a local deejay. I was successful around, but it was just local. Everyone who’s a deejay always wants to break out of their state and become a famous deejay, but it’s very hard. I was constantly, constantly promoting [myself], but I love to do it, I enjoyed it.

PR.com: What was your game plan with Jersey Shore? And you’re from Providence, Rhode Island. Did the producers come to your town? How’d you hear about the audition for the show, and what was your game plan in auditioning?

DJ Pauly D (Paul DelVecchio): For Jersey Shore, it had nothing to do with me being a DJ at all. I got a message on MySpace one day where they said that they liked my look and they were doing a show, and for me to contact them back. I was real skeptical to contact them back, but I ended up giving them my phone number. The casting directors called me from LA and they said they wanted to send down a camera crew to Rhode Island to film a day in my life. I said ok, and they came to my house and filmed a day in my life. They filmed me at the gym, filmed me tanning and filmed me going to the club. Six months later they said I got on the show. I never really auditioned.

click to read interview with DJ Pauly D