In 1982, the 23-year-old Madonna was living in New York and trying to set up her music career. She was joined by her boyfriend from Detroit, Steve Bray, who became the drummer of her band, The Breakfast Club, which generally played hard-rock music. After that, however, they abandoned playing songs in the hard-rock genre and got signed by a music management company called Gotham Records with the plan of pursuing a new musical direction. They decided to pursue the funk genre but the record company was not happy with their musical abilities, hence they were dropped, and Madonna and Bray left the band. Meanwhile, Madonna had written and developed some songs on her own. She carried rough tapes of three of the songs, namely "Everybody", "Ain't No Big Deal" and "Burning Up". At that time, she frequented the Danceteria nightclub in New York. It was there that Madonna convinced the DJ Mark Kamins to play "Everybody" for the crowd, and the song received a positive reaction. Kamins offered to get her a record deal with the understanding that he would produce the single. Kamins presented Madonna to his boss, Chris Blackwell who was the owner of Island Records, but Blackwell rejected her. Madonna finally went to Sire Records in 1982. Michael Rosenblatt, who worked at the artists and repertoire department of Sire, commented that,