It’s a warm sunny day, at least in Jeremy Coyote’s dream. He’s sitting in his “big” house overlooking Las Vegas, sipping a cold iced tea with his family at his side as he tells them that he finally did it. That’s the dream, anyways.
“That’s what I look for in time so I can tell my family I succeeded at something,” he said. “I started it so young and now I’m just smiling heavy.”
Slowly, that dream is becoming more of a reality. At 20 years old, Jeremy Coyote is a professional magician doing shows around the country and in the U.S, constantly working towards that end goal.
Starting at just the age of six, Jeremy, then known as Jeremy Stevens, learned his first magic trick from his grandpa and he’s been hooked ever since.
“I was like ‘Ah, I like this feeling’,” he said. “It’s good. It’s like you’re the guy that makes people wonder or you’re like the wizard of your whole entire family.”
At 13 years old, he attended his first magic school at the Vanishing Rabbit Magic Shop in Calgary where he developed the skills necessary to do his own small shows across the valley as “The Amazing Jeremy” until he was 17 years old.
Wanting to learn more about his craft, he tried to return to the Calgary shop for more advanced lessons about magic. Instead, he was told his skills were beyond what that shop could offer. His next step was learning from some of the best in the magic capital of the world — Las Vegas.
After learning from world-renowned magicians such as Jeff McBride, Lance Burton Cris Angel and David Copperfield, Jeremy overhauled his entire career path. It started with a name change, from “The Amazing Jeremy” to today’s “Jeremy Coyote,” and was completed by reforming his performances and becoming a better overall street magician.
“To be honest with you, it’s hard. It is not easy,” he said. “Doing street magic in Vegas is one of the hardest things you can imagine doing. The aura and energy is so fast-paced.”
Now working as a full-time magician, Jeremy said he’s often confronted with the question of why exactly he chose to go into the entertainment industry with magic.
“It’s not about the money, it’s not about that, to be honest with you,” Jeremy said. “It’s about me doing something I love doing; it’s about the passion and making people wonder. It’s about me finding new stuff to make people wonder and take their breath away for just that one second. Once I finish that trick, the breath comes back again and I hold all of their wonders over my shoulder.”
While only emerging into the industry now as a magician, Jeremy is trying to set a strong example for kids growing up in the valley to dream big.
“I’m trying to show the kids the fact that you can do much more with your life than drugs and alcohol,” he said. “You could become a magician, a DJ artist, an artist or music producer or even working for the paper, too. I’m trying to show them there’s more than just being in this town and being stuck in this town. You could be doing something with your life.”