Steve Aoki Quotes

The thought of bringing a cake into a dance music show is a bizarre one. The idea of rafting on top of people is just as bizarre as well. And I think whenever something bizarre comes into play, it immediately becomes an easy target. And for those reasons, I know that I have been the target of criticism.

I’m 36, but I still feel like a punk kid with $200 in my savings account.

The way I pick who gets caked is generally by who shows me the most energy and is screaming for it. I still can’t help but ask myself… should I stop caking people? Will that stop the haters from hating? Stop giving the trolls more content to target me with?

Self-discovery is so important in identity processing: who you hang out with, what clothes you wear, what shows you see. As a kid, I found out about things through friends. I would go to hardcore shows with 50 people.

I like looking at a future where we’re expanding our creativity and brightening our lives. I believe that eventually we’ll get to a point where we’ll be able to live indefinitely through our technology.

My favorite food is Ramen.

I feel pretty comfortable in front of a camera.

It’s of course important to mention that when DJing, I’m building my own story through the music. I’m figuring out what song to play next, what song to play after that, and how the two will blend together. How the emotion is going to develop from one song to another. So I first build that storyline.

My first job was working at Benihana as kitchen help. In college, I was a telemarketer for a company at the same time I was a bike messenger for this greasy fast-food place.

Dance music is my love, is my passion, is my life. I live for my fans and take my art very seriously.

I have been doing merch’ since I was 15 and in bands when I was a teenager – silk-screening shirts, making the emulsion in my mom’s closet I converted into a dark room, through college. That’s essentially how us bands survived was selling homemade t-shirts.

I love to work with artists that were able to find a brand new name and create something really exciting and fresh.

I wasn’t sheltered or spoiled. All the money I made, I made myself.

My favorite book is ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ by Bill Bryson.

At my shows, I want to be totally sharp and focused on every single song, on every single thing that I do, and plus, I have to because I’m, like, caking someone and have to run back and mix the next song… and I have so much fast, quick reflex timing.

I always tell up-and-coming DJs you have to really love what you do and find that interest to drive you. It requires so much attention to detail, and it takes up a lot of your time. You hear a song, and there are so many little pieces that make that song work. It requires a lot of patience, diligence and resilience.

For me, I guess the general reason for using social media is that the connection I have with people who are interested in my music is extremely important to me. That connection is like the pillar in everything I do. I want to embrace that connection and make it stronger.

The craziest thing I’ve probably done during a show is the balcony dive – it was pretty scary. I was like, ‘This could result in an injury of mine,’ but somehow I survived.

I wrote probably my phattest banging record with Knife Party: ‘Pile Driver.’

I never cake someone who doesn’t want to be caked – at least, I try not to. Sometimes I miss my target. I’m pretty much going through the crowd making sure I find someone who wants to get caked. If you don’t want to get caked, shake your head or tell me you don’t want to get caked. It’s that easy.

For a DJ at my level, you can really go through life and travel the world without seeing a single thing. It’s harder to go out and see the sights than it is to play a show.

Vegas is a very fickle market that’s about fun. It will change to what people want.

‘Neon Future’ is, in short, a positive outlook on human progress and technology, looking forward to a bright, colorful utopia. It’s embracing the future and looking toward the future in a more optimistic way.

Artists are creating their own genre sound, and other artists are building upon that sound and already creating a huge subculture created around one particular sound created by one artist. So, with all that happening, the genres are going to break down, and there’s going to be a multitude of sound coming out.

When I’m at a show, I’m there to have fun. Let’s just not care for a moment. So this cake in your face is to make you lose your mind. And it’s not about caring about whatever you are wearing and caring what other people are thinking about you. Out of the context, I’m trying to develop something else.

Dance music is an emotional journey. It’s how well you can make people feel something that they haven‘t felt.

Extending our lives, extending our creativity, opening up the mysteries of the brain. All those things that are really exciting – that’s kind of the basis of ‘Neon Future,’ and that’s why I interviewed Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey.

My life, I swear, is, like, 75% public. I have a very small percentage of my life that is private. But I do keep that private life private.

My favorite country to visit is Japan.

There’s a big gaping hole in the EDM space for songwriting. It’s one thing to learn how to be a great sound designer and become big just on sound design. Especially if you’re in the dubstep category, it’s like, how much fatter and more interesting can you make those drops.

I love working with producers, like doing the record with Laidback Luke on ‘Turbulence‘ and working with Afrojack on ‘No Beef.’

Whenever I work with different artists, I expand as a song writer, as a producer, and I always want to try and find the bridge between my world and their world.

Being a musician since I was a teen, Guitar Center is the staple. You need anything to create, it’s there. You need a Guitar Center. You gotta give it homage. It’s a tool shed, and without the tool shed, it’s hard to create.

A lot of my building blocks – who I am kind of as an artist – all came from being in L.A.

On my YouTube channel, I put up 3-4 videos a week, and I spend a lot of money to maintain that content. When I travel, I travel with a videographer and a photographer no matter what.