Steve Aoki Quotes & Sayings

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. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

When I work with artists, I give them a general guideline of what my vision is. Then they're going to speak their minds on how they view it, too. The song that defines 'Neon Future' the best is the title track. I wrote that with Luke Steele of Empire of the Sun. It's through his words. We had an amazing songwriting session together, connecting. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

I wrote probably my phattest banging record with Knife Party: 'Pile Driver.' — Steve Aoki

'Boneless,' even though we were thinking about servicing it to radio, it made more sense putting a vocal on there. This was actually the first time that I really looked at doing a song for radio and kind of let go of some control and listened to a lot of different radio pluggers and had Ultra come in and help out with ideas. — Steve Aoki

For a producer, you want to be in L.A. You want to be close to the action, and in L.A. there are always singers, artists, songwriters, collaborators and other producers. It's easy to get access to all that, which gives you more opportunity to work records. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

My favorite food is Ramen. — Steve Aoki

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

I feel pretty comfortable in front of a camera. — Steve Aoki

I love working with producers, like doing the record with Laidback Luke on 'Turbulence' and working with Afrojack on 'No Beef.' — Steve Aoki

Vegas is a very fickle market that's about fun. It will change to what people want. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

It's a really diverse time in music, with all these different DJs and all these different categories, and we are all taking footnotes from everyone else. There are no real genre boundaries anymore; you can take a trance idea and put it into a trap record - it's not that uncommon. — Steve Aoki

My favorite book is 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson. — Steve Aoki

I wasn't sheltered or spoiled. All the money I made, I made myself. — Steve Aoki

High school and college were my punk, formative years. I was playing hardcore, learning to be a musician. In bands, you tour, but you're paid nothing; you're playing to 50 people in a basement, sleeping in a van, and you love it. — Steve Aoki

'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. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

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

The record labels used to spend money on advertising, and social media has replaced that entirely - it's putting magazines out of business. It's put big companies into completely reinventing their strategies. — Steve Aoki

The haters and the trolls have always used me as an excuse to make fun of something that is out of the ordinary, something that doesn't necessarily make sense to them. For whatever reason, I have always been a target that people love to attack. — Steve Aoki

My first year in L.A. I felt lost in that big city. It's easy to be tumbled around and not figure out where you fit in even when you find your little niche. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

My favorite country to visit is Japan. — Steve Aoki

I've been doing my record label for 15 years called Dim Mak. I started my label when I was 19 in '96. I started putting out an eclectic roster of artists. In 2003, we found a band called Bloc Party, and in 2004, we started getting remixes for Bloc Party, and at the same time I was throwing Dim Mak parties in Los Angeles. — Steve Aoki

When I perform, I don't think about the haters, the Internet trolls, or anyone else. I care about giving the person in front of me something they won't forget. And that's why I bring the cake and raft out. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

No matter what I do, I can't help but feel that I'm under a microscope. Some of it is completely silly, and some of it is meant to be hurtful. For example, a website accumulated all of my music videos to point out perceived Illuminati images. I loved that one. Of course, it was all ridiculous but funny. — Steve Aoki

I love collaborating outside of my space. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

Grateful to The Kerry Gaynor Method for saving my manager's life. He quit smoking thanks to their genius Method. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

Dance music is an emotional journey. It's how well you can make people feel something that they haven't felt. — Steve Aoki

I'm 36, but I still feel like a punk kid with $200 in my savings account. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

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? — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

The ephemeral part of this work is that in music production, the sounds evolve so much faster than it used to, which means that you really have to put in a lot of work and effort in constantly designing the next sound that will move the culture forward. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki

Artists have so much more control of their futures - they don't need to rely so much on major labels or big companies to help them. You have artists like Skrillex that can dominate so much that he gets 5 Grammy nominees, and he's clearly an underground artist. — Steve Aoki

To come out here and play on Woodstock grounds, first year ever headlining on the main stage there's nothing more iconic. [Mysteryland] is one of those festivals that holds down the legacy of dance music it's been around for so many years. It's been part of what we do for so long. It kinda makes sense to bring the tradition over here to America. The festival grounds of Woodstock, that's pretty epic. — Steve Aoki

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

I started using a raft at my shows in 2009, and in 2011, I started caking people. — Steve Aoki

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. — Steve Aoki