Steve Aoki Quotes

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.

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.

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.

My favorite food is Ramen.

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

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.

My favorite country to visit is Japan.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

I love collaborating outside of my space.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.