Steve Aoki Interview
I am heading out to see Steve Aoki, Paul Devro and The Hosers tonight at Hi-Fi, so I thought I would post this interview that originally ran in Uptown Magazine. We spoke after Aoki got back from a busy weekend of partying at Coachella.
photo courtesy of my friends at good friends at T.U.B. (apparently Aoki is a hustler at poker, despite the fact in interviews he claims he just started playing last year)
Even though Los Angeles-based DJ/producer/record label owner Steve Aoki is the toast of Tinseltown and demands impressive appearance fees at the biggest clubs worldwide, his hipster-friendly label, Dim Mak, had very humble beginnings.
“When I started Dim Mak in 1996, it was never really meant to be a label. I was just putting out a record,” explains Aoki over the phone from his home base after a busy weekend DJing and hitting up star-studded Coachella after-parties. “When I gave The Kills 800 bucks, that was all the money I had.”
With over 100 releases in its impressive back catalogue from acts such as the Klaxons, The Rakes, The Icarus Line and Canadian duo MSTRKRFT, the label is just one of the growing list of projects Aoki juggles.
“I have always been like this. I always seem to put myself in the centre of chaos. This is how I am as a person. I just like being busy,” Aoki says. “I am always trying to maintain five things at once. You can’t do everything, but I do my best to be involved as much as I can.”
Along with maintaining a tireless travel and DJ schedule, running a successful record label, starting up a clothing line, developing a new line of sunglasses, and creating signature shoes for Supra and headphones for WESC, Aoki has also been trying to set aside time to head into the studio to work on original material and not just churn out remixes for acts such as Duran Duran or The Bloc Party.
“I just never had any fucking time to get in the studio, now I am making time. It is really important for me to do this now. As an artist, changing shit up is important.”
Between working on his own material in the Dim Mak studio in Hollywood and jamming with members of The Faint and Alex Ridha of Boys Noize in a new project called Herculez, Aoki found time to finally release his debut mix CD. Instead of just licensing all the hottest tracks and playing it safe, he called up his friends and got them to drop exclusive verses overtop his handpicked selection of bombastic bass lines, neon bleeps and Technicolor hooks from outfits such as French duo Justice, England’s Klaxons, U.S. pioneer Green Velvet and Canada’s Peaches.
“Who is going to buy a mix CD in the first place if it’s just a bunch of popular tracks that people have already downloaded from the Internet for free?”
