Steve Aoki joins Jemele to discuss his new memoir, The Color of Noise, and why he decided to write a book. He also discusses his new documentary, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, which explores his relationship with his father and how it shaped him into the man he is today. And, of course, he talks about his new album, The Color Of Noise, which is out now. He also talks about why he chose the name of his new book, and how he came up with the idea for it. And, he explains why he thinks it s so important to have a name like Blue . And he also explains why it s important to him to write about the things that have impacted him throughout his life, and the lessons he s learned along the way. Plus, he gives us a sneak peek into what s in his upcoming movie, I ll Sleep when I m Dead, which will be streaming on Netflix on November 15th, 2019. You won t want to miss it! Music: by Steve Aoki Art: . by Jeffree Star Produced by: , and (feat. by & DJ Semtex is a proud member of the LA Music Scene in Los Angeles, CA. Artwork by , and . . . is by . We are a proud supporter of this podcast. Thank you for listening and supporting this podcast! Thank you so much for supporting the podcast, we really really really appreciate it. We really means a lot to us a lot. We appreciate all the support us. We can t thank you, really appreciate you. , we really appreciate all of you, much appreciate you, very much appreciate it, we appreciate you - the support we can't do it. - Thank you, we can do it, really really well, really mean it, and we hope you really, we mean it. Thank ya, really, really do, we're not only, we love you, thank you. We're listening, we'll get it back, we got it back. We'll see you back in the next episode next week, thank ya back, next time, we hear you back, bye, bye bye. xoxo, bye. -Eddie Wong xo - Eddie Wong - The Chef
00:00:45.000And more about like how I got there, you know, the story and different piecemeal stories that are thematic and, you know, with this overarching idea of blue, which is like the different shades of blue of my life.
00:01:00.000It's my favorite color and actually my last name means blue tree.
00:01:06.000Yeah, so it's like, there's a lot of synergy with the color.
00:01:09.000So when I was coming up with the idea to name the book, you know, I had to think of like, you know, something that relates throughout my whole life.
00:01:19.000So there's so many different shades, emotions, feelings that are represented in all these different stories.
00:01:36.000It's like, you know, because I'm still like, you know, of the pen and paper still.
00:01:42.000You know, like I grew up before computers and all that stuff.
00:01:46.000When I was writing lyrics for my bands, it was always like a notepad.
00:01:51.000So I had just so many different stories.
00:01:53.000I didn't know how to put it all together.
00:01:56.000I started the inception of writing these different stories of my life six years ago and then I shot a documentary for Netflix and we dropped it.
00:03:10.000And try, you know, if you always do the same thing over and over again, you're never really learning.
00:03:14.000So it's, it's, it's been like a great learning process, you know, putting out this memoir and, and, and, And like actually opening up this vulnerable side to who I am that I don't necessarily – I don't talk about really.
00:03:30.000For people that know me, like my fans or my music fans or anyone else that knows Steve Aoki, they don't really know what's in this book.
00:03:37.000They might have a glimpse of it from my documentary, which I did, because I talk really deeply about my relationship with my father and this drive that I have as a kid to make it.
00:03:49.000And it shows you enough where it's, okay, now I have a little bit more than...
00:03:55.000My live shows and what's already out there.
00:03:57.000But this goes, you know, obviously a lot deeper because it's a book and we're going through emotions and the vulnerability.
00:04:03.000And I want to tell stories of the hardships.
00:04:06.000And at the end of the day, I want to speak to young kids out there, young people out there, even older people that are trying to figure their own thing out.
00:04:15.000And because the documentary related in so many ways on a personal level, That I shared there.
00:04:21.000This is how I wanted to share that through my own words.
00:04:25.000Do you find that writing these things down and just thinking about your life and trying to express it in a way that's going to resonate with people, that this helps you think about it and helps you sort of Categorize it and put it all in your head.
00:05:12.000For retention on what I gather or take away from what I'm reading.
00:05:15.000So I'm always like reading and writing or writing and scribbling in my book or like writing off the side in a notepad or like now, like a tablet or something.
00:05:25.000But it's like you need to gather your headspace so you have retention.
00:05:59.000I mean, there's something to that because in that time, I mean, you could speak to this because you've written a book on yourself, but in that time of writing about yourself and reflecting upon your life, you probably learn a little bit about who you are and why you're the way you are.
00:06:14.000Yeah, and, you know, thinking about this, I never really thought about it to this point or found the parallel here, but when I started seeing a therapist to go into my past and try to break down what, like, why I make the decisions I do or, like,
00:06:29.000why I spiral out here or do something that I am not comfortable with or I want to change, a lot of that I'm able, like, after these sessions, I go and start writing, you know?
00:06:40.000And then a lot of that, you know, eventually makes it in the book.
00:06:44.000Do you write longhand or do you write on a keyboard?
00:07:06.000As you could say, it is putting all these stories and these memories and the feelings and the emotions and the hardships or whatever it might be.
00:07:19.000I think the hardest part is picking the right ones at the end of the day.
00:07:22.000When you put all this stuff together and you spend so much time on this, do you find that the process of that in any way enhances your music?
00:07:31.000Yes, it does because, I mean, when I think about – first of all, when I think about the process of making music, I think about it very similar to what you're doing when you write for your comedy skits and you're efficient.
00:07:48.000You're like, okay, this is going to work because I'm going to be able to – Share it this way.
00:07:52.000You're not just writing your thoughts down.
00:07:54.000When I'm in the studio, I'm very efficient.
00:07:57.000I'm going to make a club banger just for the festival so the crowds go crazy.
00:08:01.000And it's less about the emotional message.
00:08:06.000With this, being able to talk about that side, that adds that other layer.
00:08:13.000That I'm seeing now more than ever in the last three or four years when I started making songs with lyrics that actually I've seen the fans come out in droves saying how much it's gotten them through hard times.
00:08:29.000Because the lyrics were able to speak to them a certain way.
00:08:32.000And that's the essence of collaboration at the end of the day.
00:10:49.000Anyway, so it was a long time ago, and I walked around the front of the stage, and one of the kids in the front, one of the guys in the front was just like, Why is he walking around the front?
00:13:51.000I mean, you have to treat yourself like an athlete, that's for sure.
00:13:56.000The way I think about my regimen is different, and I'm obsessed with trying out new ideas and Using myself as a guinea pig to work with different scientists,
00:14:12.000sleep doctors, different people in various fields that are testing new ideas to deal with jet lag or things that I'm dealing with that are on the road that can wear you down and make it not sustainable.
00:14:37.000But I... At one point, I wasn't down the same road as Ray Kurzweil doing 250 vitamins a day, but I was probably experimenting with about 50. Have you met him?
00:16:35.000And I agree with a lot of what he's saying.
00:16:37.000Well, a lot of what he's saying is irrefutable, but what's interesting is the way he sort of coalesces it, the way he combines it all, and you really get a sense of, wow, this is what a person is.
00:16:48.000Like, this is how it all went down, you know?
00:18:04.000So all of our money that we raise goes to brain research organizations, brain science orgs, but also orgs that deal with anti-aging or anything that's interesting that relates to living longer,
00:18:19.000healthier lives, and one of which is the SENS org, which is Aubrey's org.
00:18:23.000Have you ever heard – do you know who David Sinclair is?
00:19:37.000And then he, I mean, he was surviving with hep C for decades, changed his interferon and the things that were keeping him going before there's a vaccine or cure.
00:20:18.000But after I saw him die, I read books on cancer.
00:20:22.000I started reading, trying to research, what could I have done to help my father?
00:20:27.000And I still have people in my life that I absolutely love that I want to learn and share, like my mother, like anyone else that's close to me that's getting older.
00:20:37.000And then it just, I just went on this like bender, like, you know, reading books on anti-aging and then, you know, I'm really big sci-fi nut.
00:20:49.000So, if anything, I love living between the world of science fiction and science fact and finding out in that gray area what is going to be science fact.
00:20:58.000In our, you know, as long as I'm alive.
00:21:03.000You know, and there's a lot of things happening because I do agree with that curve that we are not moving at a linear rate.
00:21:10.000You know, we are moving, I don't know if it's exponential, but it's definitely between linear and exponential.
00:21:16.000With technology, with what we're learning in science and medicine.
00:21:20.000And as I'm learning more about this stuff, my music career is also raising my platform as a personality is also getting raised.
00:21:30.000So then now, I get to go and make a phone call to Ray and he'll answer.
00:23:49.000When you talked to Kurzweil, did you get into his idea of being able to download consciousness?
00:23:55.000No, we didn't get that far, but I would love for you to tell me more about that.
00:23:59.000It's a weird one, because we went to this, I think it's called a 2045 conference in New York City, and the idea behind it is that they think that somewhere around 2045, There's going to be some sort of a technological singularity with the exponential growth or perceived exponential growth,
00:24:17.000whatever it is, the leaping, the new innovation, creating these new possibilities that somewhere around 2045, there's going to be So many changes and so many new innovations that they believe they're going to be able to put your consciousness either into some sort of a hard drive,
00:24:38.000some sort of a quantum computer, or perhaps even a physical embodiment of a Steve Aoki.
00:24:44.000Like you have an artificial Steve Aoki.
00:25:21.000Yeah, like a way to communicate with his dad.
00:25:24.000With all the memories that he has of his father, all the video and images, and actually recreate his father to have a communication with him.
00:26:40.000And it's right now, I mean, he's got a working theory, but it becomes a matter of having enough energy to actually pull this off.
00:26:49.000But the idea behind it was all inspired by his father dying, and he thinks he's going to be able to, or someone may, be able to go back in time.
00:26:58.000But what he believes now— Well, when you hear stories like this, right?
00:27:00.000When you hear the story, because I know this is like what you do.
00:27:15.000I need to understand to see if this actually is conclusive.
00:27:19.000Well, I think he found out something unfortunate in that the idea – As far as time travel as we know it will only exist from the time the time machine is invented forward and backward to that moment.
00:27:33.000The idea like Terence McKenna described it the idea that you cannot travel where there are no roads and so once a road is established then things get really fucked up because if you create a time machine At least in terms of what they understand or what Dr. Mallet believes about time travel right now,
00:29:01.000If it was a World War V 100 years from now, and you were like, fuck this, I'm going back in time 100 years before World War V, and I'm just going to live there.
00:29:09.000And they decide to do that, or World War III, or World War IV. They just keep going back in time, and forward in time.
00:30:00.000All that stuff's going to be nonsense if there's time machines because you're just going to be able to move anywhere you want at any point in time.
00:30:07.000Sounds ridiculous, but so does the internet.
00:30:09.000If you brought the internet up to some guy who lived in Victorian times and say, look at this, this is my phone, and you can ask it a question, it'll give you all the answers, anything you want.
00:30:18.000That would be the most astounding form of witchcraft ever invented.
00:30:23.000And now my 11-year-old daughter has one of those.
00:30:27.000She asks that thing questions all the time.
00:30:29.000She gets answers to stuff all the time that we used to have to go to a library for.
00:30:33.000She could watch videos that just come out of the air.
00:31:01.000So if everybody gets access to it a year from now or three years from now, it doesn't matter because the time machine's already been invented so they can travel back to that moment and forward from that moment.
00:31:09.000So the moment they turn that fucker on, everything goes haywire.
00:31:20.000Well, they want to see if they can even make that happen.
00:31:23.000I used to have a bit that I used to do about the Big Bang because they were – everyone has always tried to figure out like what was the universe like before the Big Bang?
00:31:38.000And when you look at the progress of technology, my thought was that if you look at where we're going and we're constantly innovating and people are constantly coming up with new and more impressive forms of technology, that one day we're going to create a big bang machine.
00:32:06.000And one guy goes, I'll fucking press it.
00:32:08.000And he hits the button and BOOM! The whole universe starts all over again.
00:32:12.000And if you had a big bang machine and you knew that if you pressed it, within five billion years, humans would create another big bang machine.
00:33:45.000There's some comfort to the lack of...
00:33:50.000I mean, there's certainly some variables that are very difficult to account for, but there's also a surprising amount of life that's pretty straightforward.
00:34:01.000So if it is a simulation, it's not the most difficult one to follow.
00:34:05.000It's pretty crazy and chaotic, but there's a lot of comfort in it.
00:34:09.000Like, as much as we try to dwell on the horrors of humanity, and certainly a lot of them, because God has a lot of beauty in people, too.
00:34:50.000If you can find good people and friends and And communicate and spread love and have interesting, fascinating, thought-provoking conversations.
00:35:00.000There's a lot of really positive things.
00:35:03.000So if this is a simulation, it's a pretty badass simulation for Steve Aoki.
00:35:53.000He's actually on the list of people I would love to be in the studio with, to make music with, and just get into his mind a bit.
00:36:02.000I've been putting that out there to the universe.
00:36:05.000He's one of those guys that when you're talking to him, you have this feeling that he's running code in the background while he's talking to you.
00:36:12.000I think he just gets bored with regular mundane conversations.
00:36:17.000He's got 50 million things going on constantly.
00:36:20.000He was talking to me about how difficult it is to manage his mind.
00:36:24.000He's like, you wouldn't want to be me.
00:36:42.000In terms of a public intellectual who's responsible for so many groundbreaking technologies, the number one electric car in the world, SpaceX tunneling under LA with a boring company.
00:37:39.000I could always make it as easy as possible.
00:37:42.000Yeah, but just go to SpaceX or Tesla or wherever you're at.
00:37:47.000So what in particular are you doing with this Brain Foundation?
00:37:50.000I mean, I think one of the most important things is inspire people more about brain, the brain.
00:37:56.000I mean, obviously it's to raise money for brain research orgs.
00:38:00.000For one, finding cures for degenerative brain diseases.
00:38:04.000Just understanding the brain more, working with orgs that want to understand the brain more so that we can expand what our limitations are in the conversations that we're talking about.
00:38:16.000Bring some of the science fiction and the science fact.
00:38:20.000I love this idea that telekinesis is when you can move things with your mind.
00:38:51.000Those happened in like 2013 or 14 or...
00:38:55.000Fact check that, but it was not 2019. It was like years ago.
00:38:59.000So whatever they're doing at DARPA, whatever they're doing at Google, whoever's got these research orgs and labs, I would love to jump in there and just put my ear out there and just listen and find out what's going on.
00:39:15.000Because I have my own interest and passion on what the breakthroughs are.
00:39:18.000And I would also love to try some of these things.
00:39:49.000But also with the brain org, it's just the brain foundation.
00:39:53.000It's just to help out the smaller orgs too that are, one, finding the cures.
00:40:00.000Because at the end of the day, what I've learned is that if you don't die of cancer or heart disease, you're going to have a brain disease.
00:43:13.000Yeah, when he goes into that world, I'm like, oh, you forget about that sometimes when you're like, I want to be in the breakthrough rooms, you know?
00:43:21.000Well, there was an internal memo where they were referring to Ben Shapiro and someone else.
00:43:27.000I think it was Jordan Peterson and maybe Dennis Prager as Nazis, which is hilarious because both Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager are both Jewish.
00:43:35.000So it's like their perception of who a person is.
00:43:39.000This was brought up This is brought up by people in Congress.
00:43:46.000Trying to figure out, what is Google doing?
00:43:48.000How are you allowed to define people internally in your memos?
00:43:54.000And then, of course, once you call someone a Nazi, then you can act as if they're a Nazi and stifle people.
00:44:01.000Any sort of search on them or stifle results or point people in the direction that you think would be better for humanity versus just pure information.
00:45:07.000I just don't understand what the solution is, and I don't know if it's just a free distribution of information across the board, because then what do you do about actual Nazis?
00:45:17.000Like, if there's a new Hitler, and he arises, and he really does want to exterminate the Jews, what happens there?
00:45:23.000Do you just allow that guy to be on Google?
00:45:25.000Is he on Google Hangouts with a little Nazi Hangout?
00:45:28.000They're planning on exterminations, and where's the next Auschwitz?
00:45:46.000Very complicated questions that we're all learning to navigate.
00:45:52.000I think in many ways, and this is a weird thought that I have and I repeat it over and over again, but I think technology is going to provide us with a new way of communicating that's not dependent upon language, but rather can read actual intent.
00:46:07.000Like, an actual mind-reading technology.
00:46:11.000And when I see Elon's Neuralink, this thing that he's trying to do where they're opening up the bandwidth to humans and information through use of implants and some sort of a Bluetooth wearable device, like, that I think is like a step in that direction.
00:47:27.000Well, it seems like 5G's better, and 6G will be better than 5G. And if you want to get that mind-reading software, you've got to get 7G. And we're going to do this to the point where one day there's going to be a real thing sitting in front of you.
00:47:40.000But we will merge with the AI? Because that's the future that I hope for.
00:47:57.000Pure people, now available through Nabisco.
00:48:02.000It's interesting because my whole point with Neon Future is the convergence of, I mean, the ultimate goal is the convergence of technology and our humanity to the point where we live forever through this downloading system that we're talking about earlier on or whatever seemingly makes sense in the trajectory of where technology is going.
00:48:27.000I mean, that's like, for me as well, my insurance policy for if I don't make it to this point, like my dad didn't make it to that cure, is obviously cryogenically freezing the body.
00:49:25.000After your biological body ceases to function, you move into a new realm of reality that is a completely different dimension that's filled with love and understanding.
00:50:28.000What I've seen as me, what I understand of what's around me and my feelings is that if I wake up tomorrow or if someone I love wakes up tomorrow with an incurable disease that's going to kill them, it would be the most horrific thing.
00:50:42.000And I think at the end of the day, the human race is going out to find cures for those kinds of situations.
00:52:06.000And that's where my conquest or my interest and passion led to anti-aging, the future.
00:52:13.000And then building on that for the ones that I love that are alive now and doing whatever I can to share the information so that they live as long as they possibly can in the healthiest way possible.
00:52:26.000So I'm just gathering information as I go.
00:52:31.000And it's exciting because, as I was saying, as I get bigger as a personality, You know, sometimes I do jump into these rooms.
00:52:41.000And in one case, just recently, there's a doctor that I've worked with.
00:52:47.000I've done some stem cell injections with him in Denver.
00:52:51.000And he came to my house and he was with some other doctors and they're like, oh yeah, there's a doctor convention.
00:56:15.000And I did that, and then about a year later, I was with Dr. Grossman.
00:56:21.000He's the doctor I work with, and he wrote the book with Ray Kurzweil called, I think the subtext of the book is Staying Alive Until We Reach Singularity or something like that.
00:56:36.000It's like a book on being healthy, basically, anti-aging book.
00:56:46.000I went to him a few years back to get the full blood work going for me and my family.
00:56:53.000We did two days of testing, all kinds of stuff to learn more about our bodies and see what we're deficient in, what we're not, what vitamins we need to take to supplement the things that we're deficient in.
00:57:03.000And I came back just maybe a year ago to do his version of stem cells because in America it's a different Panama is obviously out of America, so they're doing the umbilical cord stem cells, or they harvest the stem cells from umbilical cords.
00:57:35.000But his point that he's saying is that the size of the stem cells, they're much smaller, so they're able to travel past where it ends up clogging, which is like the lungs and like certain areas of the body.
00:59:03.000They spin it in a centrifuge and heat it through some process and they add things to it and in the process it creates this incredibly potent anti-inflammatory agent that's from your own blood.
01:00:54.000And he was the guy I originally went to to treat my shoulder because of Dr. Davidson from the UFC, who's the main doctor for the UFC. He was telling me he had shoulder surgery.
01:01:19.000He's like, you know, you got some pretty significant tears.
01:01:21.000You might really need surgery, but maybe this will help you for now.
01:01:25.000So I went there, and the amount of help that it...
01:01:29.000The amount of alleviation of pain and discomfort was stunning.
01:01:34.000I was like, I can't believe this is a real thing.
01:01:36.000You can just shoot this into whatever is bothering you, and then all of a sudden, like four months later, you're like, hey, where's the pain?
01:01:42.000I don't have any fucking pain anymore.
01:01:52.000But he's on the cutting edge of everything.
01:01:54.000Like, anytime he's a young guy and he's really enthusiastic and super brilliant, and anytime there's any sort of cutting edge medical practice, that guy's...
01:02:12.000And usually what that reconstruction is is either a cadaver graft where they take the Achilles tendon out of a dead person and shove it in your knee and then your body re-proliferates that with its own cells.
01:02:23.000It takes about six months and then you have a functional tendon again.
01:05:44.000I'm a very busybody kind of person, so I just scheduled.
01:05:49.000It was like going back to college, but with things that I needed to train and get better at, like get better at piano, get better at meditation, get better at twisting the knobs, engineering, whatever it might be that I want to be better at.
01:06:02.000I just brought more people into my world.
01:06:04.000Then I finished, like, an album that month making music with different people.
01:06:09.000So I just was just so focused on creation and learning and reading and, you know, all that good stuff.
01:06:16.000So when I left, I was like, okay, now I know how to do TM meditation or Transcendental Meditation and, you know, I'm more comfortable doing the things that help me be a better artist.
01:08:37.000It's called text to talk when I was in my meetings because, you know, I run various different, you know, businesses and I have to, you know, be on call.
01:08:47.000So I'm like texting to talk and I was...
01:10:54.000But I was warned that it would sound a little different.
01:10:56.000Like you sound different now than you sounded before the operation.
01:11:00.000I'm used to what I sound like now, so I almost forgot what I sound like before, but I think maybe a semitone differently, you know?
01:11:09.000But, you know, it's like you just get used to the new you.
01:11:13.000Like, if I was going to be half cyborg, half man, I'd probably just be like, okay, this is me, you know?
01:11:19.000Like, you just get to that when you're situated in that.
01:11:25.000The half cyborg thing is going to be really weird when people start replacing legs.
01:11:30.000Because I think if you could develop a leg, like a cybernetic leg that's better than a normal leg, someone's gonna say, chop my leg off and give me one of those.
01:11:41.000Someone somewhere is going to do that.
01:11:43.000And if that becomes seamless and, you know, you get some Steve Austin, $6 million man type shit going on, things can get real weird.
01:11:53.000That's what Yuval talks about in Homo Deus.
01:11:57.000You know, that whole idea that, like, first we use the technology to heal the people that need it, but at the end of the day, it's going to be used for advancing humanity.
01:12:09.000You want to help people that need to walk first, right?
01:12:14.000But then it's like, just like you said, if it becomes very normal, then the upgrades will be used as well to advance the people that don't need it.
01:12:27.000Yeah, and then we get to the point where you're unscrewing your head.
01:14:05.000It's like when you can make an arm that has nerve joints that's artificially connecting with your brain.
01:14:13.000Yeah, he's an interesting character because that arm, I mean, you really get this I am robot kind of feel from seeing his arm and his leg.
01:14:27.000I mean, I'm sure he would tell you that he's much better off with his arm and his leg back, but when you see the guy walk around, man, he fucking just walks around.
01:16:03.000I want to experience things in different ways to enhance my experience overall.
01:16:09.000Yeah, creating music electronically is...
01:16:13.000It's kind of polarizing to some people, though, right?
01:16:16.000Because, I mean, I think your music sounds fucking amazing, but for some people, they want to hear an actual string of a guitar, the rap of a drum, you know?
01:16:27.000People have this very narrow idea of what music is.
01:18:27.000It's a, you know, blue, obviously, my book's called Blue, is my favorite color, and I want the feeling to feel futuristic, so it's the neon future cave.
01:18:40.000Now, if you look up at the ceiling, if you scroll up in that picture or whatever, you'll get to see, maybe it's not in that picture, but I have, yeah, so you have, like, these, like, LED lights coming through the ceiling as if you're in, like, a cave.
01:19:20.000I bought my house in 2013. What made you move to Vegas?
01:19:26.000I was living in LA, and my career broke in Los Angeles, so there's no doubt about it, being in LA as a musician, as an artist, someone in music, that's where you, if you want a break, you're going to have all the connections and build your network here fastest than anywhere else in the world.
01:19:41.000New York, I feel like, is the media hub for fashion, and then LA is a music hub, and then Atlanta is like the hip-hop hub, Nashville's country.
01:19:52.000But I broke in LA when I started touring.
01:19:58.000In 2009, 10, 2008, 9, 10, 11, I was just gone.
01:20:03.000I wasn't living in LA the way I lived in LA, going out to all the places I loved to eat, all the culture of what LA has to offer.
01:20:13.000I was only there 50 days of the year, maybe.
01:20:15.000So I was like, well, just signed a residency in Las Vegas when the nightlife boomed for DJs from 2010. It was a big shift of what nightlife has to offer in Vegas, and DJs were a big part of that.
01:21:22.000I kind of talk about that in the book, like the hardships to get there because one of the best lessons that my father shared with me was this tough love attitude where, you know, he was a very rich, flamboyant restaurateur.
01:21:38.000Benny Hanna's had fancy cars, was very flashy, very American.
01:21:44.000He's the one that broke through the American dream.
01:21:46.000The Japanese, one of the few Japanese people that actually did that.
01:21:49.000So he's just like, yo, look at me with, you know, flying hot air balloons, offshore boat racing.
01:21:55.000And then like, you know, I guess the traditional thing is like that he would financially help me, you know, because he has the money to do that.
01:22:03.000But one of the most powerful things he did was he just financially – he didn't financially help me.
01:22:08.000And I had to figure though my issues, my hardships, my business plans, my – Financial issues that I was going through on my own so I had to start there and Because of that I was able to succeed through some of the hard stuff and and Have that drive to want to make money for myself.
01:22:26.000So during that time in LA, you know, I'm kind of digressing here You know, I lived in this apartment for about seven years and then the DJing My first priority was my record label.
01:22:40.000That was like why I moved to LA. Sign artists, develop them, help them.
01:22:44.000And then I was DJing, building the brand of the label, and we created a really cool scene in LA. And we were breaking some of the biggest acts.
01:22:55.000Not breaking, we were the underground hotbed, you know, like the comedy shop or something, where everyone would hang out.
01:23:05.000So, like, Lady Gaga was playing for free at our shows.
01:23:12.000Will.i.am was dancing in the corner and then going back to the studio making Black Eyed Peas hits because 2007 through 2009, Black Eyed Peas were the biggest artists.
01:23:30.000And then that's how I made a name for myself is that I was throwing these parties and I was DJing them, but no one cared that I was DJing them.
01:23:39.000The only reason why they were going is because these acts would always be there.
01:23:45.000That's when I met DJ AM in 2006, 2005. And then we got together and he brought the celebs in.
01:23:51.000So now there's a spotlight of pre-TMZ kind of like, oh, what's going on over here with this electro sound?
01:23:58.000You have Daft Punk there unmasked and And like really cool underground like Kid Cudi there and Connie West coming through and then there's Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and all these different people all like in this small room.
01:24:11.000And people wanted to know what the hell is going on in that little space.
01:24:15.000And this is what's great about this time was that it was pre-Snapchat, pre-social media.
01:25:02.000He was my best friend who would just run with me to all the shows and parties.
01:25:07.000Because back then I would play like five nights a week in LA. And he would photograph and he would document and that's how you would find out about the lifestyle, the clothes, the look of what it was to be on Cahuenga in Hollywood.
01:25:25.000And then you see Kid Cudi there and you see Kanye West there and you see whoever else that was just hanging out, absorbing the culture that we were creating there.
01:25:36.000And then eventually that was what got me out of my I was a pretty bad businessman when I was running in Denmark.
01:25:46.000I thought I was doing shit right because I was signing acts that actually mattered and were taking off, but I just didn't know how to, you know, I was just spending, spending like, yo, we gotta keep going with this.
01:25:59.000And then, you know, then I started bringing the right people and I was like, okay, I need to build a team.
01:26:03.000I need to build some people that have some sensibilities in this world while I'm creative.
01:26:08.000And then the DJing just took off as I was getting more into production, getting more into remixing, getting more into creating myself as an artist.
01:26:16.000And then that is what people know about me now.
01:26:18.000But really, people knew about me because of the Dimock.
01:26:22.000And it's interesting how sometimes the evolutions of the eras of who you are change over time.
01:26:31.000And then, fast forward, 2013 is when I was like, Okay, LA helped grow me to who I am.
01:26:40.000My management, my label, they're still LA. But Steve Aoki is going to be Las Vegas.
01:27:07.000You know, for the creation of electronic music.
01:27:11.000And what you pointed out that's so interesting was that 2010 was really somewhere around the time Vegas started becoming these electronic music shows started taking precedent.
01:29:31.000They're so much bigger than any other kind of event that you have in Vegas, other than massive sporting events like USC or something like that.
01:29:39.000Well, definitely, it's provoked by energy, too.
01:33:30.000I mean, it's like he's always seeming to find a way to troll people in a social or political critique, just like he did with the art sale of the shredded painting.
01:34:23.000You should be checking everything, making sure everything's authentic, no?
01:34:27.000Well, if it's an authentic piece and somehow or another some reliable source brings it to them as an authentic piece, they just accept the fact.
01:34:37.000They don't check the details of the piece?
01:35:09.000Like, it's funny that we're talking about this because sometimes I forget, like, you know, we're having a chat and I realize, oh, there's a lot of people listening in on this, so maybe I shouldn't give away some of the stuff that I've learned about it.
01:35:21.000But, yeah, anyways, I'll leave it there.
01:38:54.000That's like one of the things that we talked, like, you know, when we talked about how I'm sustainable, is that you have to not do the certain things that make it unsustainable.
01:39:06.000I do talk about my book, my first acid trip when I was 13, but that scared the living shit out of me to stay away from anything hallucinogenic.
01:39:13.000And, like, literally, you're 13, so I just stay away from drugs.
01:39:20.000It's a very, very funny story, but it got to the point where I just became this straight-edge, hardcore kid.
01:39:28.000I became extremely religious because I was in this, like, I was 13. I was looking up going, I'm going to be fucked for the rest of my life.
01:39:36.000When you're on acid, you're like fucking out there.
01:40:25.000I guess like what seven eight hours, but every second is like a minute, you know, because you cannot sleep, you cannot stop thinking about what you're in.
01:40:34.000I mean, there is like, it's like this exaggerated emotions, like the first part of my acid trip.
01:43:33.000Yeah, I mean, I have to say like, strangely enough, that's the first thing you think about, right?
01:43:38.000Why is a guy in women's studies like trying to understand?
01:43:43.000I mean, the reason why I was in that department is because my favorite teacher's uh were the ones teaching those classes so i just was like all right i'll try this one and then i was like wow this is actually pretty interesting i'll try another one and um and then i was like wow i'll just i'll finish off the major and uh you know i'd have to say like the stuff that i learned in school it's in large part of how i kind of look through kind of like navigate through my life like Sociology,
01:45:33.000There's no fucking way you could do 250 shows a year and get fucked up 250 days a year.
01:45:37.000In that business especially, the business of electronic dance music, there's a lot of people doing Molly, right?
01:45:44.000There's a lot of people doing all kinds of...
01:45:47.000Amphetamines and all kinds of crazy shit and you're gonna think like you do that every night man You're gonna look like an 80 year old man Because you've literally burned the candle with a blowtorch you use that Elon Musk not a flamethrower You know,
01:46:03.000I mean it's but you know what I always say if whenever I have the opportunity is that For the people in my crowds, and I have to say, country by country, they're very different as far as what I think if they're doing drugs or not.
01:47:27.000But if you're so high, zoinked off your head where you don't even know where you are or what's going on, then you just lose the whole experience.
01:47:36.000I mean, a lot of times people wake up going, oh, what happened?
01:47:39.000What's the point of the experience if you're so blitzed out of your head you don't even know what's going on?
01:47:46.000Allegedly during the experience you're having a good time.
01:47:50.000Yeah, but I mean, that's a really wonderful way to make a living.
01:47:54.000It's like literally the dream come true, you know, to make people happy, get to be...
01:48:00.000I always say, like, I feel like I'm the chef in the kitchen making the food and I go out and I get to watch people eat my food.
01:48:06.000And then they're like, oh, this is really good.
01:48:11.000Since I see that feeling, I'm like, let's go back and make more food, but we've got to sprinkle more truffle on that, and then let's deliver and then get a C. And then they're like, you're the chef, Mike.
01:48:24.000So it's like I get that lucky position to be able to make my music and then share it and hope that they have the same feeling that I have sharing it.
01:48:37.000So how many shows do you do in Vegas, and how many shows do you do abroad?
01:48:41.000Around 40 in Vegas, so 210. 40 a year?
01:49:20.000The club is a complete different influx of people coming in.
01:49:23.000Because the people that saw me at the day party are going to go see Chainsmokers or Marshmello or whoever else or Calvin Harris or whatever is playing on the strip.
01:49:33.000The competition is as thick as it gets.
01:49:35.000Every night there's the biggest DJs playing alongside each other.
01:49:41.000It's really amazing if you stop and think about what a crazy change that is to an entertainment environment.
01:49:49.000Like the Vegas, the transformation to that electronic music around, like you said, 2010. There's not a thing like that that you can point to anywhere else in the world.
01:50:00.000Where like all of a sudden this one dominant form of entertainment has taken over the entire nightlife of a city.
01:50:29.000If you go to New York, if you go to LA, if you go to all places all around the world, there's no other thing that has transformed the nightlife of a city the way electronic music has transformed Vegas.
01:51:41.000And they have to think differently about how they're going to get them to, you know, do what Vegas is meant to be, you know, what the economy is serving, gambling.
01:51:50.000Yeah, well, they're paying to see you as well.
01:52:09.000I've read something about that recently, that entertainment has become the primary revenue source in Vegas, whereas it used to be gambling.
01:53:52.000It's like somewhere, I'm sure you can find it, but he did a prediction where...
01:53:56.000Whenever he was alive, I guess, probably died in the 60s or 70s.
01:54:00.000So he said, like, the future will be one person with some sort of computer or something that's going to be devised electronically or something like that, and that one person will be making music for people and performing that.
01:54:27.000...indigenous to this country are the black music, blues, and the kind of folk music that was brought over from Europe, and I guess they call it country music, or the kind of West Virginia high and lonesome sound that Those are the two main streams of root American music.
01:55:56.000Yeah, because, I mean, also Jim Morrison, like, you could tell he's such an artist that, you know, he could, after The Doors, you just be himself.
01:56:06.000You know, he would have done a Jim Morrison album where he's made all the music, he's done everything, he would be exactly what he's saying.
01:56:12.000He's basically predicting what he would have, in my opinion, what he would become.
01:56:16.000And he was probably like 25 in that video, which is even crazier.
01:57:14.000And so many great artists, you know, Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
01:57:17.000Yeah, the whole idea of, like, okay, now it's time to experiment and to free ourselves from the confines of what, like, you know, it's supposed to...
01:59:43.000There was these young, compassionate...
01:59:45.000People that were trying to figure their way through life in a way that didn't resonate with the way their parents had set boundaries and standards, and they wanted out of all of it, that Goldwater Republican shit.
01:59:56.000They wanted to be free and flower children and hippies and Woodstock and all that craziness, you know?
02:00:03.000And what's amazing is how quickly it ended.
02:00:33.000There was also the sweeping psychedelic act of 1970 that made everything schedule one, and they were locking people up in jail.
02:00:40.000There was a civil rights movement that was happening at the same time, and they were passing laws that were directly targeting The people in the civil rights movement because they knew that they were smoking grass and they were doing mushrooms.
02:00:54.000So they were going after them with these drug laws and then, you know, they would arrest one person and they would turn on everybody else and then, you know, they would do like mob tactics on people.
02:01:03.000And, you know, the whole thing, they just poured water on it.
02:01:06.000It took, you know, it took like 10 or 20 years before shit started popping again.
02:01:11.000You know, in terms of like the influence of psychedelic culture again.
02:01:18.000It's like the 2000s where things started happening again, where people started becoming more and more aware of the positive benefits of psychedelic drugs and altered states of consciousness, not trying to escape reality, but trying to get a grip on reality from a different perspective.
02:01:38.000That's an interesting, like, when I think about psychedelics in that regard of mind expansion or, you know, at the same time, it's like this uncontrolled situation that, like, okay, we're going to jump into this world, but there's no way to really control your lane.
02:02:33.000Not just like what you think of as hardcore psychedelics, but I've known quite a few people that have eaten edible marijuana and have blown fuses.
02:06:28.000You are causing all of your problems, but yet you never are self-critical.
02:06:35.000You're looking externally for all of your issues.
02:06:39.000You're criticizing everyone, but you are the architect of your own demise, and you don't even realize it.
02:06:45.000I think that is one of the biggest problems for why people are not finding their own success.
02:06:52.000Because they keep blaming other people for problems when they could use that same time to actually focus on a small success that's realistic in their trajectory or whatever they're doing.
02:07:03.000And I've seen that a lot with some people I know.
02:08:04.000Well, I think also for them, they see the success of other people, and they're like, they want to be that, but they're like, they obviously can't with...
02:08:15.000They just blame everyone that they can't be that person, right?
02:08:18.000Instead of just going, well, we've got to take these small baby steps to get out of this funk, and then eventually stop comparing yourself to other people, but compare yourself to yourself.
02:08:29.000Look at yourself critically, but I think another thing that's really important is to enjoy other people's success.
02:08:35.000Instead of being jealous, which is a really common, easy-to-understand thing, Sort of an emotional reaction to other people's success.
02:08:45.000The best way to look at it, in my opinion, the best way to look at it is look at someone else doing amazing things and go, fuck, this is amazing.
02:08:56.000You can use it as fuel in a positive way.
02:08:59.000And then, also, there's no negative feeling.
02:09:01.000That person doesn't have to feel like you're fucking giving them the sour face because you're jealous and bitter and weird and you're looking to be critical of them and find flaws in them.
02:12:43.000You shouldn't want to interrupt someone in the middle of a conversation, in the middle of a meal, in the middle of talking to their children.
02:12:49.000It's a foolish way to interact with them.
02:12:51.000I remember one time I was – You know, in a deep conversation, just like you're talking about with someone outside of a casino, about to leave.
02:14:02.000That's part of the problem with Vegas, too.
02:14:06.000They're at New Year's Eve level every night.
02:14:09.000You know, there's like a thing for New Year's Eve.
02:14:11.000I stopped doing shows a couple years ago on New Year's Eve because every time I would do them, I was like, why does everybody think it's okay to be an asshole tonight?
02:22:30.000But the crazy thing is his nose looked like the worst situation that you could possibly get in, and his nose now looks pretty normal, where the other guys' noses are just like that one guy with the bulge right by his eyebrows, and his nose is still curved to the right, and he's smiling like...
02:22:46.000You'd assume Mike Perry would have that kind of nose after that kind of situation.
02:24:30.000Well, maybe for someone that really understands how to do that.
02:24:34.000But like, you know, I wanted to get there and I just like, when I work out, I kind of work out just on being healthy and cardiovascular and just like, you know, just staying in shape.
02:24:45.000But I didn't, I never thought I'd get below 10%.
02:24:48.000You must have changed your diet pretty well.
02:24:50.000Cut out sugar, cut out bread, cut out pasta, all that stuff.
02:27:32.000And then I went to see Dr. Grossman, who kind of gave me my 22-page pack of my telomere links to cancer markers, if I have them, to what I'm allergic to, to what I'm deficient in.
02:27:46.000And then I followed that regimen of what the vitamins I was taking, some of which I still take.
02:30:00.000Laird Hamilton has this amazing machine out there that he gave us.
02:30:03.000We got one of the first machines, and he mixes coconut oil, coconut milk, turmeric, organic coffee, and it's fucking delicious, and it's actually very good for you.
02:30:51.000Yeah, but instead of getting blitz out of your mind and going into another dimension, you're taking just a little bit every day, just a little tiny bit, and it gives you this overwhelming feeling of operating at a very high function.
02:31:04.000It's a weird feeling, but that micro-dosing psilocybin thing is swept through the fighter community.
02:31:11.000There's a lot of fighters that are training while they're micro-dosing mushrooms.
02:32:16.000I mean, the best way to find out what it would be would be to grind it up so you know the exact ounces and then put it in a capsule and then figure it out.
02:32:25.000And I think that's what a lot of these guys are doing.
02:32:27.000It's just very unfortunate that that is a Schedule I drug.
02:33:22.000Some might be considered that way, but it's from my doctor that, you know, from what...
02:33:29.000I do enough research on the doctors and they tell me kind of what I should take and I go, okay, let's try this out and see if my performance increases.
02:33:43.000So I'll do it for like a month and I'll stop and I'll take a different like, you know, I have like two different routes of vitamins and I take a different route and see if that changes my patterns or how I'm, you know, what my performance is like.
02:33:56.000And I kind of like just experiment over and over again.
02:35:10.000He's not talking about doing some sort of incredible athletics that, you know, a rare few people can achieve.
02:35:16.000No, he's talking about concentrating on your breathing and understanding how you can inhale like deeper breaths and concentrate on the breath and that in doing so you're changing your physiological state and he's got a whole program that shows you how to do it correctly and it enhances your immune system and enhances your awareness and it's Wild shit,
02:36:12.000So I get whoever wants to join me, we do this group kind of...
02:36:17.000You know, huddle, we get in there, we come out, we do the breath work, hold our breath, you know, and it's a great way to get people together and experience something like that, too.
02:36:29.000The UFC Training Center, the Performance Institute in Vegas, has this hot bath right next to a cold plunge, and they have people going back and forth between the two.
02:39:36.000I don't think there's any evidence that he was ever really like that.
02:39:39.000But, you know, Tarantino sort of dug his heels in and sort of defended it.
02:39:44.000But I don't think he knows the culture because he's not a martial artist.
02:39:47.000I think he looked at Bruce Lee as sort of like...
02:39:52.000This historical figure that's, you know, kicking people's asses in movies.
02:39:58.000And I think to understand Bruce Lee the way you do or the way I do, where he was my childhood hero as well.
02:40:05.000It's like he's the guy that's really responsible for mixing martial arts.
02:40:11.000When you talk about mixed martial arts, like, all credit has to go to the Gracies because they're the ones who, you know, Helsing Gracie and Horian and Hoyce and Hickson and that family was responsible for really showing people jujitsu and also Horian invented the UFC. So without Horian and his contributions,
02:40:32.000we might not have ever known what we know today.
02:40:35.000But Bruce Lee was on that path a long time ago.
02:40:40.000He had figured out a long time ago that you've got to find what's useful in all different styles of martial arts.
02:40:56.000That's like one of the main things about Bruce Lee that I loved about him was his philosophy.
02:41:00.000He had a lot of things to say about life.
02:41:03.000The martial arts was one thing that's like what made him cool, made him such a badass, but it's his philosophy, the words behind all that, and how it can reflect on everyone.
02:41:31.000He's the, like, every, doesn't matter if you're black, white, brown, purple, yellow, whatever you are, you like, you have to honor, like, one of the greats.
02:42:42.000At least for me, I got the mirror room from End of the Dragon, but the mirror room scene is way more mirrors, like kind of in different degrees.
02:42:53.000Yeah, it was End of the Dragon, right?
02:42:58.000And for the time, those movies, you know, people don't like them or do like them.
02:43:02.000What's interesting about Bruce is the style of fighting in those movies, like jumping, flying kicks and all that stuff, that's not what he advocated at all.
02:43:09.000He did that purely for the cinematic value of it.
02:43:12.000He wanted to make it exciting and flashy.
02:43:26.000But what he did do was there was like two big bursts in martial arts and Bruce Lee was responsible in my opinion for the first.
02:43:35.000He was responsible for getting people excited about training martial arts and seeing this guy that could kick everybody's ass and like this guy was like he was quiet and humble but you know when it came time to throw down and take his shirt off and fuck everybody up.
02:43:51.000And then the next stage was the UFC. Those were like, in my lifetime, the two big, and really culturally, the two big leaps in martial arts was people getting into Bruce Lee because of getting into martial arts because of Bruce Lee movies.
02:44:04.000And then, of course, Chuck Norris movies.
02:44:06.000And then the next one was getting into martial arts because of the UFC. Right.
02:44:11.000So it was a bummer that they made him look like a dope.
02:45:22.000The real Bruce Lee is what's interesting and exciting to me.
02:45:26.000I mean, that's where, like, my record label, Dimock, it's, you know, you know what Dimock is.
02:45:31.000I mean, it's not necessarily tied to Bruce Lee, but it's my way of, like, you know, instead of calling it Bruce Lee Records, or I love Bruce Lee Records, I was like, well, this is this mysterious death touch.
02:45:46.000And, you know, there's, like I said, this mystery around that that's connected sort of to Bruce Lee.
02:45:52.000There's, yeah, it would be really interesting if there really was a dim mock, like a mysterious death touch, if it was real.
02:45:59.000But a lot of fucking people believe in it.
02:46:02.000Have you ever seen those videos on Instagram?
02:46:04.000When that old man goes tof, tof, tof, tof, tof.