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00:00Steve Aoki is here the global superstar deejay is known for his energetic and infectious sound. He's also known for his onstage antics that includes crowd surfing quaking and champagne showers . Fellow deejay Diplo says of a OK dance music doesn't really have a personality. Steve has an abundance of personality with more than 300 shows a year. He has been called the Hardest Working deejay in the industry. A new documentary on Netflix reveals a lesser known dimension of the entertainer. The story behind his self-made success. Here's the trailer for I'll Sleep When I'm dead . Performing your music and having that connection . That is the ultimate rush and the truest of addictions. Last year I cracked over 300 shows he's a machine man. Steve brought a rock n roll attitude to dance for me that didn't exist . I think that is motivated by whatever weird passion his father had his father's an insane person too . His dad was almost like a superhero to Steve a book will record hot air ballooning he didn't really know he's doing you just did it . Growing up it was always how do I impress my father . When he became a deejay he chuckled. I didn't know how to run a label. You'd always say you need to get a job. You need to do something with your life. I walked six seven hours a day . Venus comes number one and health comes number two and somebody comes into my city. I wanted to prove to him that I could be successful with music . I think it's about showing the Dow Jones I can upload the Aoki legacy . They said he was crazy a man with nine lives is dangerous to your competition because your 24/7 was that dangerous for the ISE himself . I just feel so lucky that I'm in this position now. I don't want to sleep on it . I'm pleased to have Steve Aoki at this table for the first time . Welcome and congratulations. It's good to have you . I met your father you know in York was the stomping ground. You know so it's like whenever I come here I think about him right . What was it. Was it the thing that sticks deepest in you is a sense of of the life he lived as a kind of sense that you know give it all you've got. I mean he instilled that in you know every every waking moment when I was around him you know as he was a business man that I knew. And he you know he his work ethic was was insane. He's always like drilling that into his kids he's always drilling them to me. But you had that same kind of work ethic right. Yeah I mean I I I feel like he he taught me by in a way he he instilled this idea that you have to do it on your own you can't I can't just hand things to you. And if I had things to you you're not gonna understand how to survive . So like if I if he was like hey you know this is my business very hard to want you follow in the footsteps then I might not learn the survival skills and the business ethos to really you know possibly run a company like that that scale. So instead he's like you guys figure out what you need to do with your lives. And when I decided it was going to be far different from what he expected then he was like OK this is this is not what I intended when I said you know step out on your own. And then I had to prove to myself and a lot of it to him that I can actually make it on my own. And at the tail end of his life I was able to show him that you know I could you know that I did I got to a place where he didn't have to worry about me. What about music was music a part of his life. No I really think so . I think it's funny because he star as a basis when he was in high school and I think he retired that because he didn't see a career path for him there. But when I picked it up when I picked up the guitar when I picked up the bass and started being in bands I thought that he would share an affinity with me. But at the time he's like Oh yeah I go I have fun with your you know your toys and you'll eventually grow and yeah you'll grow up to do something real. Yeah. And then he realized that this is the career path I wanted to choose. And knowing that you know when you're in these bands you're not making that much money. You know when you're starting a label at the time I started a label . You're just not making much money. So like he saw a short lifespan as far as where my career path is going to. Yeah. And just like any traditional Japanese parent he's like if you need it you need to wake up get her to get a real job a stable job and and you're not going to like it but you're just going to have to do that. You said once that if you weren't a deejay you'd be dreaming of life as a deejay what is the life of the deejay. I guess is life I'm living right now you know I mean I am doing where I listen to music and music. Exactly you know making music and playing your music and that's that's like . It's essentially the same thread that I was doing when I was in bands. It is it is it is it's a performance aspect of it that is most appealing to you. It's definitely the the end result . Yeah. You know you make this music so you can connect with people when you actually play it out and then you when you play into a global community you're playing all over the world and you get to see the impact it has from you know people in Spain to people and you know in El Salvador to Japan to Australia to all over Europe to America. It's incredible having this global connection and do you consider yourself an artist a musician a a deejay . What is it performance artist. I'd say it's like all of you . Bob Dylan is a performer musician. It's it's a creative right . It's just a. I mean a deejay kind of wraps up at all. What's the deal about throwing cakes at the audience. Well I'm move rewind back before then. Because there is a point in time when I wasn't doing any sort of activities on stage. And when I had the opportunity at Coachella 2009 to really have a stage show I really methodically thought about what I would be bringing to the stage and went through I got this song I'm going to be stage diving at this song I'm going to be bringing out these rafts in the crowd. Now I was thinking about new new ideas to bring this show to entertain the audience and and some of them. Some of them stuck. Some of them were like really popular. And then the kicking there was something I introduced in 2011 because every artist wants to bring a unique element to the show something that says hey that's a Steve Aoki right thing. I want to go see that show. I'll go. I want to I want to get kicked in the face. Yeah I want to ride in his raft or you know these kinds of things it's like What next. It's a defining act. Yeah . And it makes it unique and experiential because once again you go to the show you're experiencing it from auditory usually unselfconscious a and tell me how you think you changed electronic dance music. What did you bring to it that was not there. Or how did you make it become more of something. I definitely was part of a group of people that that brought a level of entertainment if you will right to the show as far as the live show. Brought a level of entertainment that that might have not been there before or just you know added a more cold expression do it in color. Yeah. Ten. And as far as the production side of things which is why people even come to the show in the first place because you have to have the music to to draw people there. My my goal is always to work outside of my my status quo world. I prefer to work with hip hop artists . I've worked with a country ise I'm working with you know singers that have not worked in this space and I really want to try to find new ways to reinvent this sound and not be so pigeonholed because the sound is changing and a lot of media is I mean like for one like medium or as art or top of the charts as far as what's out there in music chain smokers and Calvin Harris steadily always being number ones. It gives us more of a forum to think outside the box and not necessarily think is this just going to affect only the dance floor. Where do you think you are in that. I mean if Calvin Harris is where he is where are you. I don't really think about it in the scale of. Because like if I think like I need to write a number one hit so I can survive. I mean I've always survived without even having hits which is where I feel lucky because I have have a very healthy ecosystem that exists so my music survives in that world. But of course you know we can all dream to have songs that permeate culture and are listened to by millions and millions of people . I mean that's essentially the goal is that Woody Herman is social media to medium at least for me it's a big deal. You know it's like you get instant feedback and I mean not always good but I mean I love that feedback. The feedback is a really big part of the process. Where do you see the evolution of all this or are you just in the moment and that's it. I definitely like you know I like how everyone thinks about the five year plan. Yeah I guess not so much a plan. But you said you know it has its own momentum and and you know it's going somewhere it's headed somewhere. Yeah I mean it's that's the hardest thing to answer I think because I think that that question is always asked where is it going. Whereas our knees are going. I mean it's always fluctuating but it's never been bigger never been stronger never been more we listen to and perform. Exactly . There's art isn't it. It's moment is now right. And there's artists that you know like we said have reached the top of the charts so you we we at least have that as an outlet and as you know as like a ceiling which is the top. So that's incredible that we have that. You somebody is watching this show right now and they're saying to themselves what is electronic dance music . Is it simply what they say. It's electronic and it's dance and it's music. That's why EDF is such a great time for it . You know even though it's a very recent term really you know it's like maybe 5 6 years old as far as what it's been defined Yeah the words are very much what it is you know. It's basically about these producers mainly that produce electronic dance music and and then you know you you can you can merge with different genres and that's what's exciting now it's happening more and more as the bubble burst in America. The bubble actually in my opinion has burst to a point where there's like you know the level inflation existed maybe a few years ago and there was a huge influx of deejays coming in getting paid at it at a really high value and now it's simmering down to the economics of the business where we're especially like in Las Vegas is a perfect example where the deejays are being paid in proportion to what they're bringing to the table. So those terms of it in terms of like let's say like at a club I say the deejay is getting paid an exorbitant amount of money is is it being valued at the right price if the club is making more than that or less than that. So now is a lot of this in a sense you're saying a certain percentage of the gate. Yeah. So all of the deejays there's a certain ones that can exist in that in that system night after night. Yeah that that can bring in that amount and the rest are are being valued at the rate that there's a you know that the economic scale of the business. So there is like before it was just the influx of everyone coming in right and the hype was was there and now it's is leveling the playing field out there must be a whole on the whole bunch of people now seeing the economic success seeing the popularity who's saying this is what I want to do. Of course I want to be a deejay. That's the life I choose myself. Yeah. You know I don't want to be that's the kind of music I want to be. That was a common element to me when I was a kid. I want to be in a band and I do exactly you know and and I was happy getting paid twenty dollars playing for 15 people. I was always extremely happy about that . And this is like now I'm a deejay. Now I've been a deejay for 15 years. So it's it's you know and I see that as like this is the generation's choice of music. You know this is at least you know wherever I play I feel that kind of gravitational pull is a lot of a lot of the youth coming into the scene becoming young producers young deejays and they really have a strong voice . Some of them are the strongest. Like Martin Garrick says who's really young and in the game he's been deejay since he was nine years old. Yeah and and he's one of the most influential voices in the whole ecosystem in terms of simply what he does is where the where the business is going. Yeah. He's also part of the future of the business because he I mean once again it's about the connection you have with your fans. People really connect with him you know. I think also because of the age and because he writes and produces incredible music you combine the two . And so it's like exponential you know when one plus one equals ten guys and your father said Well I think one said his priorities were work family and then health work health and family . The first time I heard that was when I watched this film. But I'm not that's not foreign to me. That's not knowing you can do the same. I mean that's what that's that's what I grew up under . That's the that's the Iraqi album say that in the film. You knew that because you'd lived that. Yeah like I had like when I watched that most people would probably be mouth dropped me I was I was like kind of like giggling like that's what he would say you know this is of course is a very rocky Awlaki saying style you know. And and that's what he you know I mean he he drove that into everyone that was around him you know work as no one would criticism bothers you the most . Well I mean for what I love what I do I care about so deeply so when people you know try on that. That's that's what hurts. You know that they like say like I don't I don't deejay I don't produce I don't do this I don't do that try to cut me down in that way . When I worked hard and I and I I worked hard to get to this point. That's what hurts to not get the full credit that you think you deserve. Yeah. When especially when people. Yeah exactly. You know at the end of day the way I see is I just keep doing more and that you know makes me feel like it gives me a sense of a you know like my ethos of you know as if people were talking like what you were I'll say if you if people are hating or criticizing your work you just create more work . The idea for the documentary I'll sleep when I'm dead your title . I'm not entirely sure if it's it's death. I mean I tattooed it on my neck. It's definitely not all mine in a visible place behind it's right here it's like you know when you sleep you sleep but where do you want to be. Next year we come back and do another interview at this table. A year from now how will it be different. I would love to do that. I have I've been you know just like just like my my previous projects and future of it. The third one coming and I'm working on that album and I'm actually starting to write a book of this. So you get a documentary that book and then you continue to perform 300 nights out of 365. My magical number now is to two twenty two twenty two or twenty is like what I like to hover around that number because 300 was excessive. So I'm just I'm that like a load to hundreds as a comfortable place right before I go. We just talked about this. I love the fact that this isn't an LP you have not seen this before. It's my first time seeing the physical copy of that. Yeah. So having you holding it you know it's a special moment to have you all the physical product that I've been staring at on a computer screen. I can't wait to go back home and play it. So tell me about it. Neon Future RTS and future RTS is a collection of both my first two albums with selected new tracks and Neon Future is my obsession and fascination with future science. So that's why I'm Ray Kurzweil . Oh yes he's in. He's speaking on it with J.J. Abrams right . You know and and Kip Thorne who's a huge astrophysicist as well as all Rita Gray who wrote a book called Ending aging race . It's great to see you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us . See you next time .

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DJ Steve Aoki: Charlie Rose

With more than 300 shows a year, global superstar DJ Steve Aoki has been called the hardest working DJ in the industry. A new documentary on Netflix, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," reveals a lesser known dimension of the entertainer: the story behind his self-made success. (Source: Bloomberg)

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