Transcript of Steve Aoki

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard, and I'm joined by Monica Lily Padman. Hello. Today we have one of the biggest DJs to ever live. Yeah, Steve Aoki. He is a Grammy-nominated DJ and record producer. His albums are Neon Future, Wonderland, Colony with a K like Krispy Kreme.

That's right.

Quantum Beats. Cool. And he's celebrating, as he should, the 30th anniversary of his record label. Dim Mak.

Yes.

And guys, if you're like me and you think, well, I'm not terribly interested in DJing, it doesn't matter. Steve is such a fascinating guy.

What an incredible story he has, work ethic, the whole thing is just a fun ride.

Legendary father. Oh, such a good episode. Um, I really loved him. I think you're going to too. Please enjoy Steve Aoki. From Henderson.

From Henderson.

Yeah.

My father-in-law lives in Henderson.

Oh, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's surprising how many people I know say they have someone in Henderson. You know, they call it Henderson.

That was a common thing in Michigan, too. Like, people would deride Taylor, Michigan. They called it Taylor Tucky. There are a lot of— you really just got to feel bad for Kentucky. Kentucky.

They're getting used as a punchline in all these.

Other cities. Yeah. How long have you lived in Henderson?

I am from L.A. Newport. Yeah, Newport. Yeah, Santa Barbara, then L.A., then moved to Vegas, moved to Henderson, and I bought the house in 2013.

Okay, so 13 years there.

Yeah. Then I moved there in like end of 2015. My residency is in Vegas.

Okay.

Residency as in like my DJ residency. So I was playing there every month.

That makes sense. I was like, why would you go there? But that makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you're always working in Hollywood or L.A. and you're going to be in LA if you're an actor, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you're a DJ, I mean, I have 50 shows a year there, so.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean, you could live anywhere. How many days do you think you're home a year?

Well, I do 200 shows a year. 200?

Yeah, 200. You go on vacations and shit, right?

Vacation is kind of tour.

You'll just extend on either end of a show, maybe a day.

Okay, sounds like you don't really vacation.

Honestly, the vacation for me is being home. Yeah, right, because there's nothing better. I don't care to be on a deserted island or something.

Yeah, I I gotta tell you about the suspicious timing of you coming today. So a month ago, my daughter turned 13 and I was taking her to Disneyland for like the weekend. And I said, is there anything special you wanna do? And she said, yeah, I wanna eat at Benihana. And I'm like, oh my God, that's great. I love Benihana. I'm not even sure how she knew about Benihana. But anyways, we go to Benihana in Anaheim, right? And I'm looking at the wall inside of Benihana And I'm like, hold on a second. Fucking Benihana was sponsoring offshore raceboats. Yeah, I'm super into boats and all racing. So I was mesmerized by these photos of the Benihana racing boat and I was like, that's such a weird thing for them to sponsor as a restaurant. And then I'm fucking reading about Steve. His father is Rocky Aoki, started Benihana and raced. Sorry, I said Aoki. I didn't say your last name right. It's coming out.

It is the American way.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I mean, if you're in Japan, it's Aoki. If you're in Mexico, it's Aoki. If you're in, in England, it's Aoki.

Okay. So we can get away with Aoki.

But we gotta do, first of all, what was your relationship with your father? Do you like talking about him?

I love talking about my father. I mean, he's a legend for me.

No, he's a legend.

But like, I love to bring up his name because the people that really knew him.

Yeah.

Are older than us, you have to be like 55 and up. And then you knew, you heard about him because he did have an impact in the '80s. He's crazy. Yeah, he was the Evel Knievel of restaurateurs for sure.

Okay, so let's start. He's from Japan.

Yeah, he's from Japan.

And he was a wrestler there.

He was a wrestler. He went to the US. I think he was wrestling for the Olympics on the Japanese team or something. You know, he's a high-level wrestler, came to the United States. And then this is where it gets kind of blurry. He came out there for some reason, I think some wrestling thing, hurt himself, couldn't wrestle for Japan, and then stayed in New York. That part, I don't know the exact storyline, but he then came to New York.

Did he speak any English? No.

No. It's 1961. So 1961, he came to New York. It was difficult for, for Asian immigrants.

You're in the least friendly city in America not speaking the language. Yeah. I mean, it's got to be a challenge.

Like, in his book, he does talk about, like, living in Harlem and being broke and trying to figure things out. He had an ice cream truck. Uh-huh. He was like, okay, you know what? I'm a wrestler, so I'm going to paint a Japanese wrestler on the side of this ice cream truck.

See what we get.

Try to run Haru Love, try to sell ice cream. And it just didn't really work out.

What a cool guy.

And then he was taking classes for restaurant management at some small college. He also won like a flyweight wrestling division. Like, he also was a really successful wrestler.

And then he was like, let's start this restaurant idea. And his father, my grandfather, had the original Benihana's was in Japan. Oh, it was? Yeah. Benihana means it's a flower. Basically named it after a flower that grew outside of the rubble of post-World War II.

Yeah.

Next to his cafe. And it's like this resilient flower, this red flower that just grows through anything. And then it's like, okay, let's call this— it wasn't a restaurant, a cafe. Benihana.

And it wasn't like hibachi grill type cafe. No, no, no.

It was like a small humble cafe. Cafe, and grandfather really helped him. He brought the chefs over, he brought the hibachi grills over.

It starts with 4 grills, right, in the restaurant.

And the idea to like cook in front of people— yeah, yeah, that's actually interestingly enough, that's not a Japanese concept.

They don't do that there.

They don't do that. So that's very much an American-born concept.

Where did he get that idea?

I don't know where he got the idea.

He's a showman of some sort.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, say that because no one really did that there's no inventions, not like he invented it, but like definitely founded this idea of eatertainment.

Yeah, eatertainment. Already conceptually out of the gates, there's problems. You cannot have huge turnover. In concept, I can see someone going, well, how is this going to work? You only have 4 tables and they got to cook at the table so they can't be cooking for other people.

On top of that, Japanese food in the '60s, they only serve Japanese people. Yeah, like the little, like, immigrant cultures, right? So you, if you want any Chinese food, you have to go to Chinatown, and you're going to be eating with Chinese people. It's not made for Westerners, right?

Right, right.

So when they opened Benihana's, they opened in like a Western white New York, 56th Street or something like that. Yeah, yeah, 56th Street. So what my father was thinking was like, well, I want to try to break this open. Yeah, to Americans, not to Japanese people. This isn't a Japanese concept. Japanese people won't adopt this. They don't like They don't like— they want traditional Japanese food. It's not Benihana's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it was struggling because it was a completely foreign concept. Yeah. And it almost didn't work. Sure. The first phase of it was almost a complete failure up until this one New York Times writer.

Back in the days when you could make a restaurant with one review.

Yeah, from one review.

Oh.

And she came in and ate there and was blown away. And then she wrote this incredible review. And then Wow. Business picked up and sustainable.

Yeah. And when did he start franchising it and building it out?

This is 1964. He started it, I think in the '70s it just took off.

Okay.

He was privately scaling it out. Yeah. I think it's like late '70s or early '80s is when he went public.

It was a publicly traded company.

Yeah. At some point went public.

So he probably got absurdly rich overnight, kind of from that public offering.

Then he became like an employee of the company. But in the '70s when it was his company, he's like, okay, I'm going to do the offshore boat. I want to do all the stuff I want to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm just going to tag Benny Hana on the side of the boat.

So it's all right.

I'm going to tag Benny Hana on the side of the hot air balloon.

His father is the first person to fly a hot air balloon across the Pacific.

Oh my God. And it did say Benny Hana on the—

Yeah, it would be like his face on the balloon. Like the guy was like a marketing man.

Like, yeah, he was the Mickey Mouse of Benny Hana.

He really— he was like Colonel Sanders.

Yeah, Colonel Sanders. Dave Thomas from Wendy's. Yeah, he definitely marketed himself.

Really well, and he was never afraid to be in front of a microphone, never afraid to talk to people, never afraid to be in an interview.

Yeah. How inspiring.

Yeah. And for Japanese people, which are known to be more like, keep your head down, don't make a ruckus, don't make noise. He was the complete opposite. He adopted like this American mindset of showmanship. A very incredible story.

So what he was doing, I mean, he's a thrill seeker. This whole hot air balloon across the Pacific is nuts. The fact that no one had done it and he does that and then And the offshore racing was serious. Like, he almost died in San Francisco under the Golden Gate Bridge. He started a porno magazine.

He did. Yeah. So he did. I guess he started Genesis Magazine, actually sold to Larry Flynt.

Okay. Yeah. 40 years this magazine was around.

Yeah. He had a club.

He was trying to be like Japanese Hugh Hefner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was married to my mom, but then had a whole other family.

There's a quote from him saying he had 3 children from 3 different women at the exact same time.

Oh wow.

Yeah. So there's that story too.

Okay. Didn't age, didn't age great, but in the '70s it sounded great.

I guess you don't get that type of person without that type of— No.

Yeah. He, yeah, he kind of did it all. It was like a no rules. I'm just gonna do whatever I want.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you have like a million brothers and sisters that you do or don't know?

There's 7 siblings from my father's side and honestly we're all very close.

Okay.

Oh, that's lovely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we'll do family get-togethers with all of us. Now we're in our 40s. Soon to be 50s. Let's be honest. I don't want to say that.

I don't want to say that.

I'm like, thank God music keeps me young at heart, you know? And my longevity and stuff like that is important.

What a character. And how present was he? I mean, he sounds very busy. He had a lot of shit going on.

He was definitely present though.

He was. So when they go public, he's got some cash. He's like, let's go live it up in Newport.

The crazy part of the story is, and this is very public, is that he had a major boat accident, came out of a coma. And that's when he woke up to my mom on one side and to his girlfriend. Okay. I don't know if I was born yet, so I think mom and my older brother and sister and his girlfriend and my brother. Oh, my half brother. Her son.

News to your mom or she already knew? Oh, shit, dude. This is out of a movie. You wake out of a coma and all your secrets are revealed.

He's just like, I want to go back into my coma now, please.

Yeah.

Like, oh, I wish I died.

Yeah. You know, this is pre-social media.

Everyone's His life was a fucking mess, but no one knew.

Eventually my mom did divorce and then she moved from Miami where I was born.

Great boat racing down there. You got to be in Miami.

Yeah. And also Benihana headquarters moved to Florida.

Oh, okay.

So you moved?

I was 1. So my mom moved to Newport and then I grew up in Newport. Wasn't born there, but really I'm a Newport born and not born, but raised there.

Yeah. 1 to 17. Yeah. So did he stay in Florida? Like, how often were you seeing him?

He had a place in Florida. He was really New York. He could not leave New York. He was a New York guy.

It sounds like his arousal template, what he needed to be alive, he could only exist in New York.

Yeah, Florida's too small.

He needs a lot of stimuli.

He's not a Floridian. He is not a Floridian. He is a New Yorker through and through. He had a brownstone when he was living on 63rd for this last part of his life. But he was in New Jersey, 30 minutes outside of New York City. When I was young, that's where I would go visit.

You would go visit him in the summer.

In Inglewood. And that's where you can get acres of land and a big house. I was surprised. I don't think the house was that extraordinarily expensive in the '80s.

It's a different price point, probably a $380,000 house.

It was something ridiculous, like less than $1 million, and you have all these acres, you have tennis court, you have a big Victorian-style house. Yeah, kind of creepy, not something I was excited to be in at night, you know, scary, ghosty.

Now I know you love Bruce Lee. There's weird parallels here. Bruce Lee was breaking the mold. He was this fucking sexy dude. He was in San Francisco being cool. Yeah, and in the '60s, right?

Yeah, I guess so, right? '60s, because he passed away in '77, I think.

Okay, your dad never met him by chance, did he? Running in these fun circles?

You know, he met a lot of people. He loved being out, so he's definitely extrovert, socialite guy.

Is he a drinker?

Not so much.

Oh, interesting.

Not so much. Yeah, my grandfather was a drinker. My father wasn't. He had a whole book on sake and stuff like that, you know, it's a connoisseur of Japanese food, but I never actually experienced him drunk. So I never saw him drunk.

Yeah, from a child in the '70s.

Well, he was getting high on other things, clearly. Like, yeah, he's doing all right.

6-foot wave. Dopamine on life for sure. Yeah, he is friends with a lot of people in the art world, the club world.

He also needs to be said, he visibly looks like a stud. You can tell there's a dude who wrestled. Like, he is a stud.

I mean, he's stocky, short. He's a perfect wrestler type because he's not tall and lanky. Good luck with that. Take him down.

Okay, so in Newport '78 onward, I mean, for people who haven't been to Newport, it is like blonde chads who go surfing and skateboarding, and it just couldn't whiter and blonder.

I always joke about this because my mom, who is through and through a very Japanese immigrant, speaks broken English, moved to the whitest neighborhood in Orange County when 10 minutes away is Irvine. It's like majority is—

yeah, yeah, she could have been in Alhambra. She could have been— yeah, numerous, literally nice enclaves.

It's like she could be in a Japanese community.

She could have spoke Japanese all day. Yeah, yeah.

But she moved to Newport. We always kind of laugh about that. You know, in the end, I'm And I'm glad that she did do that for me because being a fish out of water in many cases when you're younger, you know, it's just different, you know, being an immigrant, very different life than when you're an adult. You get to really experience racism or you get to really experience feeling left out at the loudest levels.

Yeah. At your most insecure, you know who you are.

And then you're also so impressionable. You're so vulnerable. You're so like emotional. You're so confused.

There's multiple factors. A, you've gotten older and you've found success and status. That's going to change what you deal with. But also just being Japanese in 1978 versus now is a much different thing in the US.

Yeah, definitely. You know, social media is almost like an educational tool for so many kids just to go like, oh yeah, I shouldn't say that, right? I shouldn't do that. Like, the social norms are, if I do that, I will get canceled, so therefore I should not do that.

Yes.

Back then it was like, no, oh, the social norm to not do this.

Also, we got a really big education on Japan in the early '90s when Japan was really rising. Rising to economic dominance, and there were now movies about it. Some of the culture was coming in this direction. I also just think the general understanding—

there's the kids now that love anime and manga and like Japanese cultural stuff that's like cool.

And the food— everyone eats Japanese.

Yeah, exactly.

Everyone's been to fucking Benihana. Your father is like— your father's weirdly part of that movement.

Cool.

Yeah, I mean, he miseducated us. I was like, cool, this is how they cook in Japan.

That's another funny thing is that Benihana is more American than Japanese and people don't realize it. The cooking and the showmanship, the hats, that's a French style hat, right? Yeah. So there's a lot of interesting things that my grandfather was like, oh, we want the red French style hats because they're louder.

They catch shrimp better when you flick it in the air.

Yeah, exactly.

But it's smart because he was trying to get Americans in, so he has to visually make it appealing to Americans. You don't want to push them away if they walk in, they're like, I don't know, I don't recognize anything in here, I'm leaving.

Well, the only offering was the food and it was good. I love Benihana, but if that was the only offering, it's not becoming some big national— yeah, sensation.

Just going back to what you're saying about your daughter's— like, it's a birthday thing. Yeah, yeah, it's like every kid's birthday spot. Okay, it's my birthday, let's do Benihana. It's just kind of like part of normal conversation now when you're a kid. Yes, it's cool that it's become that. I forgot what the statistic is. I used to work at Benihana when I was a teenager. I think it's like 70% birthdays or something. Something like— I don't know what the percentage is, but it's a large percentage.

You get any fluff off of people knowing you are associated with Benihana? Did that provide anything, cultural capital?

For me coming up as an artist, no.

No, I mean as like a kid on the playground.

Oh, oh, no, no, not really.

No, no.

I mean, my close friends would be like, yo, can we eat at Benihana?

Is it your birthday?

Yeah, but not, not really.

So how did you do in elementary and in middle school, and how'd you find your way?

Like, when I grew up, when I was first through fourth, fifth grade, for a period of time I was one of have 3 boys in my class.

Whoa.

Usually that's a good thing.

Yeah, exactly.

But like, when you're a kid, if the 2 guys don't like you, you're kind of screwed. Yeah.

Oh, so in your school there was only 3 boys in your class? Oh, that's so bizarre. Was it a private school?

I hopped around because I just could not make friends. So my mom was like, okay, let's try this school, let's try the school. I had bad socialization. Like, I could not figure it out.

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's be fair, it wasn't your fault. I don't think it was being offered to you to figure out.

It was really tough to make friends.

So what was the inroad? Like, for a lot of kids, it's skateboarding or it's smoking weed, or, you know, you find a little niche you can cement yourself.

Yeah, yeah. So the interesting thing that I saw is that I went to public and Catholic or Christian. The Catholic and Christian private were the most difficult. My grades were the worst. My socialization there was horrible. One thing I recognized, when you're an outsider, the teachers all recognize that, and you just get sent to the principal's office all the time.

Oh really?

It's like easy to pick on the guy that everyone doesn't like. There's something wrong with this kid. No No one likes this kid. Okay, just go to the prison. And then I would just get spanked and like, oh God, back then I would get— oh man, it was horrible, the spank with the big old holes in the paddle. I just hated—

oh, that's brutal.

And my mom would have to pull me out. I was like failing in these classes. And I loved being in public schools in Newport because also public schools in Newport is going to be different than other places too, but it was still pretty brutal sometimes.

It's the dude who himself got shit on by another echelon of popular kids that decides he's got to find someone to shit on. So you're just going to be next.

My mom put me in school early.

Oh boy.

So I was one year younger. No, that's not the move. So I'm physically smaller and that doesn't help. No.

Would you ever— I was curious when I was learning about your dad, I was thinking of kind of the pressure when you have a dad like that. I don't even know, but if you ever shared with your father the challenges, I would assume his response would be like, yeah, get tough. Yeah. Like I did.

You know what's interesting? Ever shared that stuff with him. You didn't? Because he's not one to listen to that. He always wants to hear the good things. So I'd always have to tell him the good things. I would never tell him the bad things ever.

Yeah, yeah.

I would never like complain to him. One of the things I learned growing up, let's say I got hurt and I went to the hospital. The first thing I would hear from my dad when I see him is, I had to pay for that. Like, stop getting hurt.

Oh my God.

Okay. Like, why do you always go to the hospital? What's wrong? You're not hurt. You can't really say the bad stuff. I always want to try to impress him. I think with him, he has a lot of kids, so we're always trying to compete for his attention. Even, you know, when we were like children to adolescent to like adults, my late 20s, when I finally was like, I'm actually making money on my own. Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to share that with him immediately.

Yeah, of course, of course. Your siblings were older I'm kind of in the middle, but from my mom. Yeah, from your mom you were living with.

I felt like an only child because my mom's kids, they're 10 and 11.

Oh, years old, way older than you.

So by the time I was 8, they were already out of the house. Okay, so from 8 to 17, I was like an only child there.

Who welcomed you in in high school? Like, what ended up being your niche?

Like you said, skateboarding and punk and hardcore music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that changed my life.

Saved your life, maybe.

Yeah, it really was like like 13, 14-year-old age, that's when the clay gets molded.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My son's 9 months. When he's 10, 11, 12, I'm gonna make sure that like we set him in a really good clay molding environment, environment, because that's a really important age.

Well, you start becoming aware of, oh, people have identities, I've got to pick one.

Yeah, exactly.

And what one feels natural to me, which one will I be accepted in.

Most of the time it's sports.

Yeah, right.

If you're not a rock, you're like, all right, yeah, I tried the sports, I tried all that, it wasn't working. And then it's always peers. Peers have so much influence. Yes. So when I went with these kids to a show— we're skating and going to shows, that's what we did, that was my life— yeah. And then you see other kids, like, they're your age and they're like screaming around and like thrashing guitars, and they're like not on a stage, they're right here.

They also have all been shit on in school, so there's like a beautiful bonding, and they're singing about it. Yes.

Yeah, I relate I relate to all this stuff. Yes, I am that same kid up there. Yeah, yeah. You're like, the barrier of entry to be that kid is actually right there.

And they're not that good. That's another thing I try to tell. Yes. The great thing about punk music is like, you go to a show and you're like, I don't know, I think in a few months I'd be able to play drums as good as this guy. That's what I did.

That's exactly— that's why I love punk, because then I was like, I don't know how to sing, I don't know how to play any instruments. My friends that we were going were like, we don't know, let's just figure it out. Yeah, we know a guy knows how to play drums. That's the most important guy you 'Cause that's the most technically skilled thing that you need to have is a drummer that knows how to keep a beat.

Keep time. Yeah.

Yeah. And we found a drummer and, hey, we'll bring him to the shows and get him inspired. I'm like, can we try to do this in your garage? Yeah. And he lived off the street from me. And then I would just go there after school every day and practice and learn how to play bass, guitar, drums. And I was like singing. I didn't know how to sing. I was like, we're just fucking around. That was the start of my music career. Music journey. And it's like this rough and tumble, like you could just show up. Yeah, yeah, wake up out of bed and whatever and then just do it. That's the cool thing.

To care would be uncool. You're buffeted from any failure.

It's such a great entry point for creativity. It allows you to feel like you can become something. And then when I did that with my friends, we were like messing around and we're like playing in living rooms, which was a start. Then everything opened up, this idea like, I think I can do it all, whatever is exciting to me. Then we started writing in a zine. We go with my friends to Kinko's making a little poetry and cutting up a little fun, like, you know, ransom note letters and making poetry out of them, making zines and passing out to friends and silk-screening t-shirts. Like, everything was like, oh, this is all doable. We could actually make a business doing that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I think when people that weren't in that culture, they just see a mosh pit, they're like, oh, these kids are crazy. But it's like, yes, everyone did zines. We all made collages.

Wait, sorry, what's a zine?

It's like a handmade magazine magazine that you're making at Kinko's.

You're like, yeah, you're going up to Kinko's.

Kinko's was a spot.

So like, you're figuring out how to rip off Kinko's.

Yeah, I figured that out. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you remember, like, they had those big rectangular blocks you stick in there and you have the card copy. It's like 1, 2, 3, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you go, you make all your copies, right? So you do like 1,000 copies, which is a lot of money. Yeah, a few cents a copy. Then you take that, you go to the bathroom with it. Yeah, you smash it, it goes to like a million. And then you go to the front, your friend takes like the 1,000 runs out to the store. It's like, I only made like 10 coffee. I was doing zines all the way through college. We had a friend, my roommate, he worked there, so he's— I would just bring it to him. He's like, okay, here's like 5 cents.

We also all had this little device that you would put on a payphone so you could get free calls. That was like everyone in the punk rock world in Detroit had these. When you drop a quarter in there, it makes a digital noise, and that's actually what puts the credit on the phone. So we all had these little things from Radio Shack, and you'd pick up the thing and you'd like put like $3 worth of coins on it. Oh, that sounds so cool. Yeah. All kinds of like mildly, gently illegal stuff happening. It's so fun.

Yeah, another fun illegal activity I did when I was a kid was sneaking in movie theaters.

Sure, we did all do that.

That was always fun.

Yeah, I was always scared.

That was like one of my favorite.

Well, you had multiplexes in Newport, so you could probably go in and bang out 6 movies.

We love doing that. The way I do it, I don't know if, you know, if you could talk about this, but it's kind of wholesome.

It is.

Yeah, but you go in. First of all, in order to get in, you say like, oh, I left my wallet inside the theater. So they let you in, you go in the theater, then you go through the back. I had a belt or a shoe, put the shoe in through the exit door, leave the door open. Then you have to go down a whole flight of stairs. This is at Edwards Cinemas in Triangle Square. And then you go to the bottom where it opens out to the street, and then you let in like 6 of your friends. Oh, perfect. Then you go out to the front, like, got my wallet, thank you. And then you go around, and then you go around the back, and then once you're in, then you can watch like however many movies.

Just keep it going.

Okay, wow.

Yeah, let it ride.

We would just buy one ticket and then see like 8. We did pay for one.

For one, you got buy one, get 8 free.

That would be the solution if you didn't want to pay.

Yeah, exactly.

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I'm surprised, to be honest, I got in. I applied to like every UC school. I got rejected to every school.

You didn't get accepted at UC Santa Cruz?

Nope. My GPA was 3.1.

That's pretty good.

Not horrible for UC. Well, not for UC, but in general, like UC Santa Barbara, I don't think you can get in now unless you're 4.0++. Yeah. So I was like, I got in. I think they had to let me into one of the UC schools. Okay.

Like, all of them.

Yeah. Like, I just got lucky.

Talk.

Yeah.

Just for the listener, I would say, I can imagine if you're a listener you're in Milwaukee right now, you're like, they wanted diversity and they wanted you in there. But you should know, in '95, already all the UCs are already predominantly Asian. They didn't need Asians.

That's true. In '95, that's still a question in my head, like, how did I get in? I think it's like, it has to be because they had to let me into one UC school because I'm from California. Yeah. And they have preferential treatment to California residents.

You're a little weighted. Yeah, I think that's part of it because I went to UCLA in '98, and at that time it was 39% Asian and 31% white. And there's no way they—

yeah, affirmative action.

Yeah, I don't think that was the case.

Yeah, I did write in my newspaper thing, I was like, I think affirmative action helped me get into school. But then I was like, but there's so many Asians here.

Yeah, I don't think—

I don't know.

So here's where you and I could have potentially met in real life, which is I graduated high school in '93. I went on a road trip for a year with my best friend, and we ended up in Isla Isla Vista for like 4 months, just living in people's dorm rooms and on El Playa, some friend's house, just couch surfing for months. The most mind-blowing place imaginable if you're from Detroit. It's like this college is on an ocean. The first party we went to on our first night there was like these dudes living on a cliff with the ocean in the backyard. An infamous Isla Vista for these insane parties, right? Halloween is just this enormous party. Tens of thousands of people come. It's a wild, exciting place. I then went back to Detroit, and then I moved to Santa Barbara in '95 when you started at UCSB.

Wow.

But I was living downtown on Bath Street, like right next to State. Yeah, but I would go to Ivy. Yeah, occasionally.

Like, there's a house party at every other house. When they designed Isla Vista, I don't think they realized what was coming. Yeah, what kind of chaos.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You put a bunch of 18-year-old kids in a bunch of houses on the ocean. Yeah. It's almost like anarchy. You do what you want. Yeah, they're throwing parties every night. I didn't want to leave, actually.

Yeah, I'm sure.

So when I graduated in 2000, I was so embedded in that little world. I was kind of a king of a castle.

You start this record label.

Yeah, so I started my label, but really that was a byproduct of being in this hardcore punk world. We would just put on shows in my living room, which was the size of this room here.

Yeah.

And you were in student housing?

So the first year I was in student housing, and then the next year I lived in a vegan co-op, typical for a straight edge hardcore kid.

Yeah, okay, okay.

I'm vegan.

And you're not drinking?

Yeah, that's another interesting dichotomy because I'm living in Isla Vista with the party capital, one of the biggest party schools because of Isla Vista in the United States, and I'm straight edge, like no drugs, no drinking. But there's a really small but strong and present straight edge hardcore scene in Isla Vista, Santa Barbara, that the whole hardcore community knew about.

Oh wow, okay.

Mainly because of this label, zine distribution company called Ebullition and Heart Attack. They're publishing their zine from there, and they had a record label that was putting out all those kinds of bands from there. So when I went to school there, I was more excited to be close to this label.

Yeah.

And to be going to school at UCSB, actually, that was the most excited kid in me. I was like, I want to intern for them. And I ended up writing for the zine for 7 years.

Wow.

Everything for free. And you would never wish to get paid because you care so deeply about this, you know? Yeah. And I just wanted to contribute, like helping put on the shows and writing reviews for the bands, and eventually starting my label, which requires no capital, by the way. That's the interesting thing. That's—

most people think it's called Dim Mak.

Yeah, Dim Mak.

And how's that related to Bruce Lee? I know it's a nod somehow.

Yeah, when I was coming up with this label idea, I'm like, what is that thing that represents me in a, like, symbolic way that's cool? I love Bruce Lee, so I was like, oh, Dim Mak is a Chinese death touch. It's like a martial art move where you touch someone. It's like a mysterious thing.

It You can die like 2 days later sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But Bruce Lee was like known to harness it, and he mysteriously died of a brain hemorrhage. So some may say he was killed by it. Yeah. So I was like, there's like that mystery. I'm like, that's cool. Yeah, I love it.

By the way, did you ever buckle? Because I just tell you, my best friend Aaron and I, we lived in a punk house. This band Current that was huge in Detroit.

I love Current.

You know Current?

I love Current.

My cousin Justin was the bass player. Yeah, the greatest.

Wow. Council Records.

Yeah, Council Records.

Ottawa. Jihad. Yes, that was my world. That's the real screamo emo.

Yes, pre-emo.

Yeah, because people, when they think about emo, they think about, you know, the produced emo. Yeah, Sunny Day Real Estate. Yeah, yeah, but like, yeah, the Ordination of Aaron. I don't know if you know.

Oh yep, saw them play many times. All these bands stayed at our house. So we're in Detroit, in Dearborn, and I'm living with half—

oh my God, I love all those bands.

Yeah, they're the greatest.

Right.

I never got to see Jawbreaker.

I love Jawbreaker.

Oh my God, we could geek out forever.

We could go down a music tangent.

Yeah, Shutter to Think.

Shutter to Think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, at some point I would love for you to see my vinyl collection.

Yeah, I would love to see.

Thanks for that.

Absolutely. I'd love to invite you both to my house. Okay. I pick up these records. Of Constantine Zancotti and that era. I love it.

Aaron and I move into this house. Half the band lives there. Bands are sleeping at our house every single weekend because they're in town playing shows. So just like every great band. And Aaron and I are drinking 40s and eating steaks and everyone else is straight edge and vegan. But over time we fucked them up and they started drinking. So I think we won. So I'm wondering, did you ever buckle and when did you start drinking? Because that was a big deal back then.

Oh, it was. Yeah. So I was straight edge all the way until about 2002.

Oh wow.

Last year before I left Santa Barbara, I was living in another vegan co-op called BeCo Co-op, and we would put on shows there. This is post-Pickle Patch where I had 400 bands play in my little apartment there. So anyways, I moved to that house because I got kicked out of that apartment.

Oh, shockingly.

Yeah, yeah.

This band came in town that I was signed to my label called Kill Sadie. They're from Minnesota. Anyways, they came over and then like I was really close with them and those boys got me into drinking.

Sure, sure.

I mean, at that point I'm like, why am I straight?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm 21 now.

22 or whatever age I was. I'm like, 22, I'm like, like, what am I doing? Questioning everything. Like, I'm not putting X's on my hands, like, all the— I'm not going to hardcore shows really anymore. I'm like, okay, let's do this again.

Well, you see how fun it is.

Yeah. And everyone's drinking, they're all my friends. That's like, you know, you have the nice bonding. Drinking is a bonding thing.

Sure is.

Sure is.

The most important part, the bond.

This is fun.

Yeah, I love these guys.

Why is straight up— is it like you want to keep your clarity? What is it like? Why?

My understanding of it is basically you have like the godfather of all of this, the Michael Jackson of punk, is Ian McKay, who had Minor Threat.

Yeah, absolutely. Discord Records.

Yeah, Discord Records, which put out all the greatest punk bands.

All DC, they were the first—

like, they had real good musicianship. You would have heard of Fugazi. That was his next band, Fugazi.

Yeah.

And so he was very vocal locally progressive. He was like into women's rights, he was into living a clean life, and he proselytized. And I think it all fell from him.

No, yeah, it really did. So like in the '80s, when Minor Threat was around, this is the early '80s, punk music was the opposite.

It was skinheads and racist.

Yeah, there's a lot of that, but there's a lot of nihilism. Like, I don't care, I'm gonna get drunk, I'm gonna do lots of drugs and just say fuck everyone. And there's like this negative energy of like, fuck the world. Yeah, which is all British.

That's That's all comes from London.

Yeah, it's like kind of like really angry energy. And then Ian's like, hey, we could be punk and rebellious against things that are controlling us, but let's have this attitude of the opposite. Unfuck the world. Yeah, okay, positive mental attitude.

Help people at shows. Someone falls down, help them up. Community.

Yeah, exactly. Then it's like, oh, you could be punk, you could scream, you could go to the shows, but you could actually go, I live a drug-free life, I don't drink, healthy, I don't have sex.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That feels Extreme.

Yeah, yeah, you know, with everything there's like the extremes. Yes. And then there's a lot of straight edge people that are really into Hare Krishna, you know, like Shelter.

Best merch ever. Still have a ton of it.

And I love those bands too.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, I don't even know what Hare Krishna was, but like because of the bands I was like— you like learn about it.

Yeah, yeah, like I'm into it.

Yeah.

Wow, cool.

And that leads all the way to Jack Antonoff a couple weeks ago who we had, which is like— then he's doing shows, he's 8 years younger than us or 10 years. Every show has to have a philanthropic component, so it's like You know, there's a food drive at everyone's. Like, he started a thing that really just kind of carried on even to when Jack was doing it. It's really cool. Okay, so you leave Santa Barbara. Thank God you're drinking now. And then you go to LA.

Yeah, so I moved to LA. There was a fork of the road because I was super into academia.

Yeah, you double majored sociology and women's studies.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so when you're a sociology, women's studies major, it's all critical writing and thinking. And then once you get to that 5th year— I was like in school for 5 years. I just didn't want to leave school.

And you started early. This Perfect. You actually finished right on time.

True. Yeah, yeah, it's true. I kept going. I'm like, how do I stay in it? Because now I found my groove. Now I'm hanging with professors. Now I like want to get professors' respect and have them talk to me like a colleague almost.

Yeah, I'm here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, okay, now I'm reading the text. I'm having real thoughtful conversations. And those thoughtful conversations are already being had at these parkour shows.

Uh-huh.

So there's a lot of cross and we're all reading books and talking. It was just cool to be intellectual, to talk about.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I was like, this is great, this is aligning with my academia. And then I was like, okay, well, I guess maybe I'll consider staying academia. I sent off for graduate and PhD programs. I accepted the two, and then that's when I had to make a decision because I was like, okay, do I go down this road? Do I follow music?

Wow.

At the time, my band— or my band bands. I mean, we were playing to like 30 people. It was fun, but it wasn't like sustainable. And then I got a demo from a band that was like interested to get signed or have me release their music. Yeah, the singer of the band played at the Pickle Patch, which was my apartment. She was in this really cool band called Discount.

Don't know Discount.

Yeah, Discount was from No Idea Records from Florida. I was like obsessed with Discount. She was on tour with Hot Water Music. It was Discount, Hot Water Music, and another band. And she's like, I'm in this band called The Kills. It's a rock and roll thing. I couldn't believe what I heard on that demo, and I was more like, wow, she just asked me to put out this record. Yeah, I'm just a little guy, but I put out some other bands that kind of showed proof of concept. So I was like, you know what, because she gave me the co-sign and I like so inspired by her, I'm just gonna do the music thing. Wow, I think this is what I need to do.

And The Kills was probably your first really successful—

it was the second.

Okay.

Or potentially the third. It's like the first would be Planes Mistaken for Stars. That was like Dim Mak 7. And then this band called Pretty Girls Make Graves from Seattle, which was one of the members of Kill Sadie that got me drunk.

Okay. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. That band is the reason why Alison from The Kills was like, hey, I saw your success with Pretty Girls. Would you consider putting out this EP? And I'm like, yes, yes, yes! Exclamation point, exclamation point. I wish I could find this letter because back then there was like handwritten letters. So it was just interesting time, 2002. And then I moved to LA. I said, I'm just going to do the label. I'll do the academic route maybe later in life.

It can be there waiting for me. Yeah. Yeah. You could resume that.

Yeah. So then I moved to LA and then I was like, well, it's definitely the best place for me to start Dim Mak. This is the music hub of America. I mean, in my mind.

Well, you got Capitol Records, you got Warner Brothers. I mean, you really historically, this is where all the big labels are.

Yeah. And then I moved to LA and then I already got hit up by major labels. Smart major label A&R scouts are always looking for other ones in the underground that are scouts, which are indie labels.

Okay, so they're tracking all—

yeah, they want to incubate their bands with indie labels. I'm like, free dinners, free lunches, I'm in. Yeah. And so I started hanging out with the Capitol Group and Interscope and all the different labels, and I was like trying to get the swing of things in LA. It's already kind of like buzzing, and And then the next band, once I moved to LA, this is even before I was really DJing, so probably coincidentally at the same time, but I was just kind of just playing here and there, was a band called Block Party from England.

Oh yeah.

And once again, the same kind of thing happened with Alice from The Kills. The manager of Block Party was like, we saw you doing some really great work with The Kills. We would love for you to consider releasing our—

and Block Party is way more electronic.

Yeah, they're more British indie rock, 2000s, like Franz Ferdinand, pre-Arctic Monkeys, that kind of British rock invasion that was happening in the US.

Okay.

But they're one of the earlier ones because we got their first demo in 2003, and that's right when I started DJing.

All right, so how do we start DJing? You're just— you get some equipment because you're bored and you start fucking with it?

Yeah. So when I moved to LA, I was doing the label full-on. When I thought of turntables, I had a record player, right? Right. People don't realize there's two different things. Yeah, yeah. Turntables are the ones you like go backwards and forwards and scratch.

You need a Technics with magnetic drive.

Yeah. A record player, boom, you put the needle down and you play a side.

Go make a cocktail.

I had a record player because that's how I listened to music. I had a pretty sick vinyl collection. And when I moved to LA, there's this bartender that became my friend. He was tatted, he was cool, and he definitely welcomed me to LA. I remember he's like, I've seen your band. I was in a band called Esperanza as well, another punk band. I used to play guitar. And it's like, I saw your band play at Headline Records, but the word on the street is you have the sickest vinyl collection. Collection, which I do. Yeah, I definitely—

the aforementioned vinyl collection.

Yeah, I'll tell you why I have it. I'm a collector, so I've been collecting since I was a kid. And it's not like I had a lot of records, but I always was a completionist. I wanted all the Revelation, I want all the Discord, I want all like the labels I followed. But the thing is, I'm also a hoarder, and I'm a known collector in college. So when my friends would leave college, I remember Koji Bodonishi, he used to be in Strictly Ballrooms, this other band, left, he's like, I don't know what to do with these records. I'm like, give them to me.

So you were a dumping ground for other people's collections.

Yeah. I'm like, you could take them back whenever. I will just be a great, you know, steward. Yeah. And then they're like, you know, Steve will take all your records. It's not like it's like a valuable thing, like expensive thing. It's just heavy and it's a lot of space. Yeah. So I just became like the dumping ground of vinyl and I just amassed this insane collection.

I imagine your apartment being no room to walk.

Oh my God. It was like that. Just milk crates everywhere. Yeah. And so my friend, the bartender of Three of Clubs, he's like, come to Three of Clubs and bring your records. I'll show you how to DJ. It's very simple and play whatever you want. And I'm like, I could play hardcore? Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow. This is amazing.

Let me get this straight. Me and the bartender will be happy and all the other people will hate it?

Yes, man.

I'm in.

He had a night called Sides and you just play whole sides of records. You just sit there and you play whatever you want. I was a radio DJ at KCSB. I was KJuice, which is like the platform for Justin the library.

Okay. And for the dorms.

I didn't make it to KCSB status.

I was never good enough.

But I was like, oh, this is cool. I get to play records for 30 people drinking beers and me and my friend. I was like, this is awesome. So I started going there and playing. And then he's like, hey, you know, we should just DJ together. And I'm like, yeah, I'm down. And we'll call ourselves the Crybabies because he was always thinking of ideas. I mean, Kali DeWitt, if you look him up, he's got an incredible history of LA. He ran with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and then he started his own record label. And now he has an incredible fashion collection line. Oh really? Really follow? Oh wow. Yeah, and he designed for Kanye West's Yeezy collection. Like, he's just a well-known curator, creative director, street kid, just awesome burst of creative energy. And I didn't end up DJing with him ever. Okay, but my first gig, I have to find the flyer, was under DJ Cry. No one really knows this. It wasn't Steve Aoki and it wasn't Kid Millionaire, which I later used. As a name. It was DJ Cry.

How are you spelling Cry?

C-R-Y. Okay, yeah, yeah. And I opened for my friend, this guy Sam Spiegel, who was a producer. I was always in his studio, and he was a big part of my early part of my career. He let me open and stuff like that.

When do you get bit by the electronic bug?

So this is like 2002 era, right when I moved to LA. I was starting to DJ a little bit. There was a record by James Murphy's LCD Sound System. He dropped this record called Losing My Edge. It was 118 beats per minute, and it was this loop of a beat and him talking over the beat. And he's just talking about the history of dance music. It was hypnotic. When I got that record, I went to Amoeba or wherever I did to get that record. I'd play it, and that was when I was like, wow, I could produce something like this.

It's simple enough, it's hypnotic, and it grooves, and you stay on track with it for a beats have the same appeal that punk did in that, okay, I get an 808 or I get these 3 pieces of equipment. I don't have to know how to read music. If I have rhythm, it's very, again, accessible. And even like the hip-hop revolution is like, oh, I don't need expensive instruments. I have these albums, they already have the music on it. It's all very DIY. It's kind of weirdly similar.

Yeah, I remember the beat because the beat's like Yeah, very '70s. And the bass line just stays there the whole time, and it grows with the vocal, and then it gets louder with the live drums and stuff. But I'm like, fuck, I think I could do this. And then I was like, okay, I went on Craigslist and I got this guy that can teach me Pro Tools. I was like, I love the Neptunes, I loved that world of music, and I was like, I kind of want to do that, you know. I was kind of figuring out what I wanted to do, you know. Yeah, I'm a hardcore a punk kid, but I love pop music as well. My sister Devin, she was in Fast and Furious. Oh yeah, she was Suki in Fast and Furious.

Very attractive.

And she's— and she had a successful modeling career which led her into some movies and opened her up into music. So I was going with her in the studio when she was doing more of an R&B thing, and I was trying to learn to do very quick sample beats and sounds to make hip-hop beats for my sister. Really?

That's adorable.

And then I heard LCD Soundsystem, Losing Edge. And then that's when I was like, I'm the artist now. Yeah, this is where my heart is going. I want to go faster. I don't want to go 90 to 100 BPM. I want to go 118 to 130 BPM. I want to start playing this out. Yeah. So I have to give a lot to the LCD Sound System, James Murphy, what he was doing in New York at the time in the early 2000s, and the party scene, you know, what I was doing with Dim Mak in the party scene in LA.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a wonderful—

so fun.

Yes, that was wonderful.

Yeah, I was going back and forth. I love it.

So we took more them at the beginning, which I love. That's my favorite. So we are going to have to kind of fast forward a tiny bit. And let me— on— so whatever I knew about hardcore, I know nothing about electronic and the dance world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just quickly, remixes— you kind of get known for remixes first, right?

Right, right.

So you're just kind of mashing up different things.

Remixes, or remixing, is the best way. And that's why I tell every young producer, someone wants to start producing, or that someone wants to become a DJ, or once again end of the world, start with remixes. Because now there's technology that you don't need to ask for the stems. Let's say you listen to a track, stem would be like bass, guitar, isolated instruments, isolated vocals. Exactly. And you need the stems in order to do a remix, you know, or change production. Back then you needed the stems. Luckily for me, I had my label and I had the stems for the bands on Dim Mak. So my very first remix remix happened to be Block Party because I had the stems. When I was remixing Helicopter, I also called my friend who was on tour with M.I.A. at the time to also remix the other side of the 12-inch because there was no digital back then. You would press the 12-inch and that's how people would hear this. He was also throwing a cool party and I was throwing my LA party. So it's interesting because all around the world there was these little hubs of communities growing where we're playing indie electronic underground hip-hop.

And we had this cool little thing happening. I was doing in LA, he was doing in Philadelphia, someone's doing London, Japan. And that's where we would end up. If I did a show, I would probably play at these underground little hipster parties. So he did the other side. I did the other side with my friend Blake Miller, computer science. It was his first remix. And now he's a very well-known DJ and people know him as Diplo.

Another ding, ding, ding. He was at the fight I was at Saturday and I was seated 3 seats next to us.

And I love his body.

So let's just be clear, I love his physique, but he was up and down a lot. We had to get up and let Diplo in and out a lot. And that was my first sighting.

Oh, you said it was tight in there.

It was tight. I was sitting next to a linebacker and then Diplo was very social, so he was going back and forth. Yeah, but again, a great physique. So I didn't hate seeing his biceps and stuff.

Yeah, he does work out a lot. It's fun to go back in time and see who's still in the game, you know? And yeah, Wes is still crushing it. So it's good to see that.

When do you start going on these massive tours and when do you start getting the big audience? I mean, I know by 2012 you're the highest-grossing dance artist North America. I know by 2010 you've recorded with will.i.am now. When do you make that big leap to where you have an audience?

2007 was a pivotal year for me. That was the first time I played Coachella.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so that was big. It was a horrible show.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, it was nerve-wracking. It's like kind of thing you just want to throw up after a set because it was so bad.

Okay, just because it went wrong or people didn't like it?

Oh, many times.

Oh, technical difficulties, or you just weren't on your game?

I wasn't on my game. I was nervous. The wind blew the needle off the record.

Wind seems to be an issue at Coachella.

They don't tell you about the wind.

The wind blew the needle and went— oh, and then the music stops. I'm like, sorry. There's a crowd going, who are you? Yeah, like, I don't even know who you are and you suck.

I'm on 4 hits of E and now I'm miserable. How'd you make it up there?

They still booked me again. I was surprised. But by 2007, I had the most insane party in LA. We had Lady Gaga's first show. We had a lot of pop artists first show, a lot of underground hip-hop like Kid Cudi's first show. Kanye was rolling through at the time.

What venue were you hosting this at?

It was Cinespace right on Hollywood Boulevard, which is very small, but we had the best underground shows. And then at the same time, I'd formed another allegiance with one of my best friends at the time, DJ AM, and we had another party.

I was curious, I was friends with Adam as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we were like running LA's hipster underground rock, electronic, hip-hop, anyone that's about to blow up, they had to play at one of these Dim Mak parties. I was just getting booked because of that, not necessarily because of my songs. I only had a few songs. I was like the guy that had the cool scene, like your dad. Yes.

I mean, it also goes back.

Yeah, yeah, it's similar different. Yeah. And then 2007, I mean, I think I was already doing like 300 shows.

To how big of audiences at that time?

I don't know, 1,000, maybe less. I don't know. It wasn't like crazy, but I was getting paid like $500, so it's easy to like spend $500.

Yeah, yeah, especially if there's a record store in that town.

Yeah, yeah. And I was playing everywhere.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare. I was exposed to this world a little bit through Adam, DJ AM, and knowing what he was making on a weekend to fly two cities and play two cities in one weekend. And it was astronomical.

If you're making $40 grand in a weekend, oh yeah, you're huge. Like, he was making $20 to $30 grand. Yeah, turning them down. Sometimes because he's getting that consistently, and I'm getting like maybe $1,000, but I'm happy with the $1,000.

You're playing music.

I was at one point making $50 and a bar tab, you know, a few years before that. Now I'm making like $500 to $1,500, and then sometimes on like the privates you get like $5,000. This is crazy.

And you're probably thinking the whole time, this has got to be the ceiling. Yes, right?

Like, I'm like, $5,000.

Yes, yes, yes.

I remember like in 200 2007, I got booked in the Philippines, and they had billboards up of me everywhere. They give me like $5,000. At that time, I'm getting like $500, $800 at my own party, and sometimes a little bit more, $1,500, $2,000. I'm getting $5,000 in the Philippines, and this movie wanted to book me to be a DJ. It was like a scene where I was like a slave DJ in this, this guy's office. Okay, it was Tropic Thunder. No, so like, I didn't know because They don't say the movie title. Yeah, they don't say who's going to be in the movie. I have the script. It says DJ Aoki on every, you know, because there's like actual physical scripts.

They're all watermarked.

Yeah, it was Todd Phillips. He was the one, I think it was. Stiller directed it.

Yeah.

So they're like, okay, hey, we want you to be the slave DJ for the scene with Tom Cruise where he plays Get Low.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He plays the iPod. Thank God he didn't have a bookend DJ. I was like, I saw that he didn't bookend DJ and he's an iPod. I was like, yes, they didn't bookend. But anyways, I had this Philippines offer and I couldn't say no to the Philippines offer, so I passed on the movie. To this day, I'm like, I wish— it's like, you know, those I wish moments. Like, I wish I made it in that movie because that would have been so epic to be part of like one of the funniest movies at that time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you had to say yes to that.

Yeah, because it's a free thing. It's like you get $1,000. It's not like about the money, it's about just being in it.

You couldn't pass up—

you couldn't pass up this, your career.

So fast forward to 2012, 5 years after that, you're the highest grossing. Now you're making millions of dollars, DJing. Yeah, it gets pretty crazy, right? Imagine some of these festivals you're going to are astronomical.

Yeah. The other thing that's interesting is that I did become the most traveled musician in a calendar year on the planet, so I was touring the most. I didn't realize that I was, but what got me there was being in the punk bands, right?

You're just so used to—

when you're in a punk band, first of all, like, every single tour I was on, I toured the US 14 times by the time I was 21. We never stayed in a hotel.

Right, right, right. You're at the other band's house.

Yeah, you just stay in like friends' houses or you sleep in the van or you just figure it out, but you never stay in a hotel. So when I started staying in hotels, I was like, I get a hotel? Yeah, yeah, I'll play for free.

Yeah, yeah, what are you guys talking about?

Yeah, I get like a car to pick me up. This is crazy. Touring, you get that boot camp of being in a band. Yeah. When you go from touring alone— up until 2011, I didn't tour with anyone. I was touring alone, and I was happy to fly eco, middle, backseat. Like, I was like, this is better than being in this van with 4 sweaty guys. Yeah, smelly. We haven't showered in 2 weeks.

Vegans fucking eating too many beans.

Yeah, touring was a cinch for me at that point.

So 2012, you put out Wonderland, and that's your first solo album. I'm just thrilled I learned this today. I cannot believe you had John Duncan, the guitarist for Exploited, on this. Album. That's impossible. I saw Exploding when I was 11 years old with my brother. I was fucking terrified. It was the scariest event of my childhood.

When I think of Exploding, I always think about the COVID with the spiked mohawk.

I wear that shirt all the time.

I still have it. It's at every butt patch, very punk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was like, that was cool to have that because I wanted to have some echoes from the punk and hardcore world.

And you got nominated for a Grammy for that. I did. Have you been able to look back? Obviously 2012, to get that honor, that distinction of being the highest grossing DJ, that's a moment. But being at the Grammys from where you started, were you able to like be there and be present and accept that that really had happened?

Yes. The two times that, that I've been nominated, I've went to the Grammys, and it's definitely that moment. I'm like, it's really happening to me.

You're a shithead from Isla Vista. Yeah, exactly.

Like, this doesn't makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. How did I—

and it was everything we were against.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden you're there.

It's so true. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so interesting.

Yeah. To try to integrate that, like, oh, I'm at the place I made fun of and guess what, I like it here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like, how did I get here? I'm not supposed to be here. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, it's been a mix-up.

Yeah, it's a mix-up. Like, there's something not supposed to happen. Definitely felt that way for sure. Yeah. I still feel that way sometimes. I'm like, how am I even here? You know, I'm just doing what I love to do. It is hard work when you're doing the work. Yeah, yeah. But when you're on stage and you're having the best time of your life, it's not hard work.

And you're like, wait, I'm getting paid for this?

Yeah, this is crazy.

Now when you play shows, how many people are there?

Well, depends. So like the festivals, like for example EDC, I just played last weekend.

Okay, where's that?

It's in Las Vegas. So that is the largest— I think it's the largest festival in the world. 200,000 now a day.

Wow.

3 days, 600,000 people.

Oh my gosh. So when you're in the pit and you're looking out, how many people are physically right There's tens of thousands of people.

I would say minimum like 60 to 80,000. Oh my God. But it's like so massive at some point. You don't know. It's just a sea of people. Yeah.

You're not sure if it's 100 or 40. Yeah. Anything beyond probably 30,000.

All you're looking at is like just the flagpoles of signs because it's just like a lot of heads, a lot of little flashing lights and flagpoles of signs. It's like far as you could possibly see.

And you do a bunch of crazy shit at your shows, or at least you used to, right? Yeah. I've toned it down a lot. You have, because you're getting older.

He said don't bring that up.

Acrobatic crowd work, surfing stunts, throwing cake at fans.

Cakes are still present.

Oh, they are?

Yeah, yeah. I had to get arm surgery at one point, but yeah, the cakes are definitely for people that don't understand it. Yeah, it is a signature.

How did that start?

It's funny that you asked that. I just posted on my Instagram the first cake video that I'd done, and that was back in 2011.

You just picked up a piece of cake and threw it?

Well, no, it does require— I had to go to the bakery and like decorate the cake. I got a video guy, I'm like, let's film this. I think this will be a funny, cool idea. I have no idea what to expect. This is going to be confusing to a lot of people. Sure. Maybe no one's going to get caked and I'm just going to be holding the cake going, what the hell do I do with this thing? So there's a lot of those questions that arose in the beginning. But now when you do it consistently and you post it up and you're like, that's what this guy does? I'm going to show up and I want to get caked because it's my birthday.

Right.

Birthday, beni hana. We're just repeats of our parents.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, look, you have a real run with Wonderland getting nominated. Then between 2011-14, now your stuff's getting licensed. You're like in the Scion commercials, Budweiser. You're in Step Up: All in the Movie. You and Diplo have a song in 22 Jump Street. I mean, look, I don't know DJs and I know your name. You become ubiquitous and one of the titans of this space. It's a very drug-heavy space.

It is, yeah.

Yeah.

How have you navigated that aspect of it?

Well, the straight edge lifestyle, it did rub off as we talked about, but I never did drugs after.

You never got—

I never did coke. I never did meth or heroin.

Just some MDMA when appropriate.

No MDMA as a DJ.

Yeah, because most of the audience is on MDMA.

Yeah, no MDMA, no acid, no hallucinogens. Hallucinogenics. Before I was straight edge, I tried one drug, and that was acid.

Oh, that's not a great start. Oh my God.

And I did it like by myself, trying to be like ballsy. And then I realized, I was like, I can't get out of this. How do I get out? It's gonna be forever. That scared me away from all drugs.

That can take you out, make you a lifelong winner.

That took me out. I was like, I will never touch this again. And still I never did. Now I'm like in this place if it has a healing or it's like a longevity, the Michael Pollan approach. If there's like some benefit that I could be more creative or something, then I can baby step towards something. Yeah. So I'm curious.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're kind of like Machine Gun Kelly in that he's a volcano of things he is interested in and starts— like, you had or have an esports company, you're into gaming, you're in different video games.

Right when esports was taking off in mid-2010s, 16, 17. Anytime I have this interest or curiosity, then it leads me down into a business. And then, yeah, I want to figure out like, how do I get myself involved, monetize, or to help provide another mirror into this world?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What year did your dad die?

In 2008. Oh, bummer. Yeah, he missed a lot of this stuff that I wanted to—

I wonder what the moment would have been if he, A, would have been able to say like, holy smokes, I think you're more successful than I was?

He would never— he would never— he would never say that.

If he would say it, could he say it? Would he be proud? Or would he have that terrible dad thing where it's like they can't be surpassed by their son?

You know what, one of the most important things he said to me before he died was, I don't have to worry about you anymore. That was big for me.

It's—

the subtext is, I'm I'm proud of you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he didn't overly say anything.

Not a lot of I love yous and stuff.

No, no. Yeah, not really.

Not his gym.

But he was relieved. Like, yeah, that's him saying like, I'm relieved you've done it.

Yeah, that's why, like, I was always thinking of like, how do I get him to say that?

Yeah, you're gonna have to win an offshore raceboat race.

Yeah, I mean, I do have the adrenaline junkie and that spirit of chasing the edge.

No, dude, you guys are very similar in a lot of ways. You're just like That's crazy. Modern version. You're not starting a porno mag or having 3 babies on the same weekend.

Well, luckily he wasn't the cancel culture.

I mean, yeah, he wouldn't have made it. Yeah, he wouldn't have made it. Okay, my last question is, you had a baby in July?

I did. Yeah, boy. Rocky. His name's Rocky.

Oh yes. Fuck yeah, he's back. Can't wait to take him to Benny Hanover's birthday. Oh my God, how fun! Yeah. When you think about the future, obviously I don't even need to ask. I'm sure you're just fucking loving this. It's so fun, right? Having a little kid.

Yeah, because he's that age now where he's laughing a lot. He's alert. He's not aloof. He's not walking yet, so I'm not sure what that'll be. He's crawling, so it's easier to control, contain. Yeah.

Now there's a very rough phase from when they learn how to walk to they actually get good at walking. They just want to walk everywhere.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, my house is a lot of stairs and stuff.

Yeah, you might be shopping for a ranch in the next little while, but obviously you won't be able to tour 200 days a year once that little boy's in school.

Yeah, yeah. So I don't know what that's gonna look like. I don't know how we're gonna navigate that because my wife travels with me everywhere too, right? We have a great nanny though. We have an incredible nanny.

Yeah, and you can do that for the first 5 years. Yeah, then he'll go to school and he'll want to be with his friends, and you'll go, I can't take this kid out of his life all the time.

Yeah, exactly. I don't know how to deal with that. I'll also be like my early 50s at the time.

Yeah, you'll You might be in a different headspace.

It's hard for me to— like, I've been touring since I was a teenager. Yeah, it's weird. I've never broken below 200 besides COVID. Really? Yeah, 207 was the lowest. Oh, that was last year. So it's strange to me to not have a free weekend, for example.

Yeah, you don't have to worry too much about that yet.

You've played all the shows.

That's true.

What you haven't done is this chunk. If there's something novel left in life, it's that thing, right?

Right. No, I'm excited about that chapter, but man, I love the stage. Yeah, I love playing for people. I thrive. I thrive there.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I live for it. I love it.

Oh, I'm so happy because you've been doing it for a long, long time and you haven't burnt out.

No. And also, thing is, is like when you play like festivals like EDC or Ultra or Tomorrowland, these festivals, you have to prepare all new music.

It forces you to be creative. It puts you on a schedule.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That schedule is important to me. That challenge.

Yeah.

To maintain my presence of my current music. It's not about like your last singles. It's not about all the songs that have impacted the culture. It's about what about now? Do I have a song now that's going to actually matter?

Yeah. And you'll get to, like a stand-up, you'll get to evaluate that real time. You'll know if it works or not.

Exactly.

You'll have real feedback real time.

I love that. That's why Vegas is like my laboratory.

So do you have a residency currently?

I do. Where at? So in Vegas, I do about 50 shows a year there and play Omnia, Hakkasan, Tao Beach, that whole world. But that's great because I'm in Vegas. Yeah, yeah. So I just drive from home and then 150 on average, like—

oh my God.

Wow.

You're aging slower. That's the only good news.

Yeah, yeah.

Time moves just a fraction slower at altitude. So since you're spending so much time at altitude, Okay, I didn't know. Yeah, your clock's a little behind ours at sea level.

That's a good thing. I definitely think about my biological age a lot more than I—

Yeah, because you also give a lot of money to regenerative brain research.

The brain is who we are.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, like, you could change your heart out, your liver, your body parts, but your brain—

you don't want to transplant that.

You can't do that. I mean, you can actually now with Parkinson's patients. You could take a chunk of brain out so you're not having to have the jitters and still be who you are, because your brain's so neuroplastic, right? So who you are can just move over to this side of the brain.

Yeah, well, it's like stroke people, they lose their verbal control, they just relocate it to a different part of your brain.

Yeah, it's fucking wild.

So interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Steve, this has been a delight. I'm really infected by how much you like it. You're so passionate about it. You so deserve to be here.

The fact that you've loved all this since a kid, it's gratitude when you're fighting for, for so long and then you finally get there. Yeah, you got to remember, like, the second you don't think it's that important to you, someone else does and someone else will take it.

Yeah.

And then when you're like, oh, I'm back, guys, they're like, no, we already have someone else. It's like, you better fight for that every single time you have the chance.

This is the 30th anniversary of the label.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. 96 to 2026. We survived 30 years as an independent label.

It's amazing.

That's so impressive.

It's It's really wild.

Well, this has been lovely, man. I'm really glad I got to meet you.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Yeah, you deserve all this. I'm thrilled for you. Yeah, thanks. I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong. Oh, sometimes water is so delicious.

Sometimes. Rarely.

Oh, never. Almost never for you. I know, at least once a day for me where I haven't. I just go like, oh, thank God this exists.

It hits.

Yeah.

Like, I feel it hydrating me.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

It's got a good taste. I know people say it doesn't have a taste, but it does have a taste. It tastes like water.

It does. That's true.

It's unmistakable.

Yeah. God.

Right. When you have a sip of water, you know right away that's water. Could be good or bad water, huh?

But you wouldn't— hmm, that's interesting.

We've filed it under no taste, but that's not true.

Interesting. But it doesn't have any of the properties, right, that taste has, like umami, salty, whatever the heck.

Sweet.

I'm gonna take one of my shoes off. I can't possibly take off the left.

Why?

Oh no, shit, no, I can't take off the right.

Why?

Because of the deformities.

Oh, well, just do it. Just like, who cares?

You know, I'll keep them under the table. That's how I'll handle that because I didn't wear socks. I'm in a special outfit because we had a special guest.

Yeah.

And then I tried footies. Oh yeah, they were visible.

I hate that. I know. I struggle with this as well.

I think it's a common struggle.

And even if you get the ones that are not visible, then it doesn't go up high enough and then it slides down. Well, the odds of it falling off in your shoe are like 80%. I know. I know.

Make it with like an adhesive on back or something. But all to say, I, I— because this person is so fashion forward, I was like, well, I can't have socks hanging out. I'm gonna go socksless in shoes, which I never do because my feet sweat real quick. All right, and that's what happened.

So, well, let's just see your feet.

Well, this one is fine-ish. No, it's got that crazy toenail. Well, yeah, it has the bris on it and fuck, yeah, and then that disgusting toenail that I have to use.

You can't really see, so it's fine. Okay, it's fine. Wow.

Well, we went to a momentous event.

We did. We sure did. Yeah, we went to a graduation.

Yeah.

No, I'm sorry, a culmination.

A culmination. Exiting elementary school.

You know, I rarely— I'm almost never on the side of like, oh, like, why do we have to have a new word for everything? Like, I'm generally like, sure, who cares? Doesn't bother me. I do think it's crazy that we can't call it a graduation.

Oh, I didn't even interpret it as that, but probably maybe you're right.

Well, I don't know.

I didn't think they put a lot of thought into it. Like, we're not— we don't use that word as much as just, we're calling it this.

No, I looked it up. It's— you don't call it that because there's no diploma.

Oh, a culmination is a graduation without a diploma, basically. Like, by the way, they did give them a diploma.

I know, I know. A graduation, I guess, only counts if it's like high school or college, right? But I think that's silly, and we can— they can just all be graduations.

Well, that's what's fun about the experience of having kids in the modern society, which is it's so different from when I was a kid. And then so your knee-jerk is like, this must be crazy and silly, because my thing is like, no, you got one graduation, it was hugely meaningful because you only got one of them and you looked forward to it and it was finally done. And that's what I enter it with, going like, this is silly and indulgent. Oh, why do they got to step up from every grade?

Yeah, that part, it's the whole like, get a trophy for You know, like, yes, I do think that's—

yeah, there's some, like, I have some hesitation against it.

Sure.

And then I'm there witnessing it and I absolutely love it.

I know.

And then I go, why do I care? What is, what is it I care about?

You care about people getting soft, um, and the world getting soft, which I tend to care a little bit about, but not, you know, whatever. We're all on this.

It's probably perfectly proportional to our age and generation. Yeah. It's like you guys had a little more of that than I had, right? And now they have a lot more of that than you had.

I still eye-roll at a lot of the things that are happening now. Yeah, but yeah, I had a 5th grade graduation.

And then I try to step back and go like, there's no right or wrong, it's just they did it that way when I was a kid, now they're doing it this way. And then if there is some real obvious problem as a result of it, people will notice and they'll write op-eds about it and we'll probably fix it. So what's the big deal? But I do— you just— I just bristle like There's another thing. It's like, you've— I— this is what I'm telling myself when I'm objecting to it, is like, you're setting them up for massive failure in that the world's not going to celebrate them.

That's how I feel.

A mediocre job, it doesn't get a ribbon. Uh, you're not going to get a, a, a raise or a promotion at work for just being normal. It's misleading, right? Yeah, but then I guess you could quite easily make the argument of, yeah, exactly, that's how life is. So why not give them during childhood when they're innocent and they're carefree? Like, why not let them have this experience since they're never going to have it again?

Yeah, there's just different schools of thought, like, on childhood. Like, my parents' school of thought was childhood is to prepare you for adulthood, right? It's, it's like, it's not there just to be carefree and fun. It's like to learn lessons, to learn things that once you're an adult and you're on your own and you don't have help from us, that you can live.

But the Japanese, they're kind of the opposite. They go like, oh, adulthood is fucking rough. It's sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. So they weirdly really protect the childhood as being way more carefree because they know what they're going to have to take on. So it's like, I don't know, they've been doing it that way there for a very long time and it's worked out just fine for them, other than that they're not having kids. Yeah, no, this is something I learned in college, not my observation.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say, I was like, I don't like— I don't think of Japanese children as like being like so effervescent or like running around or be like— they're pretty contained and mellow.

Well, typically, yeah, I haven't been to Japan to even witness how kids are, but I do remember having a class where they were saying specifically they're not trying to prepare them. Oh, interesting. They're recognizing recognizing this is a once-in-a-lifetime chapter, which is like, no, this is the time to be all these things because you're not going to be able to be all these things.

Yes.

Which, whatever, they're all available. Sure. Okay, but then the event itself.

Yeah, it was great. So we went— you and Kristen, obviously, and Lincoln, and grandparents, and me and Anna and Titi. Yeah. Uh, we all went and, um, we're gonna talk through the whole thing. Okay, so first of all, you have been given a number beforehand. You didn't know what it was, but Delta gave you a number on a purple piece of paper, and the number was 24. Okay, yeah. So then at the top of the graduation, um, the principal says, okay, if you were given a number, if you're in this person's class, you'll go to the left and you'll make a line and here in the middle aisle. Exactly. And then if you're in this person's class, it made no sense, right? It didn't make sense what she was saying. It was clear everyone was confused.

I was muddling around with all the parents holding numbers and no one knew where they were supposed to line up or in what order.

Yes. And, um, and then she said it again, also confusing. And then you did have a loud, um, clarification.

You said, well, there's Uh, I raised my hand for a while and she didn't call me.

Okay. And then you—

I was like, okay, I gotta— I just— yeah. So I loudly said, hey, um, there's a couple middle aisles. Is it the ones running parallel to the stage or these ones perpendicular? Oh, it's the middle. Oh, and then we got clarification on that. So, okay, that's the middle aisle. That's great.

I do think because it was an auditorium— yeah, it was— it was with gust. It wasn't exactly the way you just did it.

Well, I had to be heard in the back row. Yeah, it was extremely assertive.

It was, yes.

And I was like, you were certainly nervous.

I got nervous. I did a little bit of sinking down because, you know, what happens is they see, they see it's you, and they look at the group of— they look at your people, obviously, because that's how life works. That's how people work. They're like, oh, and people are laughing, and then they're looking. And I was like, oh my God, there's a lot of attention. It's a lot of attention.

I was thanked by all the parents that were in the confused because we were just trying to comply, but I could— I just got that sense we're not moving closer to this being lined up the way it's supposed to be. I stand by that it needed to be sorted out.

It needed to be sorted out. I agree with you there.

And a ton of the parents thanked me like this, like, oh, thank God you said— I didn't know where the house was. So I was getting tons of validation there. But then I started getting really self-conscious, like, does that principal feel like I just completely interrupted her thing?

Right.

And then I was planning to go apologize to her after.

That's nice.

And, um, so my full intention was to find her and to say, I'm so sorry if that was disruptive or rude. But she found me. I was like in the middle of talking to the teacher, and she came up and she goes, oh my gosh, thank you so much for— I was like, oh, thank— and I go, thank God. I was, I was, I was coming to say I'm sorry if that was so sorry. But she, she did at least express that she was grateful that I got involved.

Yeah, great. So anyway, you guys got lined up appropriately, and you were one of the lucky ones that got a special flower.

Yeah, Delta handled me a flower.

Yeah, you stand there with a flower. Yeah, it was so cute. Someone— yeah. And then you sat back down, they sang a beautiful song. They sang such a cute song. What was it?

And I just— I just think on the last Fact Check, I've come to terms with the fact that Delta's little, which I didn't know.

Right.

So weird.

Yeah.

I really don't know how I didn't know that. I think this is because her personality is so big.

Well, also because she's just the person you see every day.

It was when she went to the dance and I saw these photos, I was like, oh, she's a head shorter than everyone.

Yeah.

So then at the big singing thing, I'm like trying to find her and she's kind of buried behind tall people. Yeah, but you can see her teeth from a mile away. That's how you find Delta, her rabbit teeth.

She just has the biggest smile.

She's the cutest rabbit teeth that you can see from so far away.

Yes. And the song was so, so sweet. Cry, cry, cry. Yeah, everyone's already crying at that point. It just has just begun.

Mm-hmm.

And then they did a really, really beautiful thing where at first I got anxious.

Yes.

When this was announced was gonna happen.

You start doing math immediately.

Yep. Yeah. So it's, the graduation is just two classrooms of fifth graders, but.

So probably like 80 kids or 70.

So many, those, I didn't realize like how many kids are in these classrooms these days. A lot. And then that made me so like, God, these teachers, you know?

Oh my God, they're nurses, you know, it's them and nurses.

Oh, and so for each kid, a teacher spoke about them, like wrote a little like paragraph about them and said it out loud as they came up and got their little diploma.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And yeah, so at first when I hear this is happening, I was like, oh, I did the math.

I was like, it's gonna take at least a minute to read each one, probably more. Yep. That's like 75 minutes at the quickest version of Yes.

Yep. This is— yeah, the brain starts doing that. And then I was like, okay, but go to her classes first. Not that it even—

well, no, I did too, but then I'm like, wait, I can't leave, I'm gonna be a dick. So it's almost worse. There's nothing to look forward to.

That's true. Yeah. So anyway, they say all these beautiful things about these kids, and it really— after the first couple, I was like, oh my God, this is just so important that they are doing this, because as As we know, what teachers say about you sticks. Yeah, yeah, it really sticks. And I was like, each one of these kids gets a moment where they're being told about their, um, you know, assets and like moments throughout the year that happened.

Um, did you have— so for first round of anxiety was the time. Yeah. Second round of anxiety was like, oh, these teachers have to say something unique about each student. How are they are they gonna do it? I would— how is it not gonna become generic? Yes. Uh, but fucking hats off to the teachers. It was— each one was so specific and thoughtful. No one, no one phoned any one of them.

Yes, they were all you— they're all unique. And I was like, oh my God, this is great. But then I did, I did have some, um, uh, what's it called, like mirror neuron stuff happening. Yeah, with some of the kids, because I was was like, okay, some of the kids got the teachers to cry.

Oh sure, over them. But I thought, in a great turn of events, it wasn't like the most popular kids in class. It wasn't like they got double— like, A, they were already really popular and the teachers crying over it. To me, that wasn't happening.

I know, but sometimes it was.

Sometimes. But sometimes they deserve both, I guess.

Yeah. No, it just— I just know me. Yeah.

And I was like, you would be noticing—

want that so bad. You want your teacher to and not be able to keep it together at all when they had to say bye to me.

That is the high bar.

I just want them to be so sad, devastated, miss me so much, announce their retirement.

I can't possibly go on without my class.

Yeah, that's what I would have wanted. It would have been what I was striving for. Yeah. And some people got it, some people didn't. And there was one that was like, I have no idea what's— you have no idea about these kids, obviously, and what's been going on. But there was one that you based on the little speech, you could kind of put some pieces together about this kid. And it was— everyone was crying. It was so moving. Yep. And I did think, this person will hopefully never forget this.

Yeah.

And make decisions based on that, based on, no, I'm a leader, I'm a this, I'm a, you know. Oh, it was just so lovely. And of course, Delta's was so, so wonderful.

Full and more crying, cry, more crying.

Yeah, I felt— I did feel a little dead inside.

You did?

Yeah, cuz all of you guys were crying so hard and—

oh, you felt judged?

Well, I— no, I didn't feel judged.

I didn't even clock whether you were.

I know no one was, but I knew. I was like, I'm not like really— I was feeling emotional, but I wasn't, I wasn't um, emoting, crying. I wasn't crying tears. Um, and then, and then I was like, like, not these people are pretend— not you, but I was like, some of these people are just performing, you know.

They— I thought it crossed my mind that you thought I was performing.

No, if it's your kid— I mean, I thought I was like, oh my God, I cannot believe she's graduating 5th grade. I can't believe she's this old. Look at her. Oh my God. I mean, I was definitely like— I had tears in my In your mind? In my mind's eyes. Um, no, I had tears, but there was no spillage, right?

You know, it didn't break the—

and some people, not the parents obviously, but some other people were crying so hard, okay, that I was like, this isn't real.

You were calling bullshit.

And then I know it was real. Yeah, it was real. And everyone's on a spectrum of how easily they cry and what they cry cry about it, you know. But I felt a little in my head about that.

Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. It's so great how you can be having multiple experiences at the same time, because I too was having like— I was having like 3 levels of, um, engagement. Engagement with it. Hey, it's my sweet spot, right? We know what I'm gonna cry about. It's earnestness. It's like, it's earnestness in the face of a cruel world. Yes, that's— that always hits me.

Of course.

Yeah, it's vulnerability and sweetness. Yeah. In spite of the fact that everyone's fucking terrible and mean.

Yes.

And then there was this little girl that was just— brought the house down. This little girl with a lot of different developmental stuff going on who fucking graduated 5th grade. And the way she was celebrating waving her diploma over her head. I was— that girl made me cry like 5 times. And then I just stared at her in the front row swinging her feet. She's so happy. It made me so happy. It's like, it's— it was happiness cry. I know, it's just like too happy for her to not be crying about it.

Beautiful. Yeah. Okay, I had an experience with that beautiful girl as well. Yeah. Where I was like, oh my God, she's so happy. Like, yeah, but then I was struggling. So supportive. It was not like when I I was in 5th grade.

Oh my God. Those kids were like separate.

I know.

And they were in a room and you're like, oh no, stay away.

I know. I know. It was so, it was so beautiful. But I did have a moment of like, I felt sad and then I felt guilty for feeling sad. Right. And I was like, you can't feel sad about this or upset.

Well, what you probably have is fear, which is like, yeah, look at this beautiful human being on earth. Earth, and, and Earth's not designed for her. How will she do? I know, but look at her, I know, fucking crushing it.

I just hope it stays like that.

That's what's going on is like you, you immediately care and want to help and protect. And that's what a wonderful part of us that we all feel that anxiety.

Yes.

Yeah. And that's nice. And then I go, we're kind of nice. Most of the time I think we're terrible, but then, oh, we're kind of nice. All of us feel this way about this little girl, right? And that's so wonderful.

Yeah. Oh, she So cute.

So I had all that stuff going on, and I was like very present for that stuff, but very, very actively as well, I got crazy, um, aware in a very anthropological way. And this will be so duh to you and to everybody, but it took me a minute to figure out why. But ceremonies are often when we most coalesce around what our group values are. These are kind of the moments where we we declare group values and like pro-social and anti-social. Like, it's these rites of passages where we kind of talk about how you should be in the world. And I just got like hyper-aware of like, oh wow, yeah, culture's being passed on to them right now. Like, it's so concrete right now because it starts with a song about having dreams. Have a million dreams. Get— go get those dreams. I know. And I was just like, this is so American. Like, this is how the system works. Everyone in here should be dreaming of being spectacular, right? Which obviously is not reality. Not everyone's going to be spectacular. And then I was just thinking about how opposite this is probably from the Japanese graduation.

That's more collective society, right?

Right, right, right.

And finding probably how to be a great family member, whatever virtues are reaffirmed in those moments for their expressing. So it was like, have a bazillion, you know, dream to the stars. It's just so interesting. Again, I say it with zero judgment.

Of course, there was a moment, and I'll never forget it, and I, of course, argued with him at my brother's high school graduation. You know, the valedictorian comes up and says something and salutatorian, and it and it's like, chase your dream, you know, it's all this dream stuff.

Chase your dream.

Not work hard, you know, like that part's not really in it.

Yeah.

Even similar here, right? It's like, just go after it. Yeah. And, and be the best you can be and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Be great. I mean, be great.

And my dad was like squirming in his seat. And after he was like, what is this? He was like, why don't people just strive to be mediocre? Yeah. Yeah. He literally said that.

He was like, I was trying to be content.

He said mediocre, which was— I was like, Dad, yeah, that's a pejorative in our society. Exactly. But he means strive to be safe. Just strive to get some things. You don't have to get all the things. You don't have to be the best. Just have enough. Yeah. To live a life.

Try to get enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he really hated that.

Oompa Loompa. The Swedish thing is the right amount.

Oh, Lakuma or whatever. Yeah, he really— and I like, I was so eye-rolly with him. I was like, Dad, that is not like— that's not an inspiring message. That's not what you do. And he was like, it should be. And I of course thought that was silly as someone who was chasing a dream.

Yeah.

But I do, as the older I get, agree a little more with it, I think. I mean, that's not really fair for me to say because I did get a lot of the things I wanted to get.

Yeah.

There's a certain reality, which is like, of these 75 kids, all 75 of them can't be president of the United States. Yeah. It's not gonna work out time-wise for them. Yeah. And they're not gonna be CEOs and they're not gonna be world famous artists. So on, on some level, I start a little judgmental, like, man, do we not set everyone up for total failure? Like when they're not spectacular, which 99.9% of people are not spectacular. Spectacular, then they're just disappointed in themselves. They didn't fulfill this thing that seems so easily—

everyone should achieve. You should have it. Yeah, I know.

So I think about that, and then I go like, yeah, this is a little messed up. But then I step back even further and I go, forget right or wrong, it's like, this is just how it is here. And what's the result? So we have a system, and regardless of what the intentions of the system were, whatever results the system produces are what the system creates. Yeah. And the result is, yeah, dude, a person came to this country from South— South Africa and became the first trillionaire to ever live because he came here.

Oh, it's wild.

And every invention— not every, damn near every fucking invention happens here. And so it's just the system by which you get this other thing. You can then decide all the way Later, yeah, is it good or bad to be America versus Japan versus Spain versus whatever? I don't know. I kind of think no.

I think, well, they're all— there's merit.

Yeah, it's just all trade-offs.

Yeah, there's good things about all the places.

So I literally— when I didn't leave it going like, this, we shouldn't do this, I just like, oh, this is how we get this result. And it's really baked in. And this is a very progressive and very self-aware school.

Yeah.

And And even they probably haven't consciously thought, oh, we're passing on this culture. It's just, it's just what you do, and you do it innately because it was given to you, and then you pass it on.

I know it's hard though, because even though I agree that it, it might be maybe setting us up to all fall short, I also fully bought into that. Yeah, fully. And like, I was like, I'm getting what I want, I'm, I'm I'm chasing this crazy dream. I'm gonna do it. I like, you know, when you're like young and you need like— some so embarrassing design-wise now, you know, but like you like get like words from like TJ Maxx. I would— if there was dream, I'd always get it. Like that was like such a word for me. And, um, it worked. Yeah, like for me it worked. And it—

I don't know, system is, is living and breathing because 1% do break Yeah.

And you need to be motivated. Yeah.

And we'd rather live in a place where that's possible, even if it's not probable.

I would.

Exactly.

I would.

Exactly. Yes. And a lot of people would. And then some people want it.

Yeah.

It's just all really interesting. And so, yeah, so there was that thing that was being passed. And then even the nature of this thing that was beautiful, everyone gets something read about them to identify something special about them.

About them. Yes.

And it's like, yeah, that we all— like, we all need to be special, we all need to be individual, we all need to be uniquely special. Yeah, um, I know. And we'll figure it out because that's what we want and what we do. And again, I, I'm not right or wrong, it's just like, oh, I was aware, I was just noticing, oh, now this bit of culture is being passed on. Exactly. This bit of culture.

Well, yeah, no, at first, again, she said the thing, this is gonna happen. And then I was like, oh my God, we're gonna be here for so long. And then I was also like, oh— I also was like, Jesus, like, where— can't they just write—

feels indulgent.

Exactly, it felt indulgent. And then a part of me was like, can't they just like write it on a paper and give it to them or something? I was like, but this whole like standing in front of everyone while you're hearing nice things about you felt— was a little bit like, oh my God. But then it was happening and I was like, this is a beautiful thing.

I love it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because This is my culture.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's really— it's just funny. Before I had kids, maybe, I don't know, I just sat through all these things. I never really was aware of what was happening during these things.

And I was just—

I just— it's like, I know each one's like, I know you're gonna be a star in 6th grade, or I know you're gonna be a mathematician.

It's like, one of them was like gonna be run for president.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was really putting myself in the position of being up there and like what I would've wanted them to say about me. And like, what would they have said about me at that age?

Yeah. I was thinking about that too. What they would say about me.

I know. I felt really, I was like, oh my God, I'm thinking.

Would that be a naughty boy? But I bet I would've won them over enough. Like they would, they would def— they would've talked about me being naughty and then said I was really funny, I think.

Well, there was one boy that before the one, before the teacher could speak about him, he said, okay, I gotta, I wanna say something. And I was like, oh, this is Dax.

But then it was so sweet because he wanted to call out a dude that works in the office.

Yes. It was so sweet. Cuz at first I was like, oh my God.

Yeah. This kid is way too confident. Who's he thinking?

He's, he, everyone has come up and played their part and he has to do something different.

He's like, no, no, stop, stop. I need to say something. And you're like, well, what's this tall poppy doing?

Exactly.

But then it was, and then it was selfless.

I know.

Oh, what a gangster.

It was great. Yeah. But it took a turn cuz I was like, oh no. And then I did, I was like, this is just like dad. But then it was sweet, and I was like, I guess it is like him. I guess that is part of it.

It was neat. I really, I really enjoyed watching. And then I'll participate in my culture.

A crying—

what's that? The kids crying?

All the kids were bawling after.

I was happy to see that because as I told you, when I picked up Lincoln from the 5th grade dance, no one was— everyone was crying because they realized they weren't gonna see each other. And then when I picked up Delta, they didn't seem any awareness of that, but now it seems to have hit them at this ceremony.

No, but that made me sad. And it is sad. Like these, these chapters, you know, I was thinking about her little preschool graduation that we did in COVID. Remember it was COVID, so we just like went one by one.

This is when I had just crashed the motorcycle.

Exactly.

It was the same day. Yeah. I was in there in a sling.

Yeah.

Same day. And, um, and like, I just, that we were said bye to that school. Yeah. And now this school and it's I was like, what the fuck is going on? I hate you.

Time. Yeah. And you really— I think you specifically hate chapters.

Yeah. Endings. Yeah. I hate endings.

Yeah.

I think them— I think them— the more you look at life as chapters, the easier it is to handle the bittersweetness.

I don't like that.

Would you go like, yeah, this is sad, I'm leaving this chapter. And there'll be a different chapter I'll experience, and that will be special too. And I'll be sad to say goodbye to that one, but then another one will come.

I know. I said that to her when she was crying. I said, it's hard to— it's, it's hard. It's a really big chapter.

Yeah.

But yeah, and my inclination was to say, but there's gonna— but there's— and the next one's gonna be so fun. But I didn't because I was like, yeah, it's just— it is hard to end things. It's hard to say goodbye to things.

And but it also shows you that you cared about things and that they were special and important because you will miss them and long for them. Without that part, we don't get the other part. I know. If everything's a given, then you just take everything for granted. I know. That's our terrible nature.

It's— yeah, it's just hard. But I also— it is funny because I was like, oh my God, like, they're so old, and this is like— they're in college tomorrow, and like, I hate this. But then I was thinking back to 5th grade, I was like, oh, that was so long ago. Like, I like can't really remember it. So there's a lot, a lot will happen. Yeah, it's not— it's gonna move fast, but it's like things are going to happen and they're—

and yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking about that the other day. I was— I don't know what I was journaling about, but I was thinking, oh, in a few birthdays I'll have been on TV as long as I've not been on TV enough.

Oh, I see, I see, I see.

Yes, yeah, I was 28. Well, when I hit 56, uh, half of my life I'll have spent having been on TV, show business. And what I weirdly liked about that was I thought, oh, that, that's old long ago. Yeah, a lot happened so long ago, and I still have that chunk of time ahead of me. Yeah, that's really comforting.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. I think about that as well. It went by so fast, but also so much happened. Yeah. And so much will happen in the next— that next chunk of time. But it's still stressful. Anyway, well, happy graduation to all.

It's a time trying to think about life moving forward, new chapters, next stages.

Yeah.

What we are as a people, how we prepare each other for that, how we— I don't know, like, you know, ceremonies and rites of passages. Maybe because I was into anthro.

It's just a human thing.

Yeah, it's really interesting that we all have developed these things.

It's an animal thing. I mean, I feel like, right? Don't even animals like elephants do like a little mourning thing?

Elephants mourn. Yeah, they have elephant grave sites where they play with the bones and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But their rites of passage are more like you get kicked out of the, the, the— they call elephants caravans, right?

Oh, that sounds right.

You get kicked out of the caravan because you're an adolescent male and you can't be around anyone, and then you get to come back when you've chilled out. So I guess that's a rite of passage.

Yeah, I guess so.

But yeah, want to do some facts?

Yeah, let's do some facts.

Pack of elephants is a memory or a parade? Parade.

Oh wow, I like that.

A memory? Yeah, that's interesting because they have such good memories. But that's weird. Yeah, that's why, like, you wouldn't call a pack of cheetahs Cheetahs fast.

It's a fast— that'd be great.

A fast of cheetahs.

That'd be great.

They also look like they're fasting cheetahs.

Yeah, because they're so thin, so much energy.

Yeah, I'm gonna say light and quick.

Okay, well, this was for Steve.

Steve Aoki, who I really, really liked.

Me too.

You know, I think I even said it in the episode, but I don't have a ton of interest in DJing. So when we're considering a guest like Steve, I go, I gotta recognize this guy's like world fucking famous, one of the biggest DJs to ever live. So that's, that's worthy of an exploration. But I personally am not so into DJing. Yeah, but this whole punk rock thing that happened, and to see how enthusiastic this guy is and always has been about music— yeah, I thought, boy, does he deserve all this.

Yes, I agree.

Yeah, I like him so much. Me too.

He was also just very kind and sweet energy.

Very sweet energy. Um, almost so sweet it's amazing he made it. And what a cool counterfactual to his father's approach.

I know.

But yet they both were wildly successful.

Yeah, it's true. Um, okay, when did Benny Hana start franchising? Wait, iPod? Oh. Embarrassing. IPO'd. No, IPO'd in 1983. It's like, that's not what I asked. Um, in 1983 and started soon after. The exact date is unclear, but by 1970s there were many locations. First store opened in 1964. I want to go. I want that fried rice. I want it with butter.

We were just talking about it last night.

Oh, I want that. No info on percentage of birthdays that are at Benihana, but hard to find out. I think it is 70%.

I think he would know.

Yeah. Is Kill Sadie banned from Minnesota? Yes, from Minneapolis, and active 1997 to 2001. What is this, a band? Kill Sadie?

Oh, not they were banned like a book banning.

No, banned.

Got it, got it, got it. Yes. Um, I'm like, I, I was, I was having a lot of cognitive dissonance. I'm like, Minneapolis is very progressive. They They wouldn't ban anything.

No, they wouldn't.

That's true.

Okay, um, Devin, some fun facts: Fast and Furious, Sin City, his sister, yep, DOA, Mutant Chronicles, modeling career, walked for Balenciaga, Comme des Garçons, Chanel.

Wow. You know, I immediately— not immediately, it took me 3 days weirdly, but I got on the phone with my cousin. Oh yeah, it was in the band that Steve was obsessed with. Yes. And so I wanted to tell him, I'm like, dude, that, that DJ Steve Aoki, he like loves Current, you know. I just want to tell him all that. And then also pass on the fact that he authenticates records. Yeah, for his dad.

So cool. Oh yeah, he was telling us about that after, and we were going to talk about that.

Yeah, so he has a company that now authenticates records and, yeah, gives them a quality and, and then encases them.

So they're—

and so he had offered to do that to my uncle's record collection, which is kind of famous. And, um, and then my cousin said, oh yeah, he, he was like a Santa Barbara punk rock kid, huh? Like, he kind of knew that he had that origin. And he goes, and doesn't he, he's got a super hot sister? Yeah, yeah, she's like crazy hot. Yeah, those are the two things he knew about him.

Well, yeah, she replaced Naomi Campbell as the face of Versace in '98 at the age 16. of Dude, wow. Um, okay, 2007 Coachella. The headlines were Björk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Rage Against the Machine. Steve played on Saturday afternoon in the Sahara tent.

Sahara, Sahara, Sahara.

What year did esports take off? He guessed 2010s. Yes, sources cite 2010s as the big surge in popularity, mostly after the launch of Twitch in 2011. In 2013, Viewers watched 12 billion minutes on the platform. Oh my God.

Oh my heavens.

Yeah, I mean, there's also like some obviously fun stuff on his dad. Uh, was he wrestling for the Olympics? He came to the US with a spot on Japan's 1960 Olympic team but never competed, and a scholarship to wrestle in the States at Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts. His 1979 offshore powerboat crash near the Golden Gate Bridge resulted in many injuries, including a ruptured aorta, a lacerated liver, and multiple broken bones in his arm and leg, leaving him with a 10% chance of survival.

Oh my God, maniac Rocky.

It is claimed that the hepatitis he had at the time of his death was from a blood transfusion from the crash.

Oh my God.

Oh wow. Um, okay, he won a bunch of awards wrestling and powerboating, backgammon, hot air ballooning. Yeah, won the World Leisure Class Backgammon Championship in 1990.

74. This guy might have devoured life more than anyone we know.

Exactly.

Yeah, he's kind of my new hero.

Part of the— for hot air ballooning— part of the 4-man crew that completed the first Trans-Pacific balloon flight in 1981, setting a 34-year record for the longest manned balloon flight, covering 5,208 miles.

Probably until Richard Branson.

Oh, he didn't have to do that.

He traveled the world. He didn't need to circumnavigated the Earth on a hot air balloon.

Poor Rocky.

Well, you got— I think you, you correct for his level of technology versus the other balloon. I think it's probably more impressive going across the Pacific and the thing they did.

Um, those are the facts.

Well, Steve, if you're listening, you're so likable, it's crazy.

Yeah, that was really a lovely interview. I enjoyed it a lot.

All right, love you. You're special. You're great. You're gonna be the president. Right back at you.

Yeah.