Where this was said
Navigating EDM's Drug Culture, Sobriety & the Acid Story
At 1:10:25 · chapter starts 1:08:00
The contrast is almost comic: Steve Aoki is one of the most prominent DJs on a circuit where MDMA is essentially a cultural institution, yet he has never touched cocaine, meth, heroin, or MDMA. [1] — Steve Aoki "The EDM world runs on MDMA. Steve Aoki ran on nothing. His straight-edge roots meant he never touched cocaine, meth, heroin, or MDMA — even…" 1:07:37 His sobriety isn't performance-based — it's rooted in a single formative experience. At 13, alone, he tried acid. He got in, couldn't find the exit, panicked. That fear never left him. Even now, he says, if psychedelics had a therapeutic or longevity application — the Michael Pollan approach — he'd be curious. But he's never actually gone there. His eventual break from straight-edge came at 22 when the Minnesota band Kill Sadie visited and got him to take his first drink, by which point the punk scene was behind him and drinking was just what everyone he loved did. The sobriety he maintained through the whole EDM rise wasn't ideology by then — it was just who he was.
Rocky Aoki wasn't a man of emotional declarations. He never said 'I love you' much, and Steve spent decades competing for his approval. Before Rocky died in 2008, he told Steve: 'I don't have to worry about you anymore.' That was it. To Steve, it was everything — an indirect, roundabout, but unmistakable declaration of pride.
