Speaker
Steve Aoki
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Steve Aoki performs approximately 200 shows every year, never dropping below 207 even before COVID, with his lowest year being 207.
Steve Aoki's independent record label Dim Mak, founded in 1996, celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2026, surviving as a fully independent label throughout.
Steve Aoki holds a DJ residency in Las Vegas where he plays around 50 shows per year at venues including Omnia, Hakkasan, and Tao Beach.
The EDC festival in Las Vegas draws approximately 200,000 attendees per day, totaling 600,000 over three days, making it one of the largest festivals in the world.
Steve Aoki remained straight-edge — no alcohol, no drugs — from his teenage hardcore punk years until approximately age 22, living in Isla Vista amid one of the US's biggest party school scenes.
Steve Aoki hosted approximately 400 bands at his small Isla Vista apartment known as the Pickle Patch before he was eventually evicted.
By age 21, Steve Aoki had toured the United States 14 times with punk bands, always staying in friends' houses or sleeping in vans — never in hotels.
Steve Aoki estimates roughly 70% of Benihana's business comes from birthday celebrations, a figure he noted from working there as a teenager.
Steve Aoki's first remix of Bloc Party's 'Helicopter' was paired on a 12-inch with what turned out to be Diplo's first remix, pressed before digital distribution existed.
Steve Aoki's Japanese-immigrant mother inexplicably moved to the whitest neighborhood in Orange County — Newport Beach — when she could have lived in a Japanese community 10 minutes away. The result: Steve got bullied, paddled by Catholic school teachers, and bounced between schools unable to make friends. He's now grateful for it, because feeling like an outsider fueled everything that came after.
Steve Aoki launched Dim Mak Records with zero capital out of his tiny Isla Vista apartment, hosting 400 bands before getting evicted. He named it after Bruce Lee's mythical 'death touch.' The label's first breakthrough came when Allison of The Kills asked him to release their EP — and his decision to take that over a PhD program set the course for everything.
In 2007, Steve Aoki was offered a role in Tropic Thunder — playing a slave DJ for Tom Cruise's iconic dance scene. He turned it down for a $5,000 gig in the Philippines because he needed the money. Tom Cruise ended up just using an iPod. To this day, Aoki calls it one of his biggest 'I wish' moments.
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.
Steve Aoki's son, born in July, is named Rocky — after his late father. The man who inspired Steve's ambition, who never gave easy praise, who raced boats and flew balloons and built Benihana, now lives on in a 9-month-old. Steve says fatherhood, brain health, and longevity are now what matter most to him.
When Rocky Aoki opened Benihana on 56th Street in the 1960s, he was selling Japanese food to a white American audience that had never seen anything like it. Business was so slow the venture nearly collapsed — until a single New York Times review turned everything around. One critic, one article, one chance: that's how Benihana survived.
Steve Aoki's Las Vegas residency isn't just income — it's research. With 50 shows a year in Vegas, he uses the crowd as a real-time feedback mechanism for new music. The pressure to bring fresh material to each festival set forces him to keep creating. He says that schedule — and that challenge — is what keeps him from burning out.
Rocky Aoki arrived in New York in 1961 with no English and a dream. After an ice cream truck failed in Harlem, he invented a concept that didn't exist in Japan — cooking in front of diners — and nearly went bust until a single New York Times review turned everything around. He went public in 1983, then spent the profits racing offshore boats, starting a porn magazine, and flying a hot air balloon across the Pacific.
Steve Aoki was accepted to two graduate and PhD programs with a sociology and women's studies degree from UCSB. He chose music instead when Allison from The Kills sent him a demo that blew him away. The decision came down to one question: was this small indie label enough of a proof of concept? The answer was yes.
James Murphy's 'Losing My Edge' — 118 BPM, a looping bass line, and Murphy talking over the beat — was the record that converted Steve Aoki from punk to electronic. He heard it and thought: I could make this. It was DIY enough to feel possible, hypnotic enough to be powerful. He went straight to Craigslist to hire a Pro Tools teacher.
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 while performing for hundreds of thousands of people on drugs. The only substance he ever tried was acid at age 13, alone, which terrified him so badly he never touched anything again.
At 13, Steve Aoki found his tribe in the straight-edge hardcore punk scene. The appeal was radical accessibility — you didn't have to be good, you just had to show up. Playing in garages after school, making zines at Kinko's, and silk-screening T-shirts taught him that any creative endeavor was achievable. That ethos became the backbone of Dim Mak Records.
Steve Aoki became the most traveled musician in a calendar year on the planet. The training ground was punk: by age 21 he'd toured the US 14 times, always sleeping in vans or on floors, never in hotels. When DJing eventually came with hotels and car pickups, it felt like luxury. That willingness to endure anything made him unstoppable.
Steve Aoki's very first remix — of Bloc Party's 'Helicopter' — was pressed on a 12-inch with no digital distribution. The other side? Diplo's first remix. Neither man knew the other would become a global superstar. Around the world, small underground hipster party scenes in LA, Philadelphia, London, and Japan were quietly building the infrastructure for the EDM explosion.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Music 36%
- Society & Culture 22%
- Health & Fitness 14%
- History 14%
- Business 7%
- Education 7%
Connections
Shows they appear on and people they share episodes with. Drag to explore.
