In 2012, Steve Aoki played 161 shows in 41 countries, setting a record for being the most-traveled musician in a year. In 2014, he broke his own record with 168 shows. “There were times I couldn’t remember where I played,” Aoki says. He still plays 100+ shows a year, but now he focuses more on finding local collaborators and being present in the places he goes. Worth spoke to Aoki about his new travel habits, AI, music, and plans to visit the moon.
Dan Costa: Anybody that’s heard your music can tell you have been around the world. Anybody that looks at who you’ve collaborated with can tell that you travel a lot. How much have you traveled in the last week? What are you going to do next week?
Steve Aoki: This week is an exceptionally chill week, and I’m grateful for that. I am really grateful for that because my whole year has been pretty stacked. I make room in Japan. Although I do like a few shows out there. Last year I spent 10 days there. That’s the longest stretch of time I’ve been in one place in probably 20 years. Japan is the one place where I’m like, “we’re not doing any other shows.” I am going to focus here in my favorite place in the world.
I went to a show last night. The band came on at nine, they were done by 10:15, and I was home by 11. Your shows are a little later than that. How do you protect your sleep when you’re doing that many shows and that much travel?
That’s one of my main neurotic traits. I think about my sleep all the time. You know, I wear a whoop and always check my sleep data—actually, I didn’t check it last night. Let me check it right now. So I generally check it right when I wake up…..yeah, I got six hours of sleep. It’s pretty good. I got 49 minutes of REM, though, so it’s not great REM….
…I’ve got the Oura ring. I do the same thing. Six hours would not be enough for me.
It’s tough. When I’m in a good time zone, like in Europe, I actually get a pretty healthy amount of sleep, even if my show starts at 3:30 in the morning. That’s what happens with some of these gigs in Ibiza. My sets always start at 3:30 a.m. because that’s the peak time. That’s when the headliner starts.
You played in Japan, South Africa, and Ibiza last year. How do these locations shape your music?
You don’t need to be in South Africa to listen to Amapiano and Afrobeat. You really don’t. There’s plenty of music you hear in the studio. You hear all the drums, you hear all the sounds, you hear all the vocals, you hear all the rhythms, whatever it might be. You don’t need to be there, but a different kind of interest opens up when you’re there. Being there, I was so inspired. I wanted to feature some of these artists on the album as collaborators. That requires you actually to have a human-to-human connection. You need to meet them. You need to be around their world. You need to be in it, and that’s the main difference. IRL versus digital, you know? Now, I have two South African artists on this new album.
You use a lot of technology to make your music. How are you using AI today, and how do you think you will use it in the future?
AI has helped with a few things in my space. First, there are great AI tools to separate all the stems of a track. Some plugins could do it, but they just did it poorly. Now AI does it pretty well. That’s a very useful tool for a lot of producers. For lyric generation, I’ve used ChatGPT since it launched. I’ll use AI to generate ideas if I’m stuck on some lyrics.
As far as music generation, I haven’t used it to help me write music melodies. I don’t work with complicated melodies anyway. Although I do like complicated melodies, I think it always adds that challenge to see if they’re something you want to include. But for the most part, my way of producing electronic music has always been the simplest approach, which is generally the best one.
Could you talk a little bit about the Aoki Foundation? Why did you start it and how did you decide to focus on brain health?
Three things need a lot of attention, funding, and awareness when it comes to health: the brain, the heart, and the gut. If we focus on those three things, then we’ll figure out how to live long enough to live forever. I am most excited about the brain. At 75 years of age, it’s a 50/50 chance, whether you get Alzheimer’s, dementia, or another degenerative brain disease. We don’t have a cure, but we have different long-term remedies and we need more. The foundation is all about supporting brain science and research.
This issue includes a story on space tourism. Are you interested in going into space as well?
I’m part of the Dear Moon project. [Editor’s Note: Dear Moon is a private spaceflight organized by Japanese Entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa. It was canceled shortly after this interview.] It took me close to two years of screenings to become one of the eight people to go to the moon, which was pretty intense. A million people auditioned to be part of this team, and I made it to the top eight, which was very exciting. When and if it happens, I don’t have any information on that, but I know the trip would be a seven-day voyage. It’s a trip that goes around the moon. It’s a trip that has only happened two times before trained astronauts. This would be a full-civilian trip.
Our tagline at Worth is “worth beyond wealth.” What does that phrase mean to you?
It’s family. It’s everything outside of my public life. My public life is extremely valuable to me. It allows me to pursue my dreams and continues to push me as a human. But my heart and soul go to my family and my personal and intimate relationships.