Steve Aoki can’t remember if he started doing 200 shows per year in 2006 or 2007, but he’s maintained that wildly-ambitious tour schedule ever since. The 46-year-old DJ even snagged a Guinness World Record for “Most-Traveled Musician in a Single Calendar Year.” And despite the general business of life on the road, Aoki’s still having fun with it. He’s managed to create ridiculous traditions with his fans—perhaps the best example being the giant sheet cakes he’s known for hurling into the faces of audience members during his shows. “I always say I'm the best waiter in the industry—I like to serve the cakes to my fans,” he says.
Aoki released his ninth studio album, “Paragon,” on June 28—he told GQ all about the diet, meditation practice, and overall wellness philosophy that help him continue to operate at warp speed when it comes to touring and making music.
For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.
GQ: Basically, I want to hear how in the world you stay alive when you're on these tours and keep up the insane amount of energy required in your performances.
Steve Aoki: If I think in the beginning when you get into this life of entertaining and providing this kind of energy for people, it's easy to become the audience. You know, you want to be on the same level because that's actually really quite important as a DJ to be on the same level with the people that you're telling your story to through this music.
But over time, it's something of a discipline. You have to learn to focus on the long game and balance how to do this as a long stretch. So in order to do that, there's certain sacrifices you have to make. I call it this competitive athletic mindset that I like to really train and challenge myself on. I look at myself like an athlete that's training for a competition.
So, when you're training for a competition, you have to focus in on making sure that your A-game is right on the track whenever you're supposed to race, right? You know, I might have a sip of alcohol here and there, but I don't get drunk anymore. When I first started DJing, you get really into it, you get super loose with it. Now I don't do that. You know, I might cheers here and there.
How old were you when you first started?
I’m 46 now, so like, 24?
When did you change your mindset about drinking or indulging to the level that you were?
It's not like I’m straight edge or anything. I don't completely abstain from alcohol, but 2009 was when I made that shift.
Was there a catalyst for the change?
That catalyst at that time was a good friend of mine, another DJ, passed away. It wasn't from alcohol abuse, it was from other things. It just was a wake up call that like, it doesn't matter what it is, whatever you're doing that's putting you over the edge.
I love what I do. I think at that point in time in my mourning of his death, I was contemplating a lot of existential, philosophical questions about myself and why I’m doing this, you know? Truly, I do this because it makes me happy. When you bring happiness to others, you bring happiness to yourself. When you see people's faces light up, when you see people moving—you realize that there's people in the crowd that are there with intention.
They're there to like, whether it’s escaping a severe workload, or whatever problems they may have in their life, they're there with intention. You see people that so in the present moment—this is like their moment—that stays with you. And that continues through my own journey of why I do what I do.
That sounds both like a lot of pressure and super motivating.
You know, I've been touring over 200 shows a year since 2007, maybe 2006. This year, I'll be doing 200 and probably 50 or 60 shows. Last year I did 209 shows. I’ve broken 300 shows, and I’ve never really been burned out. I think a lot of it is this mindset of intention I have when I look at—it's not casual. Just like when you go into the gym, you go in with intention. When I look at the long game and the short game and what I do, I go in with this intention of purpose that has to be grounded, that has to be present.
Then everything else comes in. The discipline starts sharpening, and you start taking away things that are not part of your intention. If it doesn't improve on this intention, it shouldn't be part of it. Your baseline is the purpose of why you're doing it, and really being grounded in that allows you to have a discipline to start focusing on what works and what doesn't work with that discipline.
Then the other thing that I think it's important to talk about here is to gamify things. I'm a gamer of life, not just a gamer of video games—I like to gamify everything. That's also part of this competitive mindset that I have. I always need a challenge. And I always need to find a goalpost, whether it's small or large or long or short. I need a goalpost. I need accountability. Whether it's challenging myself to do cold plunges multiple times a week or to eat a certain way or to work out a number of times a week. I hit these benchmarks for myself and that's that's a big part of it too.
How many times are you cold plunging and going to the gym? And what are you doing at the gym?
The cold plunge and sauna are consistent regulars here. Before I get into it, one thing that I'm like known for is being impulsive. So whatever's around me, I need to control that. If I have Cheetos and Doritos all around me, I'm gonna probably try it because it's sitting in front of me. But if I have vegetables and protein and vitamins around me, I'm going to do that. So you control your environment. So I like to control it with my rider when I'm on the road. I have a chef here that cooks very specific meals for me. With the money that I've earned, I'm able to have more control over certain things.
So, it's a bit excessive, but I have four cold plunges in my house. I just got a fifth one. I have two saunas, and I’m getting a third one.
Do you use a different one every day?
I love group dynamics, so I always bring people over to do the cold plunge. I love onboarding people to the cold plunge community or the world of cold blending, which is extreme heat exposure and extreme cold exposure. I think those are two things that can really sharpen your mind and that are extremely healthy for the body and the mind as well.
So I try to do those a couple of times a week, because I'm only home maybe two to four days a week. So I tried to do that two to four times a week. I train three times a week when I'm home.
What are your training sessions like?
They last 45 minutes to an hour. So when I'm in the gym, it’s very traditional, focusing on different muscle groups—back, legs, chest. I usually do that with a trainer. But I've been playing pickleball regularly, so on top of the training I also get my cardio. Whenever I'm home I try to do it because there’s a court by my house. So I play pickleball sometimes for two to five hours, depending on how much time I have.
I got into golf recently, so that's a new sport I enjoy. Those are more casual. Those, you know, I got my Whoop because metrics are important for my sleep health and for my strain health to make sure I’m straining the body in a positive way.
How many hours a night are you trying to get for sleep?
It’s more about quality than quantity for me, so if I can get at least an hour and a half of REM I'm happy. That's my marker, for sure.
You mentioned your rider being very specific. What's in it?
I’ve got vegetables, I got my protein powder, I got my throat coat. I have my teas—my lemon and my ginger—and my yoga mat. Those are the things for me.
I have cakes but they're not to be eaten. I always say I'm the best waiter in the industry. I like to serve the cakes to my fans.
How many cakes per show?
Ten—so a lot of sugar going to the crowd, but you know, they're jumping and dancing so it's a good time to get your sugar.
Do you ever get tempted to just have like a little slice?
I’m not really not much of cake-y—it's interesting because I'm like known as the cake guy, but I don't even eat much cake.
How did that start?
It was just one of those silly ideas that I came up with just trying out at one of my shows in 2011. I mean, I'm always trying different things. That's the one thing post-2009, after I put this focus on intention and purpose and on creating the best possible show I can for my fans, things started changing. I started thinking outside the box.
When you do that and you start being creative and showing that you really care about your shows then like, silly things become mainstays. I've tried some really high tech stuff—like I brought robots on the stage, [I’ve tried] shooting cryo and fire—it's expensive to bring these guys out. Then I tried the cakes out. You have to be consistent with a thing for it to become a Steve Aoki thing, and the cake is consistent. It's easy—everyone can bake a cake anywhere I'm going, but it's hard to bring out robots everywhere. So it's just some some things work, some things don't.
Is it someone's job to research a local bakery?
We have a hospitality rider for the food and the drinks and stuff. Then we have a technical rider for my production and my show. Then we have the cake rider, and the cake rider is six pages long and people have to follow it: the size, the dimensions, the weight, the ingredients.
What are those details?
Oh, that would require an NDA. We keep the secret sauce to just the relationship that we have with the local bakers.
OK, so we know you aren’t eating cake, but what are you eating before you perform? And are you meditating or anything to prep?
There is 100 percent calm before the storm. The Steve Aoki pre-game is a pretty zen-full pregame. I’ve tried it all. When I was young and starting out I tried the party before the party. Some people can do it, but that's not how I'm able to amplify my energy at the show. For many, many years, I was a habitual meditator. I would be meditating everywhere I would be. I'd find different locations to meditate. I just sunk deep into it. Now I just do it here and there. It's not as habitual as it was before. It's not as consistent as was before. But it’s the same practice of finding that calm before I give 100 percent at the show. It's super important.
What time are you waking up in the morning after these shows?
Well, it's all dependent on flights and things like that. So sometimes, unfortunately, on these runs we don't sleep much and we have to survive on a nap so we're literally on fumes. And when we're doing that, you don't have a choice but to have calm before storms, there's no choice because the whole team is sunken. Then we have to recharge before we hit the stage.
How do you keep from getting sick?
Sickness is really based on how well your immune system responds to your environments, right? So it's about strengthening your immune system. So in order to strengthen your immune system, I do like the holistic approach. I try it all—I have a red light bed here—that really helps push oxygen into the mitochondria through the skin, which powers your cells. I take probably between 40 to 60 supplements a day—it’s a bit excessive. I think most people don't need to take supplements at all, but I want the edge. I love being the guinea pig and trying all these different kind of techniques and seeing if this edge does work or not. I'm willing to do that.
Over the years, I've garnered an incredible network of longevity experts and leaders in the space. I ask tons and tons of questions and make sure to honor my curiosity as best as I can when I'm with them. What works for them might not work with me, but I like to know what's working for them to try these different techniques. I think the extreme heat and cold exposure definitely does strengthen you. It can make you sick immediately too, but if you're doing it consistently and you're always keeping your body on this pattern, your body just gets stronger. Your heart rate also gets stronger, it gets more flexible. So if I’m constantly pushing it to this point where my heart rate generally can handle these kinds of exposures, then my heart rate gets centered very, very quickly in the cold.
So it's just a lot of different things that I like to track, and the most important thing is metrics. I get my bloodwork done every two to three months. I like to always do body checks on everything. I just keep track of everything and see what works and what doesn't work while I'm trying all these different techniques.
What is breakfast? What are you eating? What are you eating for lunch?
I don't eat breakfast—I do 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. meals. I do eat protein, but I don’t eat red meat or pork. I don't eat octopus, because I just think they're highly intelligent beings. I don't like to eat anything that is highly intelligent. I eat chicken and fish—that's my protein source. I don't really have the traditional carbs, so I get my veggies and my chicken. That's basically what I eat for lunch and dinner. I love hot sauce. It's a mixture of like different cuisines, but that's like the actual like source of food.
I have something called nutty putting, which is like a Bryan Johnson thing. It's got like a mixture of all kinds of stuff that you can see on YouTube. I take a longevity mix that's from him. I take Athletic Greens mix that's like a bunch of minerals and vitamins in there. I take half of my vitamin dosage. I do drink coffee with cinnamon and some cacao flavonoids and I'm good. Then I wait till 8 p.m. and have another meal very similar to that and then I'm done.
Do you ever splurge when you’re traveling?
If I go into a cafe or a restaurant that's like well-known in a city, I'm going to eat whatever I can eat within my dietary restrictions, which is no pork, no beef, and no octopus. But I'll pretty much go in everything else. So yeah, I definitely splurge in those instances.
Finally, your skin and hair look great—drop the beauty routine.
The shampoo and conditioner I use is something I've actually been working on myself. I've been using it for probably more than a year now. I'm working on the recipe so we can actually bring it to market.
I don't do anything with the skin. I did put some sunscreen on today, but I don't use any moisturizer. I don't do any exfoliants. I have it all in my bathroom, but I never touch it. I honestly don't even wash my face on a daily basis. So I’m just like doing everything I'm not supposed to be doing.