The mixed CD "Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles" will serve as an intro for many to the electro scene and the globetrotting DJ Steve Aoki. Those in the know have been following Steve and his record label Dim Mak with essential releases from Bloc Party, Klaxons, The Rakes, and The Gossip. Steve Aoki has deftly mixed the greatest hits of electro (Datarock, Franz Ferdinand, Justice) with cheeky voiceovers (from Spank Rock, Har Mar Superstar, Mickey Avalon) for one of the most compelling mixed CDs of recent memory.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: Are you excited about playing Sundance this year?
Steve Aoki: Yes, definitely. I love it. This is my third year I
think, or maybe fourth. I'm not really sure. I like going out there
because I'm in one place for at least a couple of days.
RS: Yes, I looked at your touring schedule and it looks like
you're everywhere.
Steve Aoki: Sundance is weird because I've yet to see an actual movie there.
RS: So how did you choose the songs for your CD? Is it
representative of what you play in your live gigs?
Steve Aoki: That CD is more of a reflection of the current state of
music that I'm really involved in and excited about. I think for a lot
of kids, it's an introduction to what electro is or defines what
electro is to me. As far as electronic music is concerned, there's a
huge dividing culture between people that listen to Tiesto and people
that listen to Justice. It's also for the kids who already know what
electro is, and have been a part of it for years. The tracks are
popular, they're purposefully popular and they're purposefully classic
in that sound for that reason. I also added all the new hip-hop vocals
and different singers and artists that drop their vocals over the
tracks.
RS: I've heard this CD referred to as the Rave til Dawn for the
electro generation.
Steve Aoki: Yes, yes, for sure!
RS: How did you meet up with all the vocalists that you had drop
tracks on here?
Steve Aoki: Well, there's a long history between myself and all
those different people who sing on the record. I know them in
different capacities. They're all friends of mine, people I respect,
and people that I've worked with. Also, it's people that to me are the
future of our sound, they define the future of what we're doing, from
Spank Rock being the future of hip-hop, to the Faint, who has always
been the best of the game, to Uffie, to all these different artists.
RS: There's a lot of buzz on the CD that it is the next big
thing. Where do you see the CD going and what kind of influence do you
think it's going to have on people?
Steve Aoki: I am really excited about how the retail structure has
been on this CD. We just had our sales meeting and we got into all
the big chains, Target and Walmart. It's been difficult with how
records are selling – actually, how they're not selling – and with the
closing down of mom and pop stores, who have been the bread and butter
of my label for about ten years. They've been the main support
structure of how we sell records. What's left is these huge, massive
chains. So, getting into these stores and making it available and
accessible to the kids that have no other choice about where they want
to buy a physical CD, it's actually been really impressive. So we're
doing some more support around that world, so we can be more available
to the kids. We're shipping thirty thousand records for the first
week.
RS: Being in this for ten years, why wait until now for your first mix CD?
Steve Aoki: You know, I didn't want to do mix CDs for a long time. I
wasn't really interested. Most mix CDs are really boring, and I was
never really excited about any except Erol Alkan's Bugger Out Mix CD
which was a really important CD for me when I came up. Diplo's Fabric
Live CD is another classic mix CD – there's only a few that just stand
out. With this one, it was like more of kind of cultural landscape.
The reasons for this CD coming out was when I saw the effect that all
these different groups were having: changing music and creating their
own theme, their own community, that's when I was I thought, 'Well,
here's a good reason to do a mix CD.' As well as making it different
by adding new vocals on all these tracks that everyone knows about.
They're purposefully popular, they're tracks that people should
already have and they know about but with all new vocals which make it
a new track.
