The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Steve Aoki lets them eat cake
EDM master has specific bakery-related requirements for venues he plays
In the history of concert tour riders, Van Halen reportedly required a candy bowl sans brown M&M’s, while Sir Paul McCartney demanded all furniture be made from animal-free products.
Then there’s two-time Grammy-nominated producer-DJ Steve Aoki, whose rider requires special cakes made specifically to explode over the audience, providing a frosting-flavored memory meant to last a lifetime.
“The cake is another aspect of the show that makes it unique,” said Aoki, calling from his Las Vegas home. “If you saw my show three years ago, you might not remember the songs I played, but you’ll definitely remember the experiences you had. I want it to be fun. I want people to leave their worries behind, leave their pretensions behind and, like, lose themselves in the experience, the music and the moment.
“When someone has cake all over their face, they just completely freed themselves, freed their minds, freed their spirit. That’s the whole point I’m trying to give at my shows. So, like, three years later, they’ll say they’ll never forget I got caked by Steve Aoki.”
Fans of Aoki’s concerts will have a chance to experience his confectionary chaos March 11 at Agora Cleveland.
“I’m sure there’s no one else who has a six-page cake rider that we have sent out to a local baker,” Aoki said. “We support the local economy in Cleveland. They have to follow the cake rider so these cakes explode on impact and just get messy.”
Getting his hands messy in all types of, well, cakes has become Aoki’s calling card over the last two decades.
In addition to founding
trendsetting record label, events/lifestyle company and apparel line Dim Mak Records, Aoki founded The Aoki Foundation, which primarily supports organizations in the brain science and research areas with a specific focus on regenerative medicine and brain preservation.
He’s also found time to start his own West Coast pizza chain, Pizzaoki, and last year released the book “Blue: The Color of Noise.” In the memoir, he tells the story of starting out as a vegan, straightedge, hardcore music kid rebelling against his millionaire father — Rocky Aoki,
founder of Benihana — to become a worldwide sensation.
Aoki is mostly known as one of today’s most successful American crossgenre artists — 2.6 billion music streams on Spotify and 355 million music streams on YouTube.
One of the highest paid DJs, Aoki plays more than 250 tour dates annually, with past performances including Coachella, Ultra Music Festival, Lollapalooza, Fuji Rock Festival, Tomorrowland and Electric Daisy Carnival.
Up next for Aoki is the upcoming album “Neon Future IV,” the fourth installment
of the series.
“It’s my biggest album to date,” Aoki said. “It’s quite extensive and more like two albums. I did a ton of collaborations with the Backstreet Boys, Monsta X and Sting and Shaed.
“This is a lot more of a crossover record. It’s a mixed bag between a lot of these cross-cultural collaborations, EDM records and then more of the heady science collabs with scientists and people in science talking about our future.”
Fans attending the upcoming Cleveland show can expect to hear the new tunes and perhaps get caked. However, Aoki admitted there won’t be enough for everyone. That’s by design to keep audiences coming back.
“I wish I did have cake for everyone,” Aoki said. “I feel like some shows I need like four times the amount of cakes for seeing so many signs and people just begging for it, but you can’t give it all away.
“You have to give enough of it and then make them wait for the next show.”