Adam Kesher: They can't possibly all be looking at the same thing.

Music columnists have recently grown fond of pointing out that the age of self-imposed indie isolation is over. The kids get this, sure (but then, they get everything), but anybody who's having trouble mapping this out for themselves should get to know Steve Aoki.

12 years ago, tiny little bands were tearing his even tinier living room to pieces on an almost nightly basis. Bit by bit, that grew into Dim Mak Records, a label that's grown from a small but potently loud label into a big-time brand that's set to rival Def Jam or Roc-a-Fella. Dim Mak sells music, clothes, and nightlife, with more and more goods popping up all the time, and Aoki stands at the center of it all, with an open ear, a shrewd mind and the impressively broad tastes that got him here. I caught up with him last week to talk music and his many business opportunities, and here's what happened...

So, plug first. We've got you DJing for us at Marquee this Wednesday. Do you find that Halloween audiences are better or worse?
I have a feeling it's going to be better. Anyone that can take the time to dress up is gonna have fun, y'know?

You've been flying all over the place lately...what was the craziest party you went to lately?
Ohh man, San Francisco! That was the most recent party that was just insane. It was amazing. Best San Francisco party I've ever DJed, by exponential figures. It was young too, 18 and over, everyone was dancing to songs they'd never heard before, just songs I've been working on and songs from friends that aren't even out, and they were the biggest songs of the night.

That was Pillowface stuff, or..?
That CD was something I came up with in March of this year, and it just took so long for licensing. But the thing is I just called a few homies and friends to come sing on the tracks. But I think all those tracks today are timeless, regardless of how old some of them are. Like that Franz Ferdinand Erol Alkan remix, which is maybe three years old at this point..

Yeah, it's still got that something..
So fucking good! And so relevant, and there's a lot of kids who don't do the blog-house every day thing like the DJs in America do, so yeah. It's a great project and I'm really excited about it, especially because of the vocalists and what they did.

Was that the first time you'd thought of producing/curating something?
I'd been in the studio half the time...like, when I was working on this album in the studio, the other half was just producing my own material because I never have time to just be in the studio to start writing songs. I have this schedule that tracks the next three months of my life, and every day is, y'know, something. Every bit of time is slotted. Even when I go home to LA, work on the label, work on the fashion line thing, which is a whole new time management responsibility, and it's a really big deal to handle all that, studio time, and then DJing.

Wow that's a lot. So with all that stuff going on, what do you describe yourself as these days? Are you the Dim Mak boss first, or a DJ first...?
Everything I do, every bit of this operation, is the label. I started this label almost 11 years ago, when I was 19, and I've been doing that for a long time independently, with no one helping me out, got it off the ground, and I did it by finding bands really early, not having to pay exorbitant advances, and really developing the bands the right way to the place where, well...cuz kids aren't stupid, y'know? They know good music and they just need it to be presented to them in the right way.

It's crazy though, cuz a lot of the bands you signed to Dim Mak early on, like Panthers or the Von Bondies or Whirlwind Heat, they had these incredible live reputations, something I'm sure you got to experience firsthand. That's probably not something you have the luxury of anymore...
That's the other thing too! Some of these bands I've signed, I never saw them live. I just - there's something special. Like a perfect example is Mystery jets. Mystery Jets is a band I signed this year, it took me 10 months to finish the deal with them. I love this band, I've never seen them live, I just love everything about them. It's like, when you hear music, when you hear a band, that's bigger than the actual band, and you feel somethihng really special about that band, that's when I know I want to work with them, or I want to sign them, or do a remix with them. Shitdisco's another band, that we just signed and, never seen em live, but man, I fucking...that album, it's incredible. They have great songwriters and they're just really cool dudes.

Do you find that now because you're doing remix work you're listening out for like source material now? Like, if you hear a song where it's like, 'Oh I love that hook!' I want to use it?
With the remix work it's half what we wanna do and half what we get offered to it. Like, I'm not necessarily a huge fan of Rooney but we did a remix, and it just worked. They reached out to us, we didn't reach out to them. Like, Bloc Party, the first remix we ever did was the Bloc party "Helicopter" remix. I was releasing it on Dim Mak, so, I really had fun with it.

Aside from Mystery Jets or Shitdisco, is there anyone you're super-geeked about having signed, or any release or something that you've got coming out?
There's a few bands in the pipeline, and one of them is really close to finishing the deal, and when we do the deal - which i hope we do - it'll be a really, really big announcement. A lot of people already know about this band....To preface all of this, Dim Mak, we just partnered with a label called Downtown Records..

Whoa! So does that mean you're paired up with Spank Rock and all those guys now?
It's different. Downtown has Spank Rock and Gnarls Barkley and Cold War Kids and we have our roster, and the partnership is really just them lending a hand in financing, promotions, marketing and sales. And that way we can have a stronger infrastructure to support our bands and really get our bands' music out there, y'know. Physically, through licensing, all that stuff.

It must be nice to finally have help with all these things, especially with the stuff that you're new to, like the fashion stuff with Supra and Krew and everything...
I do a line for Krew, this season. Sweaters, jackets, we just finished fall '08. But that's the Aoki line. The Supra shoes, we designed together. And the Dim Mak collection, we partnered with this Australian brand called Subi, and we're gonna be designing stuff together. In November and December I'll be in Australia designing the entire range for that line with my sister, who's my design partner, she's doing the women's line.

Wait, catch us all up on that for a second. Cuz this just started out as t-shirts, right? And now it's grown into this huge thing unto itself..
Yeah, it started out as merch, basically. It naturally grew into itself through other opportunities. I DJ all kinds of parties, from parties with you guys where I play what I want to play, to industry parties that helped me pay the bills and build Dim Mak up and all that stuff, and in this case, Magic Trade Show hired me to DJ their trade show and help curate and bring bands and stuff. And in exchange, they gave me a booth. I didn't know what to do with the booth, but I had three t-shirts, three Dim Mak t-shirts, and I had no experience as a salesman, especially not at a trade show, but I dunno. We just got all these orders...

...and the rest is history?
Yeah, we got picked up by Urban Outfitters and a bunch of other retailers.

Let's change years a bit. In the past year or so you've won a bunch of awards for DJing, which must be really cool and really humbling. What do you think's more important to a DJ, skill or taste?
Taste is the most important thing for anything. For fashion, running a label, DJing...taste is the most important thing. Your taste defines who you are, y'know? Skill...let's say you can do one thing like no one else can. You're gonna have an audience, but they're only gonna be there for that one thing. But my taste is very broad, as far as music selection go. I just like great songs, whether it's Crips for Cross, or Dolly Parton, or Boys Noize, or Justice or MSTRKRFT. I just like good songs, I don't really care what genre it may be in. Absolutely, taste, no doubt about it.

Getting back to the Pillowface thing, it seems like a lot of the stuff on there is going in the direction of this electro-rap hybrid, which I personally think is going to be the next big thing...Even as far as crossover appeal.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of directions that music's going, but that's definitely a really prominent one because there's enough artists doing that right now and they're relly doing quality songs and quality music. They have high fidelity in what they're doing, and that always makes it bigger. Like when Pedro Winter created Ed Banger and really took over the world with his sound, with his whole crew.

So you don't think that that's probably the dominant direction? I mean, even in the mainstream that sound's starting to take root - Kanye sampled Daft Punk, crunk and r&b are starting to borrow...
So you're saying as like the next step in commercial music?

Yeah.
That makes total sense. I mean, all the big artists, commercial artists, even like Fergie or will.i.am, their biggest songs are in the BPMs of an electro song. And when you're making songs at that speed, it's easier to take from electronic music, not even electro but electronic in general, then that's where the basis is anyway. It does make sense. It's something new as well, something refreshing to hear hip hop going in a different direction, and hip hop is sort of the definitive cultural landscape of music in America. But it's only America. I mean that's what I was gonna point out, is that the evolution of the music that you're talking about, which I agree makes sense, is only an American-driven idea, because in Europe it's a completely different concept. But like I was saying earlier, there's so much fidelity to what's going on with people pushing club rap to the next level here in America, like on my record, I've got 12 singers, and 8 of them are rappers, so I'm backing it. Those are my homies, man, and I totally back them. I back their direction, I back where they're going. I totally back electro and the different direction that's moving in too. Just like where electro can be a big room house thing, y'know?

Yeah, sort of like Mason, and them? Or are you thinking more along the lines of Ed Banger or Boys Noize?
Yeah, definitely. Boys Noize is one of my favorite DJs. Like, what he did at the Winter Music Conference in Miami...

I heard that was insane.
It was the best DJ set I've ever seen. And that involves no vocals, y'know. That's pure, pure electro, and I back him. I back his every move. I'm a huge supporter, huge fan. And I really think he's the future in general. We're actually releasing the Boys Noize remix anthology. It's got some new ones too that haven't come out, like he remixes Marilyn Manson, and there's a Justice one that's getting blogged out right now, a D.A.N.C.E. remix, he's working on a Dim Mak remix for one of my bands.

So what's next for '08? You've got this three month block all laid out, give the readers a sneak preview.
'08 is about preparing for '09.

Oh my god.
The evolution of what Dim Mak has been doing has been truly, truly DIY independent. I've had zero financial suppport from anyone else, except for one year that helped me move out of my apartment and get an office, and now we've evolved into a business where we can partner with people that have the assets and resources and let us do what we do best. I just wanna keep producing quality, uh, goods, whatever it is, whether it's signing quality bands, producing a great line, producing good music or working with great artists, doing great shows, having fun through all that.

Awesome. See you on Halloween!
For sure.

Steve Aoki will be DJing at Marquee this Halloween, and also at Cheeky Bastard this Thursday. His debut mix CD, Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles, is set for nationwide distribution in January of 2008.