Travel Advice from Steve Aoki, Who Throws Cake at 2,500 People a Year

Steve Aoki has been to more countries in one weekend than most people will go to in their entire lives. The DJ does hundreds of shows a year, hitting between 50 to 70 countries in the process. It’s not abnormal for him to tour three countries in one day or five in 40 hours. Along the way, the self-proclaimed “adventure seeker” wants to do more than just play music. "Whenever I go to Ibiza, I want to find a new cliff to jump off of," Aoki explains seated on a couch in the much-less-exotic location of New York City.

Aoki lists Cairo, Cuba, and the Galápagos as places he still needs to hit. Those are lofty goals for a DJ who used to be ignored while performing at private parties for alcohol brands. GQ caught up with the worldly Aoki—whose new album Kolony drops July 21—about competing with other DJs, his favorite hotel in the world, and much more.

GQ: Is it still fun for you to be visiting so many countries? Or was that cooler earlier in your career?
When I think about where I’m going to this year, I’ll be hitting some new countries, so I’m pretty excited about that. I’m going to Kazakhstan, I’m going to Georgia. Sometimes I get really excited about the prospect of going to places that no one really goes to. And there’s other DJs, there’s a healthy competition—like when Diplo goes somewhere and I’m like, “Oh shit, he’s been there already!” So me and Diplo always talk about it. I’ll be like, “Oh, I got here before Diplo did!” And he’ll do the same thing. Like he went to Cambodia. And I was like, “Oh shit he went to Cambodia for the first time!” I love trekking new ground. It’s like being an explorer in a way, planting the flag for DJs. I went to China seven times in the last year. And I’ve played in cities I’ve never heard of until a week before I got there. That’s exciting. And I think we’ve got an offer to go to North Korea, which would be a trip. I don’t want to get stuck there, though.

If Diplo were here right now, what's the one place you’d be bragging about getting to first?
I remember in 2007 I was hitting Malaysia, and that was really exciting. And doing really big shows. That was one of the first times I was like, “Holy shit.” Or the Philippines back in ‘07. Actually, I made one of those regretful decisions where I was booked to DJ in a movie, it was going to be a cameo in a movie for the very first time. In 2007. And I decided not to take the role to DJ in the Philippines. And that movie was Tropic Thunder.

Do you have a favorite hotel you’ve stayed in?
There’s a new hotel in Miami, I have to shout them out. They’re called 1 Hotels. It’s a higher end hotel that’s incredibly eco friendly. They have incredible restaurant options that are vegan friendly. They have a gym with a spartan section. They have a very future, postmodern style of thinking. It’s a very nice hotel.

Do you ever forget where you are?
All the time. That’s like a very common thing. Especially if I have a bad dream. I wake up and I’m like, where am I?! Los Angeles? Sydney? Oh, Beirut! I’m used to it. But that happens all the time.

I read that you have a Chinese tea bar in your home. What’s the best tea in the world?
I forgot the name of this tea—I’m going to butcher the name. It is a spinoff of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. This tea is grown at a very, very high elevation on one particular mountain in China, where they pick the leaves. Whenever I drink this tea, I always imagine some old, Chinese guy with a long beard climbing up this mountain and clipping the leaves off this tree. And also, the government only allows this one guy to harvest this tea. So it’s very rare. It’s hard to get this tea. I always get a little allotment. It’s a very interesting flavor. With the story and all that, you taste all that.

What does it taste like?
It’s kind of like a musky, I don’t know, imagine if you’re drinking tea in the bottom of a pyramid.

Whose job is it to find the cakes you’re going to throw at people at your shows?
Just like production advancing shows, where they have to get the equipment I need to play, we have a technical rider. And we also have a cake rider. And it’s six pages long. My rider is pretty funny. I used to have like inflatable rafts. My shows, the way I see a concert, it’s not only an auditory experience. It’s an all sensory experience. I want to do certain acts. I treat it like there are different acts during my set. This act I bring out the boat. This act I want the cake. This act I bring out the Champagne. And the cake is very important. At this point I’ve caked over 12,000 people in the face. 10 cakes a show, 250 shows a year, you can count how many cakes that is. For the cakes, it’s very important we stick to a very specific guideline.

Do you ask for top-of-the-line cakes or just stop by a local bakery?
The top of the line means that the cake is going to be a fun explosion of sugar and cream all over your face. That’s where it’s top of the line. I don’t need the high-end sugars or something. At the end of the day, I just want it to be messy.