Steve Aoki Finds Pleasure in Pokémon, Process and Cold Plunges

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Steve Aoki’s record label and lifestyle brand, Dim Mak. Aoki, the Grammy-nominated DJ-producer known for his indefatigable enthusiasm and multiple creative projects—including everything from graphic novels to pizza delivery—is starting 2021 at top speed, dropping not just a new album (6OKI) but also a clothing collaboration (with Playboy Labs) on January 22.

A distinctive and energetic DIY ethos imbues Aoki’s approach to both life and music. Indeed, Carter Jung, creative director of Playboy Labs, tells us Aoki was very hands-on with the collection, making practically every design decision from the tie-dyes to the art, stacking logos in various ways to create new shapes and forms and hiding “Easter egg details” like the number 96 and a new “incognito” Aoki silhouette logo.

Aoki founded Dim Mak in 1996—hence that Easter egg—but he was already a budding entertainer/entrepreneur in his early teens, a force of creativity who instinctively blended content and commerce. He recalls making merch in his mom’s closet when he was just 15 years old. “I was buying shirts for a dollar at the fucking Salvation Army, flipping them over, screen-printing the inside and selling them for three bucks at my shows,” Aoki says.

In a wide-ranging Zoom conversation from his Las Vegas home—which sounds like the world’s best quarantine space—Aoki shared his thoughts his new “pure-fire EDM” album, the pleasure of his process, getting high off a cold plunge and so much more.

PLAYBOY: The pandemic has been part of everyone’s experience. How has the past year been for you, and how have you been staying sane?

STEVE AOKI: I’ve been keeping busy at home. I’ve kind of been prepared—on accident. My house is the perfect setup for quarantine. I have everything you could possibly need if you are stuck at home—a studio, my green-screen virtual DJ set, my gym. It’s rare I need to leave the house for anything.

I got burned out—I was working nonstop, finished tons of music—so I found fun at-home things to do outside of working in the studio. You just can’t drive yourself at the same thing over and over again. So I discovered this passion in Pokémon cards, which is really bizarre.

PLAYBOY: You found a balance and didn’t just think, Oh, I have this time, let me work myself to death.

AOKI: Yeah. The other thing that’s really important is I’ve been able to spend time with family. I rarely get a chance to do that because I’m always touring.

Outside of my creative pursuits, [I’ve been] able to thrive because I’m at home and can get in that state of flow. Now on a regular basis I make sure to be mindful, stay on track and have consistency with my meditation regimen. I do a cold plunge, I do sauna, I do yoga. When I was on the road playing shows and not trying to get sleep, it was sporadic. I feel busier, to be honest with you.

PLAYBOY: I have to drag myself to meditate and do yoga. And it’s not like I’m doing a cold plunge!

AOKI: You could do it, trust me. You just need someone to hold your hand and get you in there; you’re not gonna do it alone.

PLAYBOY: Pre-Covid, you were known for the intense pace of your tour schedule. You played hundreds of shows in a single year—even several shows in several countries in a single day. Those performances were really immersive, not just sonically, but also experientially with the “caking.” How do you translate that experience and bring it together virtually?

AOKI: It’s very difficult. There’s nothing that compares to real life. You can’t have a cake flying at you over a screen. So much of seeing a show is about the people around you, the energy. As far as being a performer, entertainer and DJ on stage, interacting with people in real life activates me in a different way. It allows me to tell a story differently, allows me to play differently. [Performing virtually] is more of a challenge. I am constantly imagining a crowd in the lens. I’m limited in what I can do and by the fact that people in the audience are not surrounded by people dancing or by that energy; they’re most likely sitting down.

So how do I make my virtual show the best virtual show it can be? The music is the driver. It’s the most important, and that’s what I have to keep crafting. With any experience, it’s the soul of what you do.

PLAYBOY: Let’s talk about your Dim Mak collaboration with Playboy Labs. What initially drew you to this project?

AOKI: I mean, nudity. Come on. [Laughs]

PLAYBOY: Good answer.

AOKI: I’m kidding, but that’s definitely part of it. Playboy is classic. The Rabbit Head is classic. It’s part of the culture. It’s nude, but it’s classy and classic and vintage and nostalgic too. I want to work with brands that have a cultural legacy. [Playboy] has so much history and is robust. I never got into the articles, though everyone’s like, “Yo, you gotta read these articles, they’re incredible!” To me that’s like when you go to a strip club and you’re like, “Yo, the strip club is not about the girls, it’s about the food!”

With Playboy, it’s just cool. When it came across our table, I was like 100 percent, this is going to be dope. This is fire, you know? I love it. I’m really happy about the collaboration.

PLAYBOY: The Playboy Labs–Dim Mak collection drops on January 22. That same day, you’re releasing your new album, 6OKI. Overall the album feels optimistic. What was your mindset when you were creating it?

AOKI: This is about bangers. My previous album, Neon Future IV, was a 27-song multiverse of different collaborations from different worlds, different artists, different sounds. This new album is all about pure, unadulterated EDM. The whole idea is to start 2021 with that high-energy spirit. And what a way to start the year, with the Playboy collab and the 6OKI album. I love heartfelt ballads and I love sad songs, but this isn’t about sad songs—it’s pure-fire EDM. I’m so excited to drop it because I just want to start 2021 off really hopeful and high energy.

We’ve got good days ahead of us, and soon we’ll be back doing shows again. That’s what I really want to do. I’m dying for it.

PLAYBOY: You’ve said it was important to you to pay homage to your Japanese heritage with the designs. How did you do that with the collection?

AOKI: Some of the designs include this Japanese samurai demon mask, which is dope. The Aoki clan—my last name, our OG clan—was a samurai clan. This pays direct homage to the samurai, the badass samurai of Japanese culture. That in itself is dope; I’m glad we’ve added that in the new collaboration.

You can’t take the Aoki out of anything Dim Mak. My identity—my Asian American heritage—is in every piece. It’s going to have an influence that has not just an Asian feel to it, but also an Asian American identity. That was going to bleed into every single collaboration—fashion, music, art, whatever—I ended up doing.

PLAYBOY: With the many projects you’ve been juggling, how do you make sure you seek out space for pleasure in your life?

AOKI: It’s all about the process. The process is where I find the pleasure. I have to love the process. If I don’t love the process, I need to get out of it. Outside of that, being at home, I’ve allowed different things to come into my life that give me pleasure, like mindfulness. And I actually find extreme amounts of pleasure in being in a cold plunge.

PLAYBOY: I’m still hesitant about that.

AOKI: I know it sounds scary, but I’ll tell you—maybe the first time you won’t find pleasure, but the second time you will. It’s like a good trip, a positive drug trip. Getting high on drugs eventually destroys your brain or your body; this is the opposite. You get a natural high, and over the course of time your body and brain get stronger. It’s a high that actually elevates you. And when you start feeling that, when you start seeing that happen, you just want to do it all the time.

Put yourself outside your comfort zone, you know what I mean? And find pleasure in that.