1396: Kaskade | The Sober Raver Who Spins Hits from Euphoria

Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people.

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional journalist turned poker champion, mafia enforcer or money laundering expert. If you're new to the show, or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults and more.

They'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, Kaskade.

After roughly 5,000 shows and three decades making electronic music, he's still experimenting and still getting asked if he can DJ somebody's kid's bar mitzvah. We'll get into where AI helps creativity and where it starts copying the people who made the music worth listening to. You'll hear what happens when a generator catches fire in front of 40,000 fans and why Kaskade grabs a Diet Coke while Deadmau5 starts mentally firing everybody.

We'll also explore how you keep evolving for decades without letting your fans, your industry or your own success dictate who you're allowed to be. Even if electronic music is not your thing, and I totally understand, there's a lot here about building a career that you actually want to keep having. So here we go with Kaskade.

I think a good place to start actually is probably, what do you make of the AI music? Because I wanted some lounge music and so I went on YouTube or something. I said, oh, this is pretty good.

I dig this. I haven't heard this before. And then I looked at the author and it was like Claude and ChatGPT and some dude's name.

And I was like, wait, no. And then I wrote because I was like, is there no human doing this? And it's like, no, I curate the music.

And I'm like, does that just mean you pick the tracks that you think are not terrible and put them into the mix? No answer. No answer, which means yes.

Kaskade: Yeah. We're kind of at this fascinating moment and how I felt about AI two years ago is different from how I felt a year ago. And it's different from how I feel now.

And it's different from how I felt two months ago. I want to put a little like note next to this. I have been writing and producing and making electronic music for over 30 years.

Everybody wants the clickable, Kaskade loves AI or Kaskade hates AI. You know, it's just way more nuanced than that. And the thing that I think is funny when I get the clickable, Diplo loves AI, John Summit hates AI, a lot of my contemporaries and colleagues in this business.

What's silly about it to me is our entire world. Dude, I interface with machines, robots. I program my drums on a 909 on a laptop.

There's synthesis in here that generates an arpeggio that I'm not playing the arpeggiation. It's giving me all these different options. There's already a certain amount of AI that's built into my world already because we're on this cusp of technology and making that make music.

That's been my life, 30 years. Some people come out, AI is terrible. Okay, cool.

I think today nobody can agree on anything, but I think most people in my world would be like, yeah, hey man, make me a chill song. So when I drive down the freeway, it's awesome. And then spit something out.

Yeah, no, I think everyone's against that. That's just stupid. That's some other thing.

I don't know what that is, but that's not what I do. My thing is coming up and working with these machines and working on a laptop and composing things and cool, weird mistakes happen that are like, wow, that's awesome. The ghost in the machine put this idea, advanced it.

I do that. But beyond that, the process is part of what I enjoy. So kind of like taking that out of it, that's dumb.

I don't think anybody wants that. Okay, cool. Help me do some mundane things when I have to program some fills or come up with something that I'm copying and pasting.

I'm not totally against AI helping out with those kinds of things. That's why I'm like, it's much more nuanced than just to throw out a blanket statement. Here's the important thing that I will say.

I want to sit in a room with you and be like, hey man, what's going on in your life? Oh, wow. Hey, that's an idea for a song.

Okay, let's write some lyrics down. Oh, you want to pull up like Claude or something to help us work through these lyrics? Like, all right, cool, man.

I'm down with that. So I think there's a lot of nuance to this. I want to work with people.

I want to employ people. I want to work with talented musicians and songwriters. That's what I like doing to make music.

That's what I like to do.

Jordan Harbinger: I think the live performance element also, it just obviously it's not going to work if it's hey, go up there and remix some of your hits and it's like, who's remixing whose hits if it's an AI who did all of it, right? So watching a robot pretend to spin, is the crowd going to jump around and have fun?

Kaskade: Cool. There's a gimmick there that's neat. Oh, we've got this thing in it.

The lights cast this image of Tupac and it's him. And he's saying, it's like, okay, yeah. If I'm in Vegas, would I go check that out?

Maybe. Cool. That's interesting.

But whatever, that's just a gimmick, man. I don't know. I'm here to connect on the music and see a show and see the human element of that and who the team of people that helped kind of come up with this.

So yeah, I think the AI stuff is probably in the performance realm, probably still really far away from me, but going and buying a ticket and seeing something. I don't know.

Jordan Harbinger: I would agree with that. But the next question is, are we dinosaurs, man? Because you're in your fifties and I'm in my forties.

Are young twenty-somethings right now listening and going, these feral farts just don't get it.

Kaskade: For sure, dude. And sometimes I listen to these clips of people that I admire talking about AI and I'm like, man, this dude's cooked. This is a guy that I think has got everything figured out.

And I'm like, nah, man. We ought to be friends, the robots. We've all seen the movies.

This is going to play some kind of role in the future. How or what that looks like, I don't know. If I could predict that, I would be doing that.

I would be like forecasting that and trying to make billions of dollars. I don't do that. I write songs for a living.

So I don't know. But I think the one other thing about AI that I'd like to say, I think a lot of interviewers in my world kind of stay away from it because it is this kind of like hot topic, you know, when I get burned on there. The thing that's fascinating about it to me and where I kind of get a little bit worked up is, of course, when these things came online, these AI businesses, it's like, yeah, dude, I'm interested.

This is what I do. So of course I downloaded the thing and got the pro package and whatever and started messing around with it. I'd be an idiot not to.

This has been my life. And the thing that blows me away is, you know, everyone's like, AI slop, this is garbage. And I'm like, okay, yeah, it sounds artificial.

Doesn't sound real. But I'm like, it's doing a pretty damn good job. From a producer's standpoint, for me, I'm like, oh, they don't have the reverbs worked out and the mixing is that's garbage.

They don't really have that figured out. So to me, it's still very obvious. Oh, this is something that's synthetic.

It was generated. But are we going to close that gap? Yeah, probably pretty soon.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. You might get an email tomorrow. It's like, hey, we really need you and your crew to come in and fine tune this product because we realize the mixing is garbage and the layers don't work.

I'd probably go and help them, dude. I'd probably be like, I'm intrigued.

Kaskade: This is interesting. But the other aspect of that is, I think it's making some pretty cool stuff. Dude, one of the biggest dance songs in the last little bit was an AI song.

And there's been a massive hit that was an AI song. Okay. And people are like, why is that?

And I, honestly, I had to sit and think, I'm like, why am I liking the output of this? And it's, oh, because this is learned off of things that I already like. All it's doing is taking the stuff that you like and then figuring that out and spinning it back to you.

It's some weird alternate version of something that you love. If I go in and try and have it make a song that is something that I produced, it does a very good job on it. And that's where I get pissed because I'm like, there's no question in my mind that these models have learned off of my 30 years of experience.

It's dissecting my music and it's, Hey man, what's up with that? I don't know. I haven't got a check in the mail.

We're getting cut out. I feel like a lot of these people that are helping make this sound viable and all these models that it's learned off of, we're over here just like, it's true.

Jordan Harbinger: I did get a sizable offer for a company. They wanted every hour of audio that I'd created. So it was like thousands of hours.

Yeah. You've been doing this for so long. So there was a clause in there that was like, you have to indemnify us that you own everyone's voice.

And I was like, I don't own Shaquille O'Neal's voice from when I interviewed him. I own the rights to publish that interview, but I don't own the right to resell Kobe Bryant's voice to this company that's going to then use that and then just point to me when they get sued.

Kaskade: The fact that you have to even say that out loud is so nuts. Yeah. It's bananas.

No shit, dude. Like why are you even asking me that? That's where it's like this whole process to get to here offends me.

I'm offended. Cool. Yeah.

Maybe if you sent me a check for a hundred million dollars, hey dude, when I take your entire back catalog and it's going to be part of our out here, let me cut the check. And I'm like, ah, cool, man. I bought a house in Hawaii.

I'm good, bro. Do whatever you want. You guys can fight over AI.

Great. But that's never happened. And it feels like the other side is just over there pretending like, no, it just sounds like you.

Jordan Harbinger: Because it sounds like you. The New York Times sued OpenAI because they're like, hey, you trained this on every article we wrote. And I think it was just impossible for them to say, no, we didn't.

Because they did. So I have very little doubt in my mind that company that offered me that money for my show went, oh, he didn't sign it. Download it anyway.

And if he ever finds out.

Kaskade: Yeah. And this is where it's like, yes, people like us that have been creating and whatever these models are learning off of stuff a hundred years ago, the guy who's managing Elvis's estate right now should be pissed because it's learning off of all this stuff. I'm not like, oh, it's unique to me.

No, I think that's all these people that have had relevant material in the past should all be worked up because it's, I don't know, it's essentially robbing all of us.

Jordan Harbinger: This is all going to shake out in the next couple of decades. You mentioned before connecting with the audience via the music. I was really under the weather the other day.

And then I can't remember what, but someone like Adele clip showed up on my social media when I was laying in bed, rolling around in fever dreams. And I thought, what does she do when she feels like I do right now, but she's got to go play on a Wembley or whatever and be all like, just belt it out. What do you do when you're, you're like, oh, I have to go up to KAOS in Vegas right now.

And I am going to maybe puke. There's got to be times where you just go, I'm not going to not do this. It's sold out.

All the fans are waiting, but I feel like absolute ass. What do you do? How do you rally?

Kaskade: There's two things. I've had like 105 fever and been on stage, like profusely sweating through my pants. My legs are sweating.

Fortunately, in my world, I can put on a beanie and just throw a hat and just be like, okay, really in the club world, you can hide a lot. So one of I'm thinking of a show that I did in San Francisco. This is years ago.

I laid in bed for two days leading up to the show. And I was like, I'm so screwed. And listen, modern medicine, I pop all the DayQuil and all, you know, I'm like, I was jacked on all this crap and more caffeine than probably good.

Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: Take this. It's called Adderall.

Kaskade: So I'm like, got up there. And for two hours, I jumped around and gave it my all. And then I went home and laid in bed for another two days to recover.

I was in Vegas. I've had this twice, once before at Red Rock show. And then once I got food poisoning before Red Rock show.

And I'm like, there's nothing left to vomit. And the guy comes and hooks you up to the IV. And it's like, I'll give you this and this and that and this other thing that'll last two or three hours.

So I'm like, that's it, man. As long as I can stand up for a couple hours, I did pump it in my veins. But I had to do that in Vegas about a year ago.

What's amazing is, dude, there's one thing that they put in you and it just takes the nauseous feeling away. I'm like, give me a double dosage of that. I need to make sure that I can hang for two hours.

And Chanel puts it in me. I'm like, I'm good to go. And you just do it literally, you try and time it just minutes before you're walking on stage.

So I'm up in my room, finish it, elevator down right to the stage. Oh my gosh. Usually he's probably working on hungover executives or something.

That's the typical thing. I don't drink, so I've never had to deal with that. But yeah.

But occasionally, for as many years as I've been performing, I've been incredibly fortunate and only have a handful of those stories. Yeah. Geez.

I guess there's just nothing you can do.

Jordan Harbinger: Speaking of nothing you can do, this is a while ago, you're at the L.A. Coliseum playing to tens of thousands of people with Deadmau5 and this generator catches on fire and the music stops. So take me to the first second you realize like, this is not a glitch. I assume you look at him and go, this is not something you did, right?

Kaskade: It's good that we're documenting my side of the story because I recently heard Joel Deadmau5 tell his side of the story and I'm like, yeah, that's not what happened. That's the deal in court, right? Everybody has their version of what happened.

I definitely remember it differently than he did. I think it was closer to 40,000 people and it was rocking. It was a very big night.

A lot of people there and we had all these fail safes built in for the show because when you're performing for that many people and it was the first time we were debuting a new stage design, which is incredibly intricate and used a lot of power. We had these two big boxes that we stand up and they're on this track and they could move and they moved independently of one another and then they could spin, rotate three. They could just sit there and spin if we wanted them to, which with audio cabling, we had to use these certain things that Joel found was amazing, that it could shoot through light so we could spin it and the cables wouldn't spin.

Anyway, so it's this massive undertaking, right? Huge show, first time electronic music had been back in the Coliseum in something like 15 years. So it was a big deal.

Anyway, we're up there and it's like, everyone's waiting for the beat to drop and you're like, no, no, no. Listen, I can say this now because I've done so many shows and I've done plenty of shows where there's been catastrophic failures. Power goes out, whatever.

I mean, that happens more often than you would think. It's just part of the deal. So now I'm just like, there's absolutely nothing I can do.

There's a cooler filled with like a bunch of Diet Cokes and some waters and stuff. I just close the lid and I sit down. I'm just like, all right, I'm sure whatever's going on, they're working on it.

And we're on two pods. We're on the top of these things. We're elevated.

We're 15, 18 feet above the ground of the stage, you know, on these massive structures. I kind of look over at him and Joel, this is why I love working with Joel because like, I'm like, he's handling his cool man. I could just sit here and crack a soda and have a beverage here.

But he's like completely wigging out. Doing what somebody should probably do in that situation. I'm always the wrong guy in those situations.

I'm like, eh, it'll work out. It's fine. It's cool, man.

Don't worry about it. He's over there like, what the hell? I mean, he's just like, you're going to get fired.

We need to get this. Just ripping their heads off. Just letting them have it.

And then we have a mutual friend. After he kind of chills out because he like did the knee jerk like, get this back online. And one of our buddies comes up, mutual friend.

He's like, what'd you pull the plug out or trying to like add some levity to the moment. And Joel's like, I'm going to kill you. Who let this get this guy on here right now?

And then he's still kind of like riding that like fix it moment. And then I finally stand out. I'm like, hey, dude.

It's cool, man. They'll figure it out. And I was kind of like, maybe the more sane voice of reason in that moment.

And I was like, dude, we're going to be mad because it's sunny out right now. It's like completely out of our control. So then I'm standing there and I'm like, what was annoying?

Because in a normal situation, you just grab the microphone like, hey, yo, we've had some technical difficulties. Just hold on a moment. I'm talking like no power.

Yeah. Generator had caught on fire. It's like it did that burst in like, I don't know, a Marvel movie.

Like there's no power. But I whip out my phone and flashlight battery and I'm just like, I just held it up. And then like all said, thousands and tens of thousands of people.

And then it was like, I'm like, hey, dude, this will probably be the most memorable. We've been prepping for the show for months. Design spent millions of dollars executing this.

And I'm like, that's funny because it's probably going to be the most memorable moment of the show. And sure, everything that went viral was that nothing that we planned that you actually produced.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. How do you bring the room back? Do you just start the plan or does the interruption change what the room needs from you guys?

Kaskade: I think typically not in that situation. On that situation, we had the show was so curated. We just picked up where we left off.

We've got a massive team running these huge visuals and all these pyrotechnics and everything that was cued.

Jordan Harbinger: So you're like, let me just play some random.

Kaskade: Yeah. Let me just riff it here. But usually more often than not, it's not that kind of situation.

And I can riff it. And I have dozens and dozens of other show intros or kind of moments that I can start with. One of the great things of technology now, back in the day, I've got record players sitting back here.

But now I play off a USB stick, an SD card. It's got 5,000 songs on it. Oh, dude, I've got 30 songs that I could restart the room with that'll work, that'll ease it back in.

Jordan Harbinger: Man, it's funny to think about. My brother in Germany, he used to play this keyboard. This is in the 90s.

And I remember being like, well, I've never seen anything like this. And it was electric. And he would take these discs and shove the disc in the drive and load up an instrument.

And I go, oh, do you have one that's like more like sort of a bell sound or more of that? And he'd go, yeah, hold on. And it'd be like, all right, let's go make some toast.

Come back. Because it took five minutes to load it on, dude. And I'm thinking, oh, now there's 50,000 or whatever instruments in here, along with the whole sound and the layers and the everything.

And you probably just talk to it or something. I don't even know what the modern version of this is like.

Kaskade: Dude, your phone has a synth on it right now that's literally 10,000 times more powerful than what he was working on a few years ago. Back to our AI conversations. Yes, the gap will close.

Now we know what's AI, but in the future we're not. And that's really going to air crummy. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: I think a lot of people, and I'm sure you've fielded this question before, what are you actually doing up there? That's like a question your mom would ask.

Kaskade: I get a lot of that. I think at the front end, because I was here with that big rise in popularity of electronic music, even pre that term of EDM, like, which I think actually helped us. Techno or whatever.

In the nineties, everything was just techno. I think most of the time I'm just stoked that they're calling it something.

Jordan Harbinger: European weirdos make this music and it's not even real instruments. And it's like, okay.

Kaskade: I think part of the allure on that initial wave of popularity, I imagine some of this happens with every wave. And this sounds crazy to say out loud. And I don't know.

I've never actually really talked about this. I think some people think we're like actually up there making. Because you know, you see a lot of buttons.

Definitely. Okay. This is what I like.

This is good.

Jordan Harbinger: Because I don't like people thinking. So you see like, I can't remember this dude's name, but he used to be in the commercials for Pioneer gear. He would show these videos on YouTube of him making music using the gear.

But then when he plays a show, he's not just making music during the show from scratch. He's doing something that he's probably done a lot, many times, I assume many times. Otherwise you could make a choice that sucks.

And then you're like, oh, that didn't work at all. That has to happen when you're producing.

Kaskade: Listen, I think with AI, we're probably on the next wave of where maybe here in the near future, there will be some of that. We have multiple, we call them CDJs, which is funny because it's named that because we used to put CDs in them and read the digital file. Now everything's on a USB or connected to a laptop.

It's reading the file from a drive. In fact, the new ones that you can't even put a CD in them anymore. You have to like, if you want to play CDs, you've got to buy the old stuff.

We were taking pre recorded and compose the remix songs. And depending on how many of those players you have, you're taking those bits and essentially weaving a tapestry for the night. And what's cool with the technology, and this started with the Technics, the 1200s, you can change the pitch, right?

I can change the pitch and the tempo of this record and make it work with another record. And the idea there is you're combining two things and melding these things together to create something different, right? There's a bit of that happening, but really what most people use it as is you're stitching these pieces of audio together, songs.

Some of them are really rudimentary. They're just drums or just a vocal. And you can do that.

Dude, I can take a vocal from one song and even now stuff, a lot of this technology is able to split stuff into stems. So I want the drums from this song, the bass line from this song, and the acapella from this song. And there are guys that are doing that on the fly.

It's a shame that we call it DJing. Yeah. I don't know what else to call it, but I think I can remember all the time.

And I mean, this still occasionally happens like at church. Oh my gosh, my daughter's turning 16 and she needs a DJ. I don't get much of this these days, but listen, for the first 15 years of my career, when you would say DJ, they would think like almost like an on-air morning personality.

Oh yeah. Especially as I got older, because they're like, you know, DJ. This dude owns a house and has a car.

You can't make money to like support yourself DJing. And I'm like, so then it was like, there's that weird moment. And this still happens when, if I sit down on a plane and I'm talking to somebody and they're older than me or whatever, what I typically tell people is like, oh, I'm a music producer.

I write songs for a living. And they're like, oh, okay, cool. What kind of music do you play?

Or what instrument do you play? Ah, well, you know, I grew up playing the piano a little bit. I sang, I was in choir for years.

Anything I would have heard of? Hey, I DJ. Oh, that's neat.

But now, oh, this poor kid.

Jordan Harbinger: How's he in first class? It must be a trust fund. Yes.

I can imagine somebody trying to hire you for their kid's bar mitzvah. Like, what do you usually charge? You're like, usually?

Let's see, my current contract is $300,000 a weekend, but I'll charge you hourly. How about 60 grand?

Kaskade: I never take it that far, but believe me, in my mind, I've had many of those conversations. That's not really what I do. Oh yes.

My last show in Los Angeles was at the Coliseum or whatever. And they're like, what? Oh yeah, 40,000 people attended.

Oh, wait. Kindly tell them, like, that's not my thing.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, they were trying to throw you some business. This poor guy probably can't pay his rent. Let me see if he'll play.

Yes.

Kaskade: I'm sure there was many times in my career that was like that. They're just trying to help me. And I'm over there like, hey buddy.

Yeah, I was talking to your mother.

Jordan Harbinger: She said you're a DJ. Thought I'd maybe help you out with a gig. AI can apparently learn from 30 years of Kaskade's music, still hasn't learned how to cut a check.

Incredible technology can replicate the artist. Fortunately, the following sponsors have figured out the payment part. We'll be right back.

This episode is sponsored in part by AT&T. It's pretty incredible that our friends and family can live all over the world and we can still be part of each other's everyday lives. The grandparents can see the kids show off something they learned.

A friend miles away can send a photo that makes you laugh. We're fortunate that staying close doesn't have to mean living close. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade in any condition.

It has the most advanced iPhone camera ever, a big leap in battery life so you can turn this deal into a long lasting connection. This fall, whether you're making holiday plans or calling just to catch up, make a little time for the people who matter. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone in any condition and get the new iPhone 18 Pro at AT&T.

Learn how a deal this good can keep the good times going. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Requires trade in of iPhone 14 or higher excluding iPhone 16e and eligible plan.

Terms and restrictions apply, subject to change. Visit an AT&T store for details. This episode is also sponsored in part by BetterHelp.

If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. World Mental Health Day is October 10th, but apparently nobody told your brain. Stress does not consult your calendar, burnout never sends a meeting invite, and that problem at work can suddenly convene a full board meeting in your head at about 11.47 pm. You also don't need a dramatic turning point to talk with a therapist. Therapy can be a place to examine the smaller things occupying a suspicious amount of mental real estate. A recurring relationship pattern, a decision you keep circling, or that persistent feeling that something is just off.

If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside the U.S.? You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Jordan to explore your payment options. That's BetterHelp.com slash Jordan. When you use our promo codes, it helps support the show. I don't get a cut of sales or anything, but lets the company know that you hear the ad, you're using the code, so they'll renew their campaigns with us.

So hey, if you sign up or buy anything, please use our codes. It's often Jordan, but not always. They're all available on the website at JordanHarbinger.com slash deals. It's a win-win. You get a discount and you help keep the show going strong. Thank you for your support.

Now, back to Kaskade. I remember one of my buddies in college was DJing and I was like, man, you're making 400, 500 bucks a night. This is in the 90s.

We're in college. That's what I make in a week at this movie theater or whatever. And he's like, let me tell you something.

Because I'm like, don't you have to be over there doing stuff? Because he'd come and have drinks. And thus he's like, no, I just have a playlist saved in Winamp.

And I was like, oh, so you're not actually doing anything. He's like, if you tell anyone I'll kill you, but no, I have crossfade on. I picked a bunch of songs that I think sort of blend into one another and I drag them and I reorder them every week.

And the owner doesn't know and he doesn't care. And this is like my racket that I have. And I thought I'm in the wrong business.

Kaskade: This guy does no real work. Funny enough, I think we've come back around to that. There's a much bigger discussion kind of in the DJ community.

We're in a weird moment where the technology's gotten so easy to kind of accessible to write and compose music. I can do that on my phone. I've got a laptop.

There's a lot of powerful computing platforms that are built for these computers that'll let you compose music. So really what DJing's kind of become and certainly like the show version of that is when I get up, I'm playing like 90% of my own music. These are songs that I wrote or remixed or produced or some combination of that.

And people are coming to see me like how when I was a kid I went and saw The Smiths or The Cure or like all these bands. That's what's happening now. They're seeing a show and it's a concert.

So there's kind of like this show version of what I do where it's very curated and it's I'm heavily leaning into my discography and showcasing all this material that I've made over the last 30 years. But then there's also this other lane of club culture, the club version, where it's like nah man, I'm up there. I'm riffing.

The version of DJing that I fell in love with as a kid. I went and saw somebody. They're playing music I hadn't heard.

It was blowing my mind. They were like weaving this audio tapestry very skillfully and building up tension and releasing it and taking me on this ride of this sonic kind of evolution over the night of things that I wasn't familiar with and I wasn't totally sure how they were doing it. It was awesome.

Where do I get these records? And wow, he's changing the pitch and how he's blending these things. I don't know when one record starts and the next ends and all of that.

It was mysterious and awesome. And that still goes on in my world. Not as much.

I would say more of what I do is like the show version. But still in Vegas. I get up there and I play two hours.

I play a lot in Vegas. I'm still the guy who really likes to kind of just wing it. Because there's that cool thing where you play something and you're like wow, that really worked.

They like that. I have more like that.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, how often can you change direction in a show where you're like whoa, okay, that got a response virtually thumbing through your record box to find something else versus you're like I was going to go this direction but I think we need 15 more minutes or 10 more minutes with this.

Kaskade: So I think in the club environment, I'm doing that constantly. Cool. I've got my first one or two records picked out and I typically end over here.

So I got this and then I've got a playlist of another 100 or 200 records that I've set aside that I could go in anywhere in that. I pick the starting out because cool, I like a big dramatic moment, enter on something that's my song that's recognizable or something that I'm trying to promote. And then I like to have another song as a backup just because at least 40% of the time I get up there and some of the equipment's malfunctioning to some degree.

It's not set up right or my preferences are loaded right or this one's not seeing. I have four players and a lot of that's just for redundancy. And because I like to be able to search and use one more as just kind of like a searchable base and like use the other one just to play off of.

But it's nice to have a bunch up there just in case anything breaks while I'm playing that's happened even.

Jordan Harbinger: That makes sense. I'm sure that's, yeah, why wouldn't that happen?

Kaskade: So I think now most of the time I operate in this kind of hybrid mode and full club thing. It's like cool, I've got a beginning picked out and three or four different ends that could happen. And the guys that tour with me want to strangle me.

They're like, really man? Because for them it's better if they're more familiar with this stuff. They want me to play my hits.

They want me to play the songs they know because the lighting and the visuals and everything just looks more locked in. So every time I'm just where they're like, I got this new one. It's awesome.

This dude sent me there. Seriously, man, what is Raddon doing?

Jordan Harbinger: Can he can just stay on the reservation, bro? So is there a lighting guy who's made his whole set and then realizes he's actually got to do a live lighting mix for your live DJ mix?

Kaskade: I travel with a lighting guy, a visual guy, an effects guy, a guy that's helping manage all that process and help execute that and help us get there. And then I've got a small team of people that also make the social media moments, make sure they're capturing a lot of these moments. But what I was going to say is compare and contrast that the total freewheeling kind of like jazz inspired improvisation, which is wonderful.

It's one of the things about DJing that I really love. I think it's cool. Yeah, I can just riff on this one because it's something new and play it.

And I really love that. I have folders of stuff that's kind of in that vein. Let me see what else works like that.

And that's just fun because then it's like you're just having this conversation with the crowd and it's getting rowdy and this is working. You just work that. And when those nights when everything's clicking, it's like, it's magical, man.

It's like, how can I do that every night? And it doesn't always click like that. Some nights are better than others.

Then you compare that to like the show world where it's like a Coachella, a Lollapalooza. Think of the largest festivals in the world. It's like, dude, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have been spent to execute a very curated show.

Yes, I have stuff that's picked out and this is what I'm going to go off of. And not only that, I've spent $50,000 on the visual for this song. Yeah, I want to make sure I play that.

It's like I didn't just throw that into the world. But there's only a handful of those. Coachella just being the most recent one I did, which is Coachella's in what, April, May.

But the world that I live in day to day is like, okay, this weekend coming up, I'm playing Breakaway in Salt Lake City. It's probably 15,000, 20,000 people, 25,000 people. I've got my intro locked and I've got three or four songs that I for sure want to hit because I'm promoting a new album.

Cool. I want to make sure I'm hitting the highlights and the stuff that these people are hearing. Yeah, I want to make sure I get those moments.

But then the rest of it, dude, let's ride.

Jordan Harbinger: I love that. It's kind of like a little bit how I do this, right? I've got an opener that I almost always throw away in the moment and ask you something that just happens to be at the top of my mind.

Then it ends up 15 minutes in, got a couple points in the middle that I highlight because I'm like, oh, these are going to be really interesting. And then I've got a couple of things in the end that I may or may not also chuck out.

Kaskade: And that's how the prep on my side is going. I think part of my job, oh man, job. Yeah.

I feel bad saying that, but it's what I do for money, so I don't know what else to call it. It is a career, it's just not a job.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, yeah.

Kaskade: So one of the things I do is I listen to a lot of music that's being sent to me, buddies sending it to me, or promos being sent to me, and kind of just weeding through that and always kind of looking for, oh, wow, this is cool. I'd love to play this in my next show. I spend a fair amount of time doing that.

Jordan Harbinger: How does that work legally? Like if you hear a track from somebody and you go, wow, that's really cool. I'm going to use that.

I assume you can't just throw it in there. You have to contact that artist or the label and...

Kaskade: No, no. We just throw it in there. I have somebody who helps me with this. They go through all the promos that are sent to me and they curate it, narrow it down, or else I'd just be like, overwhelmed, sitting in my room like, I can't listen to anything.

I'm overwhelmed. So they narrow it down. I probably get 50 tracks a week that my guys are like, hey, you should check these out.

This is what's going on. And then I've got two dozen, three dozen friends that have me on WhatsApp from all over the world. They're like, yo, dude, I just finished this.

What do you think? Dude, this is dope. I'm going to try it out this weekend.

I got one last night from my buddy, Wilke, out in Australia, and it's a banger. And I'm like, this is so dope, dude. I think it's dope.

Look, sometimes when I think it's dope, I play it and it's like, and I'm like, oh, that's weird. And sometimes I think it's like, kind of mediocre. And then I play it and it bangs and I'm like, oh, okay.

I need to like, figure out how to finesse that and make it work. But yeah, there's no like, legalities to that. It's just, especially live.

I think all the legality stuff comes up when you're publishing and putting out as your work and that's on them. They're doing their thing. A lot, listen, a lot of the stuff that gets traded around isn't.

There's samples in there that they can never clear. There's all these different versions out there and stuff that's not even finished.

Jordan Harbinger: I tried to license something for my podcast and I found this track, Indie DJ, out of Asia, something. And I was like, this is great. Can I license it?

He goes, yeah. I just need you to talk to my label because I don't know how to handle that. I was like, great.

Introduce me to the label. The label people were like, oh my gosh, yeah, we would love to do that. No one's ever licensed a track from one of our DJs.

And I go, tell me where the vocals came from. And they were like, that's James Brown. Hold on one moment.

And I was like, all right, I just need you to clear it with the license so that I don't get sued for using a blues clip or something. And they never answered another letter from me ever again. And I realized, aha, you use this without permission.

They don't want to admit it. They can't clear it. They can't tell me why it's dead in the water.

You nailed it.

Kaskade: That's exactly what happened. There's a lot of that in this world, which cool, man, that's the underground. It keeps it fun.

It keeps it exciting because a lot of people don't have access to a microphone and a to track vocalists or they're not songwriters. And I think that's another kind of interesting realm that we're entering is the fact that, oh, some of these guys that don't have access to that. Yeah, cool.

Here I am three decades into my career. Yes, I have a room that's treated and mic that took me months to save up for and a great front end. I've got, I have a drawer that I can show you.

Jordan Harbinger: It's got the foam. Yeah.

Kaskade: But they don't have that, but they can work, make a vocal that works. And hopefully if the idea is convincing enough or good enough, they could get some vocalists to be like, wow, that's really cool, man. I'll cover that.

That's neat that you wrote it. So I think one of the exciting things about kind of where we're at is it, you know, it's more about the creative idea then it becomes less about the process.

Jordan Harbinger: Speaking of creative ideas, my friend Tim Ferriss had you on his show, I think this is a while ago. And you mentioned that 4am, which is probably the first track I heard from you back in the day, 2005 or six or something. That's an old one.

Yeah. Yeah. And I remember my friend sent it to me.

He's like, you've got to listen to this. Because I was the only other person he knew who liked the EDM, which I don't even think we called it that at the time.

Kaskade: No, we didn't.

Jordan Harbinger: Electronica or something. Yeah. Basically it was music for nerdy guys who played stuff from blogs.

Because it wasn't on the radio. Good Lord. You're my people.

Kaskade: We found each other.

Jordan Harbinger: And so he's like, you've got to listen to this. And I was like, oh my God, this is super dope. My computer could just barely hold one amp without crashing.

Just had to have nothing else open. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. But apparently after playing King King and a club in L.A., you're probably had like a 6am flight.

You're eating French toast and you're like, you wrote something down that became 4am. So how does French toast become a track? How does that inspiration lead to music?

Kaskade: I think a lot of the song ideas that I have come from a moment in my life or an idea in my life. And I don't think I'm unique in that way. I've told this story quite a bit because it relates to Los Angeles where I am.

And I think it illustrates my process really well. That night was a big night for me selling out a club, whatever it was, 400 people or something. It was a small club.

Now I can look back and say that at the time I was like, oh my gosh, this is starting to work. Well, if you played King King now, they'd have to shut down the street. I'd have another problem on my hands.

Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

Kaskade: Yeah. I just remember at that night there was a diner close by and I went in a meeting and I'm just like the euphoria of the night. There's something that's cool about dance music where it's like you're getting this.

It's very physical. You're in there and you're sweating and you're with these three or 400 people and you're riding this wave and the energy and this community thing that's happening. All of this can be very euphoric because you get the endorphins.

There's something awesome about that. And here I am half hour, an hour later, still on this high. And I'm like, how can I catch this feeling of floating of this?

You know, part of my story is that many people around me, it was assumed that this could never work. Isn't that cute? He'll be back in a week.

Sure. Dude, you're going to go DJ. You're going to make music.

Look at that buddy. It's funny to look back at those and kind of can't help but smirk. But yeah, pretty soon he'll be playing Brian's Bar Mitzvah.

Don't worry. That song was born out of that feeling, out of the high of that night, out of that euphoric, oh my gosh, it was kind of felt like I had arrived. I had achieved something.

I had broken down some wall. I am doing it. This music is connecting.

I am having success. It was almost unbelievable to me. Coupled with this, just all the energy from the night.

Jordan Harbinger: How do you capture that in a way that you can then go, and now tomorrow after I get some sleep, I'm going to do this again. Or do you play different instruments and beats until the feeling comes back and you're like, oh, that's it.

Kaskade: Lyrically, it's easier to sit down and tell a story and just come up with some words that you feel like kind of captures that emotion. I think it's really challenging to be like, okay, cool. This is the vibe.

I think sonically, electronic music is always pushing forward. So sonic evolution is just a big part of what we do. And that's always been a challenge for me because I'm such a house head.

I grew up in Chicago and that was my introduction to this music. And I just always default to that. Yeah, I don't have an answer for how do you capture that.

I think when I heard Becky sing it, she's the singer there, I was like, I have something. She would capture the feeling. She captured the emotion.

I hear her performance. I'm coaching and working her through that. And I'm like, we're getting this.

And Finn Bjarnson, the guy I co-wrote the song with, which was great. I could sit down with him. He's a brilliant songwriter.

And I'm sitting there and telling him about the excitement of the night, reliving that process when you're in the studio. I think that's important, right? Having somebody else hear me tell that story.

And that's kind of how we came up with the line. There's a way.

Jordan Harbinger: Do you do the vocals first, generally? Do you write lyrics and then do the vocals and then put the beats behind it?

Kaskade: It's changed a lot throughout my career. At the beginning of my career, I was much more like house music, the 909, this driving thing and sound design, because that's where I came from.

I didn't come up as a songwriter and I wasn't a trained musician. So for me, it was more about the sound design and coming up with a groove. That's where I came from.

And it's really when I met Finn, who I've been working with for over 20 years now, he was producing for a band. And the band came to me and said, hey, we want to remix. This was very early on in my career.

And I didn't even have any published remixes out. But they had gone to some of the nights that I was and they're like, the music you're playing is different. I'm like, yeah, it's house music.

It's so cool. And it was a more kind of soul R&B band. And they're like, we think this will fit.

And they play me a song. I'm like, this is totally fit. I can flip this.

I can make this into a house song for sure. And Finn kind of helped me that. And he kind of was like looking at my technique and he's like, man, your sound design is cool.

You're on to something. But he's like, bro, songwriting is where it's at. And I was like, what's that about?

Educate me. I was curious. And he means what lyrics specifically?

Well, he was more of a producer at that point and that's how I saw him. But as I hung out with him, I was like, oh, you're a songwriter, man. You're a storyteller.

This is awesome. And he just mentored me in that way and helped foster that. So now I think it can happen either direction.

I can hear something be like, man, that's cool. How's that guy doing those drums? Open up my laptop.

Like, oh, okay, I get this. Now it's a lot different. You can pull up a YouTube tutorial and there's some kid in Montreal that's already figured it out and doing it better than me.

Like, this is how Skrillex did that. He's over compressing this. I'm like, oh, okay, cool.

That didn't exist when I got started. It was like trial and error.

Jordan Harbinger: Do you hear the music in your head and then try to put it into a track? Does that ever happen to you? I don't make music at all, but I have, it's almost like a problem because I'll get a beat in my head and then I'll put another thing over it.

And I go, I have no idea how you would ever turn this into this. And then to explain an instrument that's not a real instrument to somebody is impossible. It's kind of like a horn, but it's electric, but also it vibrates more and it goes from bassy to not bassy and people are just like, this is meaningless.

But I'm like, no, it's so clear in my head. You're like, I got it. I got it.

Yeah. I need a brain machine interface to just put that into a track. I'm sure we're not too far away from having those.

But if I don't do it, it stays in there for days and days. And I have to listen to somebody else's music to get it out over and over again, because otherwise it just stays in there. It actually is, if it were any worse, I would have to take some kind of medication.

And my wife who plays the piano is like, man, if you had been encouraged to make music, you would probably just be doing that. I'm not a huge music fan that has a library in my head or anything, but if I have a beat or a song in my head that I'm making up, it just keeps building until it's a full thing. And then it keeps playing until I go slowly insane.

Kaskade: Dude, and I think there's probably a lot of people that have that. For me, similar to that, I would hear something that I loved and I'd be like, I was always changing the arrangement in my head. They should have done this, or they should have accented this part of the song should have gone longer.

And this is early on. And then the computer, I bought my first computer. I'm like, oh, with the sampler, I can actually do that.

And I started rearranging songs and taking old disco records and cutting them up and changing them. And I was actually DJing a throwback night of seventies. So I was like re-editing a lot of these songs and come up with them and like, oh, you know what?

I can lay a kick drum in here, make it a little bit more modern sounding, like it'll hold on the sound system better. Really, that's kind of where I started experimenting. And then I kind of was just leaning onto the little music training I had.

I was in choir all through high school and really enjoyed that. And of course me, like many other suburban kids, yeah, I was forced to take piano lessons. I hated it.

I can only laugh now because my brothers and sisters, the first time I was nominated for a Grammy, I mean, that was just like the inside family joke because my sister took eight years, my other sister, five years, my brother, two years. I didn't make it a year. I just kicked and screamed.

And they're like, really? This is the guy? Because my youngest sister is a very talented piano player.

And you would think, oh, that's the person that's going to go into music. So, you know, you couldn't throw your sister on a track just to do her a solid. She's too busy being a mom right now.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Yeah. Your parents spent $15,000 on piano lessons.

Oh yeah. The least amount was spent on you. Yes.

Return on investment on me went all right. Yeah. That's hilarious.

My parents are like, you used to be so quiet. Now you get paid to talk. Yeah.

If I shut up, I go broke. So you can relate. Yeah.

Kaskade quit piano lessons before he lasted a year, while his siblings stuck with it. 18 Grammy nominations later, his piano teacher is probably just staring blankly at a wall. Speaking of questionable ROI, let's hear from our sponsors.

We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Boll & Branch. The first chilly night of fall makes you want to go all in.

Extra blankets, big comforter, flannel PJs, the whole cozy situation. But if you sleep hot, you know how that story ends. You fall asleep perfectly comfortable and you'll wake up kicking off the covers, hair stuck to the back of your neck.

With Boll & Branch, you don't have to choose between cozy and comfortable. Their sheets are made from 100% organic cotton woven specifically for airflow. That breathability comes from how the cotton is woven.

So you can layer up for colder nights without your bed feeling heavy or stuffy. We have Boll & Branch sheets on every bed in our house. And we also have their comforter.

We wash our sheets every week. So when they say the sheets get softer with every wash, we can absolutely attest to that. 94% of Boll & Branch customers say their sheets get softer with every wash too.

And slipping into bed, that sleek, smooth feeling against your skin, it's the best feeling in the world.

Upgrade your sleep with Boll & Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at bollandbranch.com slash jordan with code jordan. That's Boll & Branch.

B-O-L-L-A-N-D branch.com slash jordan. Code jordan to unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply.

This episode is also sponsored by EarnIn. Waiting on hold is one thing. Waiting to access money you've already earned is a different kind of frustrating.

You put in the hours, but if your paycheck doesn't arrive until Friday and your electric bill is due Wednesday, the calendar becomes a problem. That's where EarnIn comes in. It's a financial technology app, not a bank, that lets you access your pay as you work up to $150 a day with a maximum of $1,000 between paydays.

It is not a payday loan. I would never suffer that nonsense. It's money you've already earned, no interest, no credit checks, no mandatory fees.

Tips are optional. Standard transfers take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. If you need your money in minutes, expedited transfers start at $3.99 and cap at $5.99. 5 million people are already using EarnIn. It's a simple idea. Give people more flexibility over when they access the pay they've already worked for because everyday expenses don't always follow a payroll schedule.

Download EarnIn in the App Store or Google Play. Spelled like earning money without the G. Type in Jordan Harbinger under podcast when you sign up.

It'll really help the show. EarnIn is a financial technology company, not a bank. Access limits are based on your earnings and risk factors.

Standard cashouts take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. Expedited transfers are available for a fee. Tips are voluntary and don't affect the service.

Available in select states. Terms and restrictions apply. Visit earnin.com for full details.

If you liked this episode of the show, I invite you to do what smart and considerate listeners do. Take a moment, support our sponsors. They do make the show possible.

All of the deals are searchable and clickable on the website, jordanharbinger.com slash deals. If you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code, email me, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. We're happy to surface them for you.

It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now back to Kaskade.

Kaskade: And I'm all constantly, from pick up the laundry, or like, you've got to get this done, or the window's broken in the front room. I'm just, my thoughts are just always, and I have a hard time organizing them. So I'm always writing down, and then at certain times a day, I'm like, okay, wait, what am I doing? I'm like totally distracted. I'm making a peanut butter sandwich. I'm not supposed to be eating, am I? And I'm like, check the notes, and then I'm like finding stuff. But I work that way lyrically too. Anytime I have something, I'm just jotting stuff down, then going to the studio and reference that. Oh, this is a cool idea. Maybe there's something here. Sometimes it turns into something, sometimes it doesn't. But now, and certainly with this newest album, I think I've gone through various versions of that. And I would say for the majority of my career, at least for the first half, there was no fame and there was very little money in this world. So when it was time to compose or write or make music, I could never really convince people to work with me, even vocalists, because it was always like, hey, I've written a song, can you sing it? I've got probably like 50 bucks, 40 bucks. Yeah, yeah. And fortunately, I had enough cool friends out there that did it. But thankfully, thank you guys, I'm here because of them. The reason I tell that is because so much of my first work was really me, Finn, Haley, Becky, John Hancock, these friends that I kind of went to college with, met early on in my life, that just kind of believed in what I was doing and would help me on some level for not a whole lot of money, just because I was like, hey, man, I can only afford X, Y, and Z, but you'll have part of this. If anything happens, you'll be a writer on this song. I'm here to share. They believed in it and I was able to make music. Dude, now I have a whole separate email where it's just songwriters. I mean, there's a million songwriters out there and they're just pitching songs and they need a producer. And I think some of my longtime fans will be like, no, I liked it more when you were doing all the heavy lifting on the writing. We don't want you to be a producer. Cool, I like your beats that you make. Yeah, sure, but hey, can you tell more stories? I want you to write the songs. And I get a little bit of that every time an album comes out. Oh, this is him talking about his life, or this or that. To be honest, on Origin, this is probably the most collaborative record that I've ever done in my career.

Jordan Harbinger: I noticed a lot of the tracks have collabs on it.

Kaskade: But not only that, even other producers, other songwriters, because now there is money, there is fame. Cool. I can't pay somebody to work with me, or, hey, really accomplished songwriters do want to collaborate with me because they know that it'll potentially get heard. Wasn't like that for so long. Yeah. And I think I kind of leaned into that process more on Origin than ever before. I'm like, man, there's a lot of really cool songs out here that are being pitched to me. Songs every single day of songwriters, like, man. And it's just, when I say they pitch me a song, I should probably, typically, more often than not, I'd say 95 percent of the time, it's just them at a piano singing. So they've got chords and they've got lyrics and a melody. Cool. Probably don't use the chords. Every once in a while I do, but it's like, wow, these lyrics are great. Cool. I think it should be sung like this. Can you come in? Oh, I don't want to sing it. Oh, who could sing it? Oh, my friend is great and she's trying to do this or that or whatever. Or somebody else is like, oh, a singer that's trying to get with me that doesn't really write that much, but they're a great performer. There's so many versions of this out there. But yeah, I don't know, that's a little peek into the studio. But I think with Origin, I think I was coming off of Undux, my last album before Origin, which was a very personal record and something where I was doing a lot of heavy lifting on the songwriting. I knew sonically it was something that I didn't think that it would really resonate because it was much more subdued and quiet. It was a really sad record. If I listened to it, it was sad, and that's where I was in my life. And I think to get past that point, I had to make that record. I kept trying to avoid it because I'd write these songs, they're sad, lonely, and they're about change and all the destruction from the fire and everything that I'm going through personally. And that's not really what the sum of my career has been. If I look at my discography, most of it's really celebratory and about love, hope. So I didn't put a lot of marketing and a lot of time and energy behind that record because I was just like, hey, it's more important that I put this out there and share part of my story. This chapter is probably not for everybody, but what it did is it opened up the opportunity to make Origin. It's like Undux had to happen so Origin could happen. And Origin was really me turning the page, leaning back into really the things that got me here. And by that, how I interpret that is these big, down-the-middle, large songs, back to celebration, emotive music that's large, these sung-out, sailing vocals. Because when I named it Origin, and I should put a little note there as well, that all my Chicago homies, I was born and raised there in Northbrook, suburban Chicago, I had a career before I kind of got into the whole prog house, that bigger, kind of more anthemic sound. So the people in Chicago are like, what? Origin, my ass. I'm like, now listen, it's the origin of what was the start of that bigger stage that I entered.

Jordan Harbinger: I wonder, do you have to think about things like, oh, all my records before were celebratory and happy and I have a sad one that I'm working on right now. Oh, is that going to affect my brand as, like, a happy performer? Is that going to look like a change in directions? Like, do you have to think about that? Or are you at a point in your career, you go, screw it, I can make a sad record, and if people don't like it, oh, well, I'm going to make another one after that, they will. Or is your manager like, no, dude, can we slide this one out the door and then come really quick with the new one so that you're still happy Kaskade in Vegas? Is that a concern at all?

Kaskade: You're smart. Yeah, you've been in business for yourself for a long time. Yeah, it's a major problem. I personally don't worry about that because I'm super selfish and self-indulgent, and that's part of the process of art. Cool. I can't worry about that, or you're not going to get something that's real and honest. Nah, man, I need to have this thing happen. I don't give a crap what you think. Sorry, dude. Well, I can't care that Undux is not going to connect with everyone. But cool, once I'm out of that process, I can move on and be like, I can sit down in a meeting and be like, I get to pay people around me that are like, yeah, dude, this ain't going to work. This album freaking sucks. No one's going to connect with it. I'm sorry you're sad. They don't say it like that. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of what I hear. I'm on the receiving end. As much as they soften it up, that's what I hear. Yeah. And that's tough, but I've got thick skin and I've been through it. I mean, there's been people telling me my entire career that I suck, what I do is useless. So whatever. Like, if I listened and chimed into that, cool, we wouldn't be here having that conversation. Like, I know I'm inspiring some other thing. Like, I let somebody else worry about that. And cool, can I sit down and be realistic after the process is over and be like, yeah, you're right, this record isn't for everyone, and that's fine. Dude, I still want to put it out. And cool, I've got people around me that love me and support me and want to help me see my vision. But the realistic, cool, man, maybe we don't market the crap out of this record. Let's get you a few quality interviews. You can tell the story. If something clicks and connects, cool, we'll fan those flames.

Jordan Harbinger: You're like, all right, my fans who will stick with me through this will buy it. Because I think about that with episodes of this show. Sometimes I'll be like, this is really good and the fans will like it, but I would not want this one to be the first episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show that somebody hears, because you're like, this doesn't represent me. I did an episode about sand and why sand is really valuable because we're running out of it. And you need it for concrete, and you can't just use desert sand for it. You need sand from the ocean. Great, more end of the world. Yeah, just don't worry. You thought AI was going to kill us. Patrol it. No, it's going to be sand. So I did this episode about it, and I remember thinking, man, that was super interesting, but if somebody hears this, they're going to go, what a nerdy-ass podcast. I am... unsubscribe.

Kaskade: And listen, to be totally honest, I'm sure I lost a lot of fans with Undux. They're like, cool, I don't need to pay attention to this guy anymore. Dude, I did a Christmas album, I don't know, six, seven years ago, and I guarantee I lost fans. Dude, I know. I had people straight up tell me on Twitter, you've lost your mind, dude. This ain't cool. You suck. But the thing is, if you're creating for that, if your goal is this end thing, I need to hit them because I want to get paid, it's never going to work for you. Good luck, dude. And if it is that, because there are probably some people that have made that work, they suck anyway, man. I don't even know. I'm not in their orbit. Cool. I'm here three decades later because, cool, dude, I'm just having an honest conversation. Some people are going to like it, some aren't. I can't worry. I'm not going to get gray hair sitting here thinking about, oh, is Jeff in Michigan still going to like me and be down and show up to the festival and buy tickets? Come on, man. I'll figure a way out. I've had many times where I've had to worry about paying rent, and it's like, I'd rather worry about that than writing a song to get some bro to follow me.

Jordan Harbinger: I get feedback like that all the time. You lost me officially on this episode. I'm like, did I, though? Or do you just want to complain, but you're staying subscribed? People go, I listened to you for 10 years, but I was offended by one thing that you said that I'm taking out of context. So if you really did unsubscribe, fine, trash takes itself out. But I secretly think that you're remaining a fan. You just wanted to say something hurtful to get attention. But that'll teach both of us to read tweets.

Kaskade: This is the downside of social media. Social media is awesome, but there's definitely, there's some things that suck about it.

Jordan Harbinger: I respond to fan emails all the time. Like, I spend a ridiculous amount of time doing it just because I enjoy it. I get ideas for the show a lot from show fans. Yeah. But some people go, wow, you're so accessible. And I'm thinking, yeah. And they're like, why? And it's like, I enjoy it most of the time. But then there's the 0.01 percent where I go, I should never read another email again. But then you realize that was that person's goal in writing that in the first place.

Kaskade: I feel like now more people are kind of hanging out on Reddit, where you can get kind of those honest conversations. It's like, I feel like Reddit is what Twitter was 10, 15 years ago or whatever. You're getting that real-time feedback. I miss the old Twitter, where you could just have these riffs and have a dialogue. Yeah. Without, like, Nazis worming their way in there. Dude, I mean, I get on there, and Threads, like, it's all, I'm like, is the world ending? Like, you know, bots and angry people. It just freaks me out. So I try and see as little of that as possible.

Jordan Harbinger: It is scary. I love Reddit, though. We have a subreddit for the show. Yeah, there you go. We have an advice segment every Friday, and people will go, whoa, that person, this is crazy. I had the same thing happen to me and it turned out to be a big fraud or whatever. So it's interesting to see people's life experience. Or someone will go, wow, I could have written that letter about the mom who joined a cult and then sold her children in South America. And you're like, wait, that happened to more than one person? What? You think about it like you have an audience. If one in every 10,000 people is crazy, and it's probably more than that, and one in every 100,000 people is batshit crazy, if you have an audience of millions, that means there's hundreds to thousands of people in there that are number 11 on the 1-to-10 crazy, or having a crazy life, or having a crazy experience, or having a crazy job, whatever it is. That's why it's cool.

Kaskade: It's like, whatever, man. I don't know, dude. I used to spend a lot of time worrying about ticketing. Ticketing's been a big problem for many musicians. And I think in the electronic world, because we're such a niche thing, for that first kind of wave of popularity, I just, it was killing me. Still now I get upset over it, but it's just trying to manage that. Of course I want my fans to be able to buy a ticket and come and see me. And now it's just, the secondhand market, these things thrive and work off of these opportunities, so it can be very frustrating. But I was just agreeing with you because it's like, at some point I've got to be like, hey, man, I personally can't stop all these scalpers. All I can do is tell my fans, like, hey, dude, if you guys are ready, the tickets go on sale here. I think this show will sell out. But then you get online and every, every DJ is out there. It's going to sell out, man. You're going to buy. I'm like, okay, so kind of trying to strike balance. Like, no, I'm serious, it is actually going to sell out.

Jordan Harbinger: Because how do you solve that, right? You'd have to buy 10,000 tickets yourself and be like, okay, I'm selling these at the retail price. Then I have to verify you're a real person and not a cutout for a scalper. It's like, no thanks. The ticketing guys, it's a tough business. I'm glad that's not what I do. Yeah, that's kind of awful. I hadn't thought about that. I wonder, are there any festivals, or not even festivals, venues outside the US that you really love? Because if I ask you your favorite venue in the US, I think people ask that all the time. But I've seen some pretty unique venues. Like in Serbia, there's Exit. Have you played that festival?

Kaskade: I haven't played Exit, but yes, I've seen the footage, as you have.

Jordan Harbinger: It's crazy. It's on an island and you go there and you can camp or you can sleep in a dacha or whatever, and there's 20 stages, and it's in an old Ottoman fortress.

Kaskade: It's just nuts. Now more than ever, there's so many kind of experiential kind of festivals or clubs or whatever you want to call these things, or weekenders that are happening, because there's so much value in that. People really love community. There's so many of them out there. I think in the last 10 years, the growth has just been like, I can't even track this. As far as venues, honestly, I just played Factory Town in Miami, and I was like, this might be my most favorite venue ever. I'm constantly having those experiences. Why do I love Factory Town? I thought the size was appropriate for what I was doing. I think it's, I don't know, five, six, seven thousand people, whatever it is. So it seems big, because somewhere after, like, three or four thousand people, it's a hundred thousand or ten thousand, like, it all is just like a mass of humanity in front of me. But it still felt intimate. So it was big, but I'm vibing, like, I feel these guys, like, we're in it together. Because some of these festivals are so big, I'm like, I could be playing in my bedroom right now. I actually don't totally know what's happening. People are so far away. It's just, okay, like, I think I'm smashing it. Not totally sure, though. Can only see the first three rows. Yeah. Like, even that, sometimes I'm like, there's just a little people out there. Like, yes, their hands are in the air. That's awesome. I'm wondering, can you even see those people? At certain times in the show, I can see the audience, and others I can't, because a lot of time the lighting's coming towards me, so I'm being blinded. And every once in a while I'll be like, yeah, bring the lights up, man. I need to see these guys. You know, let's have this moment together. They have to light them and me a certain way. They have to, like, turn that stuff off, like, because I'm like, I don't totally know what's going on, you know? But then there's moments, even when it just goes dark, then I can see shapes and stuff, or the room's lit just blue and purple, which are some of my favorite colors. So I'm like, okay, I get the vibe. Okay, this is working.

Jordan Harbinger: Okay, it looks like a hell of a lot of fun, but you know they're there, but not if you don't feel them there. So that, to me, is, I guess you'd have to wear, like, sunglasses. Then you're lit, then they're also lit, but then they can't keep lighting the whole crowd because then they can't really see. Somebody's got to think about all that.

Kaskade: This moment's cool because it was like a moment when the lights went up. And a lot of times we do, so the lighting and the visuals, that's a whole science, right? I don't have a degree in that. I have an opinion because I've been in it a lot. But really, we're just, we're like in there massaging the brain with the music, and then we're trying to amplify all of that, what's happening, what they're hearing. So a lot of times it's off and on, just strobing. Sure. But even in different, the way we do that. Cool, all the lights are on for a second. Oh my gosh, you see everyone. Then it's just completely black for 30 seconds. It's not a strobe. It's just, we're blacking you out, then we're lighting it up, and these different looks just open it up.

Jordan Harbinger: Can you talk to the lighting guy up there? Like, is there an internal comm system where you go, hey, can you turn the lights up?

Kaskade: What I can do, especially in a show like that big size, I'm playing and I can turn around, which anyone who's seen me has been like, oh yeah, you just do that sometimes. It's like, I'm turning around, I'm usually yelling, the monitors are too quiet, or, hey, I can't see anything, chill it out. So I'll yell to my tour manager, and he's on comms with the guys at front of house, and he's like, Ryan's freaking out, turn it down, or more blue, or red. I don't do a lot of that directing, a little bit here and there. We do spend time. The last time I did it was in prep for Coachella, where we literally rent a warehouse. We construct a massive structure. We put it all out there and we run, and I'm sitting there running through things and they're showing, and you can do it on a previs. A previs, they've got this program where they can say, hey, this is what it's going to look like. But it always looks so much better in person, and they can rehearse. And what we do in those situations, just go over dozens and dozens of looks. Oh, this song is going to look like this. This song is going to look like this. Here's the visuals for that. And we just go and work it and work it and work it. How long does that take? It's always a cost analysis thing. For Coachella, we did a week. I think I was there for three days. And when I say three days, we're doing 20-hour days. And listen, I would leave and these people would still continue to program. It's like, wow. They're like, sue him. It's honestly like, hey, I need to sleep for just a little bit. Let me go in the room. And there's people sleeping under their desks. Nobody's peeing in a cup. We do have food breaks and stuff like that, but there are long days, because the rental of, one, the venue, that's not cheap. You can rent a hockey arena out for two weeks or whatever, so that's expensive. Everyone's time is expensive. Then we have all the equipment rental. I didn't buy all that. We're renting it for a time to be able to rehearse. So I think a lot of times we're kind of just, like, working this equation. Me and the team sit down, like, okay, what's realistic? What do we need to iron the show out? Okay, three days should be enough. They're working for four days before I get there. Okay, I get there, and hopefully a lot of it's ironed out and we're just going over the cues. So they figured out the lighting placement, colors, placement. There's been a full directorial process that's happened before I get in there.

Jordan Harbinger: Imagine trying to help this struggling DJ out with a bar mitzvah gig, only to discover his last audience was 40,000 screaming fans. Ma'am, your budget covers approximately one fog machine and Deadmau5 telling your son he'll never work in this town again. Here are some sponsors with considerably more accessible pricing. We'll be right back. We've got a subreddit for the show if you want to discuss episodes with listeners, the team, other show fans. That's over on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. All right, now for the rest of my conversation with Kaskade. Are we talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, venue rentals, people's time? Yes. I think that's important to note, because people will see what someone gets paid to go to Coachella, and they're like, oh, man, these guys don't really have to work for their money. And it's like, well, they built the audience. Oh, even still, they just show up and do it. It's like, no, no, there's a week of rehearsals, and by the way, that's on them and their dime, and they have to rent out Joe Louis Arena or whatever it's called in Detroit to do this.

Kaskade: I'm comfortable saying, yes, I make millions of dollars, but there's millions of dollars spent to execute these moments.

Jordan Harbinger: I meant to ask before, do you have hearing aids?

Kaskade: I do.

Jordan Harbinger: Is that music related? Did you... is that from...?

Kaskade: 100% music related. I haven't talked a lot about it, and I typically don't wear them out in public, one, because I don't totally need it. I wear them, I'll tell you where I wear them. I wear them at church, because it's one speaker speaking and I just want to turn the volume up. I wear them at the movie theater. And then sometimes when I'm doing podcasts, if we don't have headphones. When I walked in and saw there was no headphones, I went around the corner and put them on. I've done a lot of podcasts where the guys are actually quiet talkers, and every other question I'm like, huh? Or I'm leaning in. Couldn't understand anything he was... Why did he keep trying to kiss Jordan during the show? Yeah, exactly. So now I was just like, I can sit back and listen. And listen, I've played, we tried to estimate, and I think I'm somewhere right around that 5,000-show mark, and I mean, deafening volumes. Is it any surprise that, yes, I have some hearing damage? For sure. But it's not to that point where it's like critical, he needs to stop. But I'm sure there are plenty of doctors out there that would say stop. But it's not to that point yet. It definitely has affected my mixing ability, mixing in the studio, just making sure I get everything right. I get things where I think it sounds perfect, and then I bring in people that I trust, mix engineers, and like, hey, they'll make fine-tune adjustments. Like, man, it's a little bright, dude. You've got some of your top end, and I'm like, yeah, it's worn down a little bit. But dude, I am blown away at how many people in my industry are wearing these. Hey, guys, if you work at a club, wear some earplugs. Pardon me? No, it's a cautionary tale. It is. I'm not going to name names, but there are guys that are very high profile and had crazy amounts of success, and we show up to a wedding, and it's like, all of us in the industry are all, like, putting these things on so we can hear the service.

Jordan Harbinger: There's plenty of people who don't want to get the help they need for anything because they're like, oh, there's a stigma. But if Kaskade's wearing hearing aids because you've got hearing damage, that means that it's okay for them to. I think it gives people permission to also have flaws, or whatever you want to call it.

Kaskade: And I think it's specifically my generation, because when we came up, hearing protection, that was not even a conversation. I don't think, one, we had the tech there. Like, that wasn't even, saying, oh, you're in a nightclub, it's 110 decibels all night, put this in your ear. And when I tried to kind of make that adjustment 15 years into my career, where I was like, I think my hearing's getting a little messed up, it's like, dude, I tried to DJ with these things that were bringing the ceiling of volume down, and I'm like, the energy is not the same. To me, I'm jacking into that every night. I'm a conduit giving it out. I don't want less, I want more. I need to feel this 100%. So to try and do that, I was like, yep, I can't. I tried for months and I was like, I can't learn this. My brain won't allow me. So I'd start shows with that, and I bet you, 10 minutes in, 15 minutes in, 30 minutes, and I'm like, that's it, man, I'm out. I've had a lot of discipline and kind of control throughout my life in many areas of my life, but something with volume, I'm like, I just want to hear it louder. As life would have it, that's probably an okay area for me to have a little less control. It worked out okay. Probably healthier than... yeah, exactly. I'm glad it's this and not meth.

Jordan Harbinger: You're LDS, Latter-day Saints. If I say you're Mormon, is that not the term you use, actually?

Kaskade: I think everybody, we're commonly referred to as Mormons, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is our full name, and there's been more of an effort to kind of use the full name.

Jordan Harbinger: The point of this question, where we're going with this, is no drinking, no drugs. I don't know how much people know. Maybe not everybody listening knows much about the EDM scene, but EDM and drugs do go together decently well, or are often, I should say quite often. And I would imagine throughout your career, how surprised are people when they're like, hey, I've got the best MDMA you've tried, and you're like, I've never tried it and I'm not doing it tonight. That must still happen.

Kaskade: You just gave your audience the rated-G version of what I get asked. There's like 10 levels above that. I still get it from time to time. Not so much these days, very rarely, just because people know who I am and I've had a lot of success and I have a lot of people around me. I'm pretty insulated. But I don't have a lot to say on the subject. I think I'll try and boil it down to a couple quick talking points. I discovered dance music because I was trying to escape what was happening in my high school. What was a big deal in my world was, like, the keggers on Friday nights, going to the football game and getting wasted, and I just couldn't relate. Not only did I not do that, that just wasn't who I was. I was this kid taking a train into the city wearing mascara because Robert Smith did. And like, oh, you had guyliner? Oh, yeah. Putting on, like, a woman's dress and shopping at this store, which was very gender neutral. Like, I just was into art and fashion and music and everything that went along with this scene of kind of inclusivity, and I found a home there. The fact that I was a weird guy and was, like, into Jesus and my faith, like, people were not judgmental. I don't know, this is the '80s. It was a different time. I think now faith has a lot of, oh, hey, man, whoa, are you one of those people? Want to put all these things on that.

Jordan Harbinger: We've all seen a lot of cult documentaries on Netflix. That's why. So we're like, wait a minute.

Kaskade: Yeah. So, and I think that's unfortunate, because for me, I think my faith is what's been able to keep me grounded and keep me here talking about this and not completely destroyed. I think the excessive nature of what this is viewed as, and there is a lot of that that exists. Yeah, people are getting completely sideways. And where do I fit in that? I've always been, like, the straight-edge kid who's been faithful and disciplined. I found a really kind of welcoming environment. The fact that I was different didn't really bother anyone, and that's probably because they were different in their own ways. It's like all these misfits found one another. So for me, I felt a lot of comfort in that, and no one was ever really judgmental. And I found that on both sides. People sometimes are like, people at church, do they know what you're doing? I'm like, yeah, man, that was cool. Yeah, don't worry about it, dude. All is well. Dude, I teach early-morning seminary. This is my eighth year I've been doing this. Two, three days a week. I team teach because I travel quite a bit. But yeah, before school, this morning actually, before school starts, I've got, before the fire, I had 14 students, and now five. You know, where we sit and study the scriptures and share with one another the things that we're having and what we're going through, and, like, how faith can help us. And then the kids go on their way, and it's awesome. I've been doing it, yeah, it's my eighth year. I love it. I think people think there's one version of Ryan on Friday night and then Saturday night on stage, and then there's another version of Ryan on Sunday afternoon, and another version of Ryan on Wednesday. It's like, nah, man, I'm the same guy. And I recently played here in Santa Monica, a pier, locally, and I invited, I'm like, oh, you guys want to... you guys should come out. Because I think it's a tough world. I think it's hard to live in the world and not be of it, but I think it can be done. When I want other people of faith, there's room for us to be who we want to be, or who we're striving to be and trying to be, in all walks of life. I didn't stop going to high school because a bunch of kids were doing drugs. And one of my favorite professors smoked pot all the time. What am I supposed to do, bury my head in the sand? No. And I think even with dance music, there's a lot of sober people out there that are attending that get that high, as I do, just hearing the music, connecting with the community, and enjoying what's happening. Okay, do they want to argue with me? Oh, but it's better on X. It's better on cocaine. Dude, let's do some whatever. I'm not doing that. Maybe it's better for you. Cool. I'm loving this feeling, everything that I can, and being completely in charge of myself, and I'm still able to, like, experience this. Yes, we're experiencing it differently, and that's okay. I'm fine with it. I hope that you can be too.

Jordan Harbinger: Now that there's all these modern fMRI brain scans, you might not really be experiencing it that much differently. If you really enjoy the music, you might actually be lighting up the same parts of your brain. Maybe you don't have a massive serotonin dump like you would with pharmaceuticals, but I think it probably can get pretty close. There's a reason that ancient traditions and religions and Native Americans and stuff have these ceremonies where you get your body really warm and then you start to loosen. I mean, they're trying to induce the same state without drugs, or sometimes with plants. Depends.

Kaskade: I found my way, and I think that's what I want to leave with people, that electronic music and just the raver community in general is very open and accepting. And people are out there doing crazy, excessive stuff, and I'm not, and like, I think there's room for everybody. And I think that holds true just in life in general, man. There's all types out there. I think I'm a believer that we can all just get along.

Jordan Harbinger: So there's somebody listening right now who probably loves making something but is embarrassed that it hasn't become a success yet. What would you tell them to pay attention to in their next month of work? How do they decide whether to keep going? Because it's really easy to be like, never give up. But you've probably heard plenty of people who pitch you songs. If you told them never give up, you'd be doing them a disservice, right? You've certainly, you've heard something and you go, this is not good, and I need to tactfully tell this person, don't quit your day job.

Kaskade: Okay, there's two things I'm going to say here. One, you need to be having honest, really honest conversations with yourself, and you need to check in, right? When you're in this creative process, it's hard to pull back and have any perspective. But yeah, if you're just banging your head against the wall, maybe it's time to pivot. Cool, dude, maybe you're not a songwriter, but maybe you're a producer, or maybe you're supposed to be a promoter. Maybe you love the music and your role is something different than what you initially imagined it to be. And I would say be open-minded to that. Be honest and be open-minded to that, and be willing to pivot. I didn't get into this business thinking, like, oh, cool, I want to be that guy. I never thought that. Never. Because I wasn't that guy, and it's just not in my nature. So then, on the flip side of that, 2026 has been just a wild year for me. And looking back at some of this, I had a song go number one on Billboard Dance, and when it went number one, there was kind of a weird moment that I was having, that 30 years ago, on that month, was the time that I released my first-ever music into the world for consumption. You can listen to this. I released it publicly. It wasn't just some beat I made and then showed it to my buddies. No, I pressed it up on vinyl and sold it. 30 years. 30 years. Even me saying that, I don't know that I'm 30 years old. How is that even possible? I don't think I'm, like, an old guy. I don't look in the mirror and think that. Of course not. Depends on the day. But it's amazing to me that much time has passed. And if you would have went back 30 years, and if I could speak to myself, like, no, dude, you're going to have a freaking number one on Billboard. You've been on a tour of the world. You've played thousands of shows and made millions of dollars. I wouldn't have believed it. I wouldn't have believed it. Okay, weird space alien from the future, stop acting like me. I don't know what the conversation would have been. But the reason I share that is because the arts and entertainment, it's incredibly difficult, because everything's set up for you to fail and everyone around you is going to doubt you. So it's like, that's why I feel like you've got to check in and have those honest conversations with yourself. Is this working? Is it going the way I want it to? Is there room to pivot here and still be in the neighborhood of something that I love? Maybe I'm not that. And that's how I arrived in this place. I just kept seeing opportunities and things where I was like, I think I can do that. And then, like, I get to another spot and be like, hey, there's more opportunity here. I easily could have stopped 20 years ago. Like, and I was doing that boom, deep, Chicago-inspired, West Coast, San Francisco sound, and I was like one of the guys, Miguel Migs, Mark Farina, and like... But then I was like, man, I want to try writing other types of music. Okay, cool. And then I reached out to Deadmau5. Then my career saw this whole other zone. I don't know. So be open-minded and honest with yourself.

Jordan Harbinger: When you reach out to another artist, how does it usually work? Because in my mind, a former lawyer, it's like, oh yeah, you have your manager email the label. And I'm wondering if it's like, you just go, hey, Tom, do you have Deadmau5's number? Yeah, let me throw you on a thread. And then you're like, hey, we should do something.

Kaskade: That's exactly how that happened, where I had a buddy, buddy, I'm using that term really loosely. Hey, dude, I have something that I want to play for Joel that I think he might be interested in. I was connected to him directly, and we're just having a conversation. Hey, man, what do you think? And I sent him some stuff. He's like, well, this is sick. I'm like, all right, we should make something together. We should do this together. And he's like, yeah. And then it just happened. Do you all fly to each other, or is it sending a track on Google? I've flown out to Joel's house, I think, and we did a lot of wake surfing and told a lot of stories, and he stayed up way too late. I kept falling asleep. Back then, it was just, you're just shipping files back and posting them up, like, here's the link, download them, see what you think, and let me change X, Y, and Z. You're just sending stuff back and forth.

Jordan Harbinger: Typically, people have these grand ideas in their head, right? Because you look at those photos from the '80s, or the '90s, where everyone's in a studio crowded around, and you think, oh, that's how they make music. It's like, no, that happened once. That's why they took that photo. This is like the release party of their triple gold record thing. This is not them making the music in the first place.

Kaskade: Anytime people are like, we need some photos, we need some footage, we need some content so we can promote this stuff, I'm like, hey, man, just come over to my place. I might be meeting these people for the first time in person. Like, we've conversed a bunch, but it's like, coming here, throwing high fives, like, yo, let's sit down at the desk and pull the tracks up, turn the lights on, put some wires around so it looks like we're plugging things in. Which is cool, and I think everyone kind of realizes that's where we're at now. That's fine. Occasionally, I do feel like songwriting specifically happens best in the room together. All my best songs are, like, me sitting down with a friend, or two or three or four. Sometimes I have writing camps here where we just invite a bunch of songwriters, order a bunch of food, and kind of just hang out here for a week and just write songs together. That happens because it's like you're just kind of having discussions like this, about philosophy and what you believe and how you think. And, man, last night sucked because this happened. That's a song. Let's put that down. That's more kind of how that flow works with me, and I think with a lot of songwriters. But production-wise, it's like, hey, let me send you a kick drum. It just can be very monotonous. I feel like most producers that I know, especially in the EDM world, they just work best in their own space. We all kind of have our own techniques. We don't need to sit in a room and just piss each other off and waste time. I'll just send you some ideas, you send me some ideas, and then we'll kind of build from there.

Jordan Harbinger: What do you think you can enjoy now that an earlier version of yourself would have been too anxious or distracted or maybe even too ambitious to enjoy? I think early performance, you're like, oh God, I hope nothing goes wrong. I hope the audience likes me. What are you able to just really enjoy, thinking, no matter what, this is...?

Kaskade: Oh, I am savoring all of this. I think with post-COVID, I've got a new flow, but really this last, like, a year, maybe two years, like, I'm just like, man, this could be gone tomorrow. I might never play Coachella again in my life. I have no idea. I don't know where I'm going to be next week. I could get hit by a bus. And I think for so much of my career, no regrets, man, but the way I lived it, and it's just in my person, and it's partly why I'm sitting here, I would argue I didn't savor the moment. It was always, what's next? I'm literally walking off the stage at Staples Center, the first time anyone had sold out, in my world, an arena that size, 15,000 people, whatever. There's a picture like that on the wall. And I'm like, yeah, and I'm having a couple Sour Patch Kids, and I'm just like, what's next? How can we make the show better? Why did that one strobe go off during this song? And it's not like we just did it. I take a minute with my team and we throw high fives and, like, yeah. And then it's, how can we improve the show? Does anyone have playback? I thought in minute 32 we could have gone all black. There's no time to celebrate that. We took that 30 seconds, threw high fives, hugged one another, patted each other on the back, and it's next. And it's been like that since the beginning. And that's the way, the tempo and the way that this particular genre of music moves, that's the way we move, because it's always what's next. Cool. I had to get to this age and have this much success to be like, man, let's celebrate. We just did that. Dude, I've been kind of reveling in the success of the Coachella show for most of this year. I introduced a bunch of new music, and there were nine new songs I played in the set, which is very unusual, to be on a stage in front of 30,000 people, streaming to hundreds of thousands of people, and you just play a bunch of new music. That's what I wanted to do. Cool, we're going to do it that way. Cool, let's savor the moment. Now I can go out the rest of this year and just be, like, testing this stuff out. And I've switched the versions quite a bit over the time, testing them out. When I put the album out, there's some people lamenting that, version four that he played here in Las Vegas, this recording was so much better than what's on the record. That's kind of been fun. But really, for me, it's just kind of savoring and enjoying the moment, and I'm just doing that more than ever. I'm like, yeah, man, cool. I'm going to play Colombia this year, Thailand, some of these places that I would be like, hey, man, maybe that doesn't make the most sense, because it was so much of a chess match, right? And I'm like, cool, I've done that. Great. There's another generation coming up and they're awesome. I've handed over the reins. They're having fun. Cool. Is there a lot left in me, and I still want to write and share music? Sure. Cool. This is who I am. It's part of what I do. I'll always do it on some level, but that's just quieted down. Feels good, doesn't it? Dude, I'm having so much fun. Oh my gosh, dude. Nah, it's just like, we're just doing stuff we wanted to, me and my team. I'm like, man, it would be cool to play in a big field over here. Like, all right, how can we make that happen? I mean, I've always had that spirit about me, just because I love life and I'm doing something that I love. I imagine I emit that energy, or I'm trying to, or I think that just naturally kind of is around me. Dude, I'm making disco records for a living. We're going out, we're dancing and celebrating every weekend. That's the gig. There's always been some of that, but I'm just 100% leaning in and taking it all in.

Jordan Harbinger: Here's a trailer of our interview with Moby, iconic musician and producer. This was a super real conversation about creativity, fame, mental health, money, and what really makes people happy and fulfilled. Moby was really open with this one, and even if you're not a fan of the music, I guarantee you will dig this episode.

Moby: I grew up in arguably the wealthiest town in the United States, Darien, Connecticut, but my mom and I were on food stamps and welfare. My first punk rock show was to an audience of one dog, and my first electronic music show was to Miles Davis.

I wanted to stop the show and patiently explain to the movie stars and the beautiful people that they'd made a mistake. They were celebrating me, but I was a nothing. I was a kid from Connecticut who wore secondhand clothes in the front seat of his mom's car while she cried and tried to figure out where she could borrow money to buy groceries. Now it was 1999. I was an insecure husband, but we kept playing, and the celebrities kept dancing and cheering.

The weird thing is, things started to go wrong when I stopped feeling that way. 1999, I thought that my career had ended. Yeah. My mom had died of cancer. I was battling substance abuse problems. I was battling panic attacks. I'd lost my record deal, and I was making this one last album. I was like, okay, I'll make this album, I'll put it out, I'll move back to Connecticut, I'll get a job teaching philosophy at some community college. And then all of a sudden, the world embraced me. I handled fame and wealth really disastrously. It was so humiliating. I wouldn't trade any of it.

Jordan Harbinger: For more from Moby, including how he bounced back from a 400-drink-per-month booze habit, check out episode 196 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. The thing that stuck with me was Kaskade describing how he could walk off stage after selling out an arena, eat a couple Sour Patch Kids, and immediately start picking apart the show. 15,000 people cheering, and his brain is already conducting a performance review. Crazy. That's an exhausting way to win. When every accomplishment just becomes the starting line for the next one, you barely get to experience the life you worked so hard to build. I like that he's learning to savor that now. I think that's super healthy. You can keep improving and still let yourself enjoy a damn good night. I really love this interview. I had a blast doing it. Thanks to Kaskade and his whole team. All things Kaskade and links to the new album will be on the website at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, also on the website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Don't forget about Six-Minute Networking as well, over at sixminutenetworking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. And this show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tadas Sidlauskas, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Ryan Hartford filmed and set the audio up for this one down in L.A. Thank you, Ryan, for your help. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. You know somebody who's into music, especially if they're a Kaskade fan, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.