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Music evokes a lot of different emotions and triggers different senses.
Kaskade -
I think how Chicago plays a role in my life - it had such a role in my youth and the decisions that I made as a kid and formulated who I am as an artist early on.
Kaskade
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I studied communications, only because I could get my own show on the campus radio station. I never thought of it as a career. Music was always a really passionate hobby - it was like collecting DVDs or stamps.
Kaskade -
When I can control my own show, I want the price to be affordable so fans can actually see me. It's a challenge because I have to do a lot of navigating to make the production stellar but do it on a realistic budget.
Kaskade -
I've always had a passion for music, but I never saw me as a musician for a living. I never thought that I could make a living. It never dawned on me.
Kaskade -
There is so much great talent in the underground, and electronic music is finally getting the props that it's deserved for so long. I feel like now that everyone is discovering it and it's so fresh sounding to so many people. It doesn't get any more rock n' roll than playing EDC or the Staples Center. It's really madness.
Kaskade -
People know my lyrics; they know the stuff I've written, and it's all about life, love, happiness, and these big euphoric moments. It would always bug me when I'd go to a club, and they're playing some chick on a stripper pole on the monitor behind me. I'm like, 'So that's not what I do - that's the other guy.'
Kaskade -
If you listen to a Deadmau5 record or a Skrillex record, I really enjoy that stuff because, as aggressive sounding as the Skrillex records are, they're still musical, and that's why they have such a broad appeal.
Kaskade
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I think there is some truth to the fact that yeah, okay, cool, obviously the more mainstream kind of easier-to-grasp-onto dance music has become popular, but that holds true with almost any genre. It wasn't like the Sex Pistols hit the radio. It was poppier versions of that is what hit. It's never, like, the true core stuff.
Kaskade -
As a kid, my parents had the typical stuff going on in the home, like Bee Gees, The Carpenters. Then I got exposed to what my brothers were listening to: a lot of classic rock, Led Zeppelin. It was around the mid-'80s when the whole Electro-Techno-Pop-House music thing started happening in Chicago.
Kaskade -
Listening to music is such an uplifting, spiritual thing. It's far-fetched to some - I understand that. But the way dance music brings people together, it's not a big stretch from hymns.
Kaskade -
Blending tracks and weaving and manipulating prerecorded music to create this mood, some people do it much better than others.
Kaskade -
I'm not the best singer in the world, but the albums have always been personal. They're stories about me and what I'm going through.
Kaskade -
It's interesting: in the late '80s, there was this really random mix of new wave, industrial, and these early house records. And a lot of it was coming out of Chicago because of Wax Trax! So I always visited Wax Trax Records.
Kaskade
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I do feel like there's a level of ridiculousness going on in electronic music... It's getting borderline absurd out there.
Kaskade -
I've always been a big advocate of making shows affordable because a lot of these bottle-service clubs and events are geared toward really expensive experiences. Club music is for everyone, and it drives me crazy that people are getting priced out.
Kaskade -
To do more of a concert thing, it takes so much preparation. You don't just show up and wing it. You're putting countless hours in the studio, not just to write and produce stuff, but to come up with edits and special things for the show.
Kaskade -
A lot of people see electronic music as a flavor of the week, but it can be more than that - has to be more than that.
Kaskade -
I DJ'd for years. I DJ'd in high school, and I think my parents thought it was a passing thing. And then when I was in my second year of college, I was like, 'Yeah, you guys don't need to send me money anymore. My DJ gigs are good enough. I'm selling music; I think I'm gonna have a record deal. I can pay my tuition.'
Kaskade -
I'm more of an artist and a songwriter than I am a DJ. That word seems a little bit - well, it doesn't really describe what I do.
Kaskade
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Mix CDs are interesting. I'm known more for my artist albums and less for my mix CDs.
Kaskade -
I think that most people who hire me to do a remix just want it to work in a nightclub, whereas when I'm writing my own album, I don't have to worry so much about 2 A.M.
Kaskade -
People book me because of the songs I write, not because of the sets that I play, per se... I'm sure I'm going to be moving to a laptop really soon, but I was one of the last guys to let the vinyl go. I was crying. In my room, I still have thousands of records. I still pull them out and play them all the time.
Kaskade -
People don't listen to terrestrial radio. They don't find their music that way. They don't get their news that way. They go to blogs. They go through Sirius/XM. They go through all these different places.
Kaskade