#1345 - Steve Aoki

Steve Aoki (0:02)

These are pretty cool.

Joe Rogan (0:03)

And we're live. Hello, Steve. Yeah, that's the Kanye one.

That's the most recent. That's this guy, Plasticell, Fong Tran. He creates all these. He hand paints each one.

Yeah, he sculpts it and then he makes like a mold. And he's got a bunch of dope ones. It's all on his line. And you got a book, bro.

Steve Aoki (0:22)

I do.

Joe Rogan (0:22)

Color of Noise.

Steve Aoki (0:24)

Blue, The Color of Noise, yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:26)

What's this about?

Steve Aoki (0:27)

It's my memoir.

It talks about the beginnings.

It goes through my process. It goes through a lot of different things. I mean, at the end of the day, it's been more. So it's more about, it's less about what's happening now, and more about like how I got there, you know, the story and different piecemeal stories that are thematic with this overarching idea of blue, which is like the different shades of blue of my life. It's my favorite color. And actually, my last name means blue tree. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like there's a lot of synergy with the color. So when I was coming up with the idea to name the book, you know, I had to think of like, you know, something that relates throughout my whole life. So there's so many different shades, emotions, feelings. That are represented in all these different stories.

Joe Rogan (1:26)

Have you always been a writer?

Steve Aoki (1:29)

I'm like, yeah, I guess like a piecemeal writer, you know, I needed help finishing this book. There's no doubt about it. I had so much. It's like, you know, because I'm still like, you know, of the pen and paper still, you know, like I grew up before computers and all that stuff.

When I was writing lyrics for my bands, it was always like a notepad.

So I had just so many different stories. I didn't know how to put it all together. I started the inception of writing, you know, these different stories of my life six years ago. And then I shot a documentary for Netflix, and we dropped it called, it's called I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. We dropped it three years ago, four years ago, 2015 to 2016, I think. And after I saw the reception and how people responded to the doc, then I knew that, like, you know, this is really going to take shape. This is going to be front and center, finishing and writing a proper memoir.

Joe Rogan (2:29)

So the idea of writing a memoir is only, the idea of writing and writing about yourself is only to write this memoir. It's not like you write on a regular basis.

Steve Aoki (2:37)

No, no, no, no. I mean, you know, like, I am actually coming up with some new ideas for the next, you know, conception of what I would put out there in book form, because it's a different process for me that's quite exciting, just to like the challenge to do something like this, because my natural way to express myself is through music.

And I love being able to step outside my comfort zones. I think at the end of the day, when you do that enough, you just get better as a human being.

Joe Rogan (3:09)

Yes.

Steve Aoki (3:10)

And try, you know, if you always do the same thing over and over again, you're never really learning. So it's been like a great learning process, you know, putting out this memoir and like actually opening up this vulnerable side to who I am that I don't necessarily, I don't talk about really. You know, like for people that know me, like my fans or my music fans or anyone else that knows Steve Aoki, they don't really know what's in this book.

You know, they might have a glimpse of it from my documentary, which I did, because I talk really deeply about my relationship with my father and like this drive that I have as a kid to make it.

And it shows you enough where it's, okay, now I have a little bit more than my live shows and what's already out there. But this goes, you know, obviously, a lot deeper because it's a book, and we're going through emotions and the vulnerability. And I want to tell stories of the hardships. And at the end of the day, I want to speak to young kids out there, young people out there, even older people that are trying to figure their own thing out. And because the documentary related in so many ways on a personal level that I shared there, this is how I wanted to share that through my own words.