Kaskade (TW/FB/IG: @KASKADE, KASKADEMUSIC.COM) is widely considered one of the “founding fathers” of Progressive House music. He’s been voted America’s Best DJ twice by DJ Times, headlined Coachella four times, and been nominated for a Grammy five times.
“I hit a local club owner up in Utah, and I asked, ‘What’s your worst night that you have? What’s the slowest night?’ and he said, ‘Monday. I’m not even open.’ I said, ‘Dude, let me come down on Monday night.’ This is a bar that had opened in the 1940s and had all of its original decor. It’s called Club Manhattan. It’s an amazing place in the basement. Anyway, the owner says, ‘I’ll give you a cut of the door. You have your friends come in, invite some people, and we’ll see what happens.’ It turned out the night was a smash. I did it for 5 years, and I ended up doing two nights a week. It was Monday, and then I took on a Thursday … I was working at a clothing store trying to support myself going to school, and I quit after the first week…. It started clicking, and then, when I was making enough money, I started to buy my first studio equipment.”
“When I can, I travel with my family. I’m married and I have three children, so I’m always trying to figure out, ‘How can I make this work?’ You know, putting the stones in the bucket. What’s really important here, and how can I fill the bucket with the things that are really important to me?”
TF: This visual metaphor was first taught to me by a college professor, and it’s a great way to think about priorities. Paraphrasing my teacher: “Imagine you have a large glass jar. Next to it, you have a few large rocks, a small pile of marble-sized pebbles, and a pile of sand. If you put in the sand or pebbles first, what happens? You can’t fit the big rocks in. But if you add the big rocks, then the medium-sized pebbles, and only then the sand, it all fits.” In other words, the minutiae fit around the big things, but the big things don’t fit around the minutiae.
“Every time I left the house, my dad would always say, ‘Remember who you are.’ Now that I am a father, this is a very profound thing to me. At the time I was like, ‘Dad, what the hell? You’re so weird. Like I’m gonna forget who I am? What are you saying?’ Now, I’m like, ‘Gosh, that guy was kind of smart.’”
• Favorite festivals?
Kaskade loves Coachella, but he also mentioned Electric Zoo in New York. “It’s in Randall’s Island and you’re looking at the skyline while you’re playing.”
• Iconic albums to start with?
Daft Punk Homework (Discovery is also great, but he’s a bigger fan of Homework)
Any Kraftwerk album