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

AI can copy dance music's sound but not its soul. Grammy-nominated DJ Kaskade is here to share 30 years of lessons on art, failure, and savoring success. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1396 https://jordanharbinger.com/1396 What We Discuss with Kaskade: AI isn't black and white for Kaskade — he's made music with machines for 30 years and welcomes help with mundane tasks, but push-button songs miss the point. What angers him is models clearly trained on his catalog while artists like him never see a check in the mail. When a generator caught fire before 40,000 fans at the L. A. Coliseum, Kaskade sat down with a Diet Coke while Deadmau5 raged at the crew — then held up his phone's flashlight. After months of prep and millions spent, the most memorable moment was the one nobody planned. Honest art means accepting it won't connect with everyone. undux, his introspective record after the fire, and a Christmas album cost him fans, but creating just to please the crowd never works. undux had to happen so Origin //, his return to big, celebratory anthems, could happen. A sober Latter-day Saint who teaches early-morning seminary, Kaskade found dance music as an escape from high school keggers. The rave scene welcomed this misfit, and he gets his high from the music and the community — proof there's room for everyone on the dance floor. What can you take away from this episode? Check in honestly about whether your work is working, and be willing to pivot to a neighboring role you still love; Kaskade's career grew from seizing each new opening. And when you win, savor it before asking what's next. You can keep improving and still enjoy the night. And much more... And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/id1344999619?mt=2&ls=1 — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking https://jordanharbinger.com/course — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course https://jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser https://www.jordanharbinger.com/news/ newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanHarbinger/! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors https://www.jordanharbinger.com/deals/: AT&T: Get an iPhone 17 Pro for $0: att.com/iphone or visit an AT&T store for details https://att.com/iphoneBetterHelp: 10% off first month: betterhelp.com/jordan https://www.betterhelp.com/jordanBoll & Branch: 15% off first set of sheets: bollandbranch.com, code JORDAN https://www.bollandbranch.com/EarnIn: Download EarnIn on the App Store or Google Play, type JordanHarbinger under Podcast https://app.earnin.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is sponsored in part by LinkedIn. Hiring for a small business is hard and you don't often have a team of people weighing in and helping out. That's why LinkedIn built Hiring Pro. It's truly like having a hiring partner throughout the hiring process. Chat with it just like you would a recruiter. Tell it what matters most for the role. Compare candidates side by side and give it feedback like, I want someone with more hands-on experience. Hiring Pro listens, adjusts and surfaces the people who actually fit what you need. Running my own small business, I've had to make all the hiring decisions on my own and it's tough when you don't have a team to talk it through with. You're trying to find the right person while also keeping everything else moving. Having help with hiring is so valuable, a partner you can bounce things off of, who learns what you're looking for and helps you think through the candidates. That would take a lot off your plate.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  Eighty-eight percent of small businesses say they trust LinkedIn's candidate recommendations. And you can be confident in your hiring decisions when you use LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com/Harbinger. Terms and conditions apply.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic MyLowe's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 1:29Speaker 00

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

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Today on the show, Cascade. 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 Cascade 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 Cascade.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  I think a good place to start actually is probably what do you make of the AI music? Cause 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, cause 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.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  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, Cascade loves AI or Cascade 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.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  What's silly about it to me is our entire world, dude, I interface with machines, robots. I program my drones on a 909 on a laptop. There's synthesis in here that generates an arpeggio that I, 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. Cause 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.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  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 it spits 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.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  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 and 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. To 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.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  So I think there's a lot of like 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.

• 6:24Speaker 00

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

• 6:42Speaker 02

  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.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  I would agree with that, but the next question is, are we dinosaurs, man? Cause you're in your 50s and I'm in my 40s, our young 20-somethings right now listening and going, these, these frail farts just don't get it.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  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's got everything figured out. And I'm like, nah, man, and we gotta be friends, the robots. We've all seen the movies, like 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. Cause it is this kind of like hot topic and then when I get burned on there.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  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 And 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.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  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.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  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 realized the mixing is garbage.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  And I'd probably go and open, dude. I'd probably be like, I'm intrigued. 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, 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.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  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.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  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.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  It's true. 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.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, you've been doing this for so long.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  But they want, 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 don't own, 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.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  The fact that you have to even say that out loud is so nuts.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  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, why don't I take your entire back catalog and it's going to be part of our album? 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, nah, nah, it just sounds like you because it sounds like you.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  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.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Of course they did.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  And this is where it's like, yes, people like us that have been creating and whatever, these models are learning off of stuff 100 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 know, it's essentially robbing all of us.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  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, I don't know, 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 Chaos 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. This is sold out. All the fans are waiting, but I feel like absolute ass.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  What do you do? How do you rally?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  There's two things.

• 13:19Speaker 00

  Tylenol and?

• 13:19Speaker 02

  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 there a hat and just be like, okay. Really, in the club world, you can hide a lot. So one of my, 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 and it's probably good for me.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, take this, it's called Adderall.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  So I 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 a Red Rock show and then once I got food poisoning before a Red Rock show. And I'm like, meh, meh, meh, just 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 of hours, right, dude? 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.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  I need to make sure that I can hang for two hours. And she 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, the elevator down, right to the stage.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh. Usually he's probably working on hungover executives or something.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  That's the typical thing.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  And I don't drink, so I've never had to deal with that, but yeah.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:05Speaker 02

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

• 15:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, geez. I guess there's just nothing you can do. Speaking of nothing you can do, this is a while ago. You're at the LA 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, oh, this is not a glitch. I assume you look at him and go, this is not something you did, right?

• 15:33Speaker 02

  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.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  That's the deal in court, right? Everybody like 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 failsafes 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 was 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

• 16:25Speaker 02

  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.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  Everyone's waiting for the beat to drop and you're like, no, no, no.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Listen, I can say this now because like, 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. And 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 it, it's cool, man.

• 17:31Speaker 02

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

• 18:16Speaker 02

  And then he's still kinda like riding that like fix it moment. And then I finally stand out, I'm like, hey dude, it's cool, man. They got, they'll figure it out. And I was kinda like, maybe the more sane voice of reason in that moment. And, and I was like, dude, we're really gonna 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? Cause in a normal situation, you'd just grab the microphone, be like, hey, yo, we've had some technical difficulties, just hold on a moment. I'm talking like no power.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, generator had caught on fire.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  It's like it did that burst in like, I don't know, a Marvel movie where like, there's no power. Then I whip out my phone and the flashlight battery and I'm just like, I just held it up.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  And then like all of a sudden thousands and then tens of thousands of people never were holding it. 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 this is probably gonna be the most memorable moment of the show. And sure, everything that went viral was that. Nothing that we planned at all.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  That you actually produced, 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?

• 19:35Speaker 02

  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 got a massive team running these huge visuals and all these pyrotechnics and everything that was cued, so.

• 19:50Speaker 00

  You're like, let me just play some random.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  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.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Man, it's funny to think about. My, my brother in Germany, he used to play this keyboard, this is in the 90s. And I remember being like, whoa, 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.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  And it'd be like, all right, let's go make some toast, come back. Cause it took five minutes to load.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  To load it on, dude.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  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.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  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 getting air crummy.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, 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.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  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 90s, everything was just techno. I think most of the time I'm just stoked that they're calling it something.

• 21:43Speaker 00

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

• 21:47Speaker 02

  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, no, 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.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Definitely.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Okay, this is what I like, this is good.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Definitely, people think, 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 ti- 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 something.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  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. You 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 wanna play CDs, you gotta buy the old stuff. We were taking pre-recorded and composed 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 techniques, the 1200s,

• 23:17Speaker 02

  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 bassline 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.

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  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 first 15 years of my career, like, when you would say DJ, they would think like, almost like an on-air mourning personality.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  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, but if I sit down and play them 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.

• 24:52Speaker 00

  Anything I would have heard of?

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Hey, I DJ. Oh, that's neat. But now.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Probably lives with his mom.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Oh, this poor kid, how's he in first class? Like.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Must be a trust fund.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  I can imagine somebody trying to hire you for their kid's apartment. So 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?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  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 Colosseum or whatever. They're like, what? Oh yeah, 40,000 people attended, you know, kind of, oh, wait. Kindly tell them like, that's not my thing.

• 25:33Speaker 00

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

• 25:39Speaker 02

  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.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was talking to your mother, she said you're a DJ. Thought I'd maybe help you out with a gig. AI can apparently learn from 30 years of Cascade'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.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  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.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  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.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  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 US? You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp.com/jordan to explore your payment options. That's better H E L P dot 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 it 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/deals. It's a win-win, you get a discount and you help keep the show going strong.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Thank you for your support. Now, back to Cascade.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  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, 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 with us. 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. This guy does no real work."

• 28:58Speaker 02

  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 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,

• 29:41Speaker 02

  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.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  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 always 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.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  Because there's that cool thing where you play something and you're like, "Wow, that really worked. They liked that." I have more like that.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  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 gonna go this direction, but I think we need 15 more minutes or 10 more minutes with this."

• 31:25Speaker 02

  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

• 32:08Speaker 02

  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.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  That makes sense. I'm sure that's, yeah. Why wouldn't that happen?

• 32:19Speaker 02

  So I think now, most of the time, I operate in this kind of hybrid mode. In full club thing, it's like, "Cool, I've got a beginning picked out." And eh, 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 the 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, "Haha, I got this new one. It's awesome. This dude sent me." They're like, "Seriously, man? What is Raden doing? Can he just stay on the reservation, bro?"

• 32:52Speaker 00

  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?

• 33:00Speaker 02

  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 gonna say is compare and contrast that to 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 then, "Well, they 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 no, this is working. You just work that.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  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 gonna 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 fill that into the world. But there's only a handful of those.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  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, 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.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  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 of points in the middle that I highlight because I'm like, "Oh, these are gonna be really interesting." And then I've got a couple of things in the end that I may or may not also chuck out.

• 35:15Speaker 02

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

• 35:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  I feel bad saying that, but it's what I do for money, so I don't know what else to call it.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  It is a career. It's just not a job.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So is, one of the things I do is I listen to a lot of music that's being sent to me. Buddy's 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.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  How does that work legally? Like if you hear a track from somebody and you go, "Wow, that's really cool. I want to use that." I assume you can't just throw it in there. You have to contact that artist or the label.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  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, "Ah, 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 that are from all over the world. They're like, "Yo, dude, I just finished this. What do you think? Dude, this is dope. I'm gonna try it out this weekend." I got one last night from my buddy Will K. 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."

• 36:37Speaker 02

  And sometimes I think it's like kind of mediocre and then I play it and it bangs. And I'm like, "Oh, okay. Need to like figure out how to finesse that and make it work." But yeah, there's no like legality 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.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  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." And I licensed 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 like 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. This is dead in the water."

• 37:43Speaker 02

  You nailed it. That's exactly what happened.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  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 way 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 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 a mic that took me months to save up for and a great front end. Oh, I've got, I have a drawer that I can pull out. You know, I can show you."

• 38:23Speaker 00

  It's got the foam. Yeah.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  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 than becomes less about the process.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Speaking of creative ideas, my friend Tim Ferriss had you on his show. I think this is a while ago. And you mentioned that 4 AM, which is probably the first track I heard from you back in the day, 2005 or six or something.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, that's an old one, yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I remember my friend sent it to me. He's like, you gotta listen to this. Cause I was the only other person he knew who liked EDM, which I don't even think we called it that at the time.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  No, we didn't.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Electronica or something.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Basically, it was music for nerdy guys who played stuff from blogs.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  Cause it wasn't on the radio. Good lord.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  You're my people.

• 39:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  We found each other.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  Exactly. And so he's like, you gotta listen to this. And I was like, oh my God, this is super dope. My computer could just barely hold Winamp without crashing. Just had to have nothing else open. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. But apparently after playing King King in a club in LA, you probably had like a 6 AM flight. You're eating French toast and you're like, you wrote something down that became 4 AM. So how does French toast become a track? How does that inspiration lead to music?

• 39:47Speaker 02

  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's 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.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Well, if you played King King now, they'd have to shut down the street.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd have another problem on my hands.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  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?

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Part of my story is that many people around me, it was assumed that this could never work.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  Isn't that cute? He'll be back in a week.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Sure, dude, you're gonna go DJ, you're gonna make music. Look at that, buddy. It's funny to look back at those and kind of can't help but smirk, but.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, pretty soon he'll be playing Brian's Bar Mitzvah. Don't worry.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  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'm 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.

• 41:45Speaker 00

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

• 41:57Speaker 02

  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.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  I hear her performance, I'm coaching and working her through that. And I'm like, we're getting this. And Finn Bjornson, 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 I came up with the line, there's a way.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  Do you do the vocals first generally? Like, do you write lyrics and then do the vocals and then put the beats behind it? Or?

• 43:13Speaker 02

  It's changed a lot throughout my career. At the beginning of my career, I was much more like house music than 909, like this driving thing and sound design. Cause that's where I came from. I didn't come up as a songwriter and I wasn't like 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 a remix. This is very early on in my career and I didn't even have any published remixes out. But they're like, they had gone to some of the nights that I was throwing and they're like, the music you're playing is different. I'm like, yeah, it's house music. It's so cool.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  And it was a more kind of soul R and B band. And they're like, we think this will fit. And they played me this 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's cool. You're onto 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.

• 44:19Speaker 00

  And he means what lyrics specifically?

• 44:22Speaker 02

  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, this is your 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. 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.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  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.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  You're like, I got it. I got it.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. I need a brain machine interface to just put that into a track.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  I'm sure we're not too far away from having those.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  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.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Dude, 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 this 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 coming up with them and like, oh, you know what? I can lay a kick drum in here and 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.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  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. Cause 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? Cause my, my, my youngest sister is a very talented piano player. You would think, oh, that's the person that's gonna go into music. So, you know, we all kind of chucked.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  You couldn't throw your sister on a track just to do her a solid?

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Oh, she's too busy being a mom right now.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. Yeah, your parents spent $15,000 on piano lessons.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  The least amount was spent on you.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Yes. Return on investment on me went, went all right.

• 47:46Speaker 00

  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.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  So you can relate.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. Cascade quit piano lessons before he lasted a year while his siblings stuck with it. Eight 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.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  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 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.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  Upgrade your sleep with Boll & Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at bollandbranch.com/jordan with code JORDAN. That's B-O-L-L-A-N-D, B-O-L-L-A-N-D, branch.com/jordan. Code JORDAN to unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply.

• 49:13Speaker 00

  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 bucks 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.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  Because everyday expenses don't always follow a payroll schedule.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  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 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.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  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/deals. If you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code, email me, [email protected]. We're happy to surface them for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Cascade.

• 50:51Speaker 00

  Do you have a notebook full of ideas? Do you write things in your...? Well, maybe now you write it in your phone.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  I... no.

• 50:57Speaker 00

  No?

• 50:57Speaker 02

  I don't like to do stuff digitally. Oh, man, if we were at my house.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  That's ironic.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't for notes because I feel like my mind is so scrambled all the time. I always have two, three, four, or five notebooks in my bag at all times. And I'm all constantly from pick up the laundry or like, you gotta 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 of the day, I'm like, okay, wait, what am I doing? I'm like totally distracted and I'm making a peanut butter sandwich. I'm not supposed to be eating, am I? And then 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 just reference out, oh, this is a cool idea. Maybe there's something here. Sometimes it turns into something, sometimes it doesn't.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  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, Kylfee, hey, I've written a song. Can you sing it? I've got probably like 50 bucks, 100 bucks.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  40 bucks, yeah.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  And fortunately, I had enough cool friends out there that did it, that 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

• 53:05Speaker 02

  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.

• 53:35Speaker 00

  I noticed a lot of the tracks I've collabed on it.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  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.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  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 pitched me a song, I should probably... Typically, more often than not, I'd say 95% of the time, it's just them at a piano singing. So they 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

• 54:38Speaker 02

  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 Undo, 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 listen to it, it's sad. And that's where I was in my life. And I think to get past that point, I had to make that record.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  I kept trying to avoid it because I'd write these songs and 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 Undo had to happen so Origin could happen.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  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.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  So the people in Chicago are like, what? Origin, my ass. And I'm like, nah, listen, it's the origin of what was the start of that bigger stage that I entered.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  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 changing directions? Like, do you have to think about that? Or are you at a point in your career where 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 it's, you're still happy Cascade in Vegas? Is that a concern at all?

• 57:30Speaker 02

  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 Undo's 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.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:13Speaker 02

  But 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 and 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.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  Let's get you a few quality interviews. You can tell the story. If something clicks and connects, cool, we'll fan those flames.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  You know, like, all right, my fans who will stick with me through this will buy it. Cause I think about that with episodes of the 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.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're like, this doesn't represent me.

• 59:20Speaker 00

  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. Cause you need sand from the ocean.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Great, more end of the world.

• 59:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, just don't worry. You thought AI was gonna kill us, patrol it? No, it's gonna 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 gonna go, what a nerdy ass podcast. I am not listening to any more of you.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Unsubscribe. And listen, to be totally honest, I'm sure I lost a lot of fans with Undo. 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 gonna 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.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  I'm here three decades later because, cool dude, I'm just having an honest conversation. Some people are gonna like it, some aren't. I can't worry. I'm not gonna get gray hair sitting here thinking about, oh, is Jeff in Michigan is still 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.

• 1:00:52Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

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

• 1:01:22Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  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% where I go, I should never read another mail again. But then you realize that was that person's goal in writing that in the first place.

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  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 it could just have these riff and have a dialogue.

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, without like Nazis worming their way in there.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  Dude, I mean, I get on there and threads, like it's all, I'm like, is the world ending? Like, you know?

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  Lots of angry people.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  It just freaks me out. So I try and like as little of that as possible.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  It is scary. I love Reddit though. We have a subreddit for the show.

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, there you go.

• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  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 bat shit 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 one to 10 crazy or having crazy life or having a crazy experience or having a crazy job, whatever it is.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  That's why it's cool. 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's, can be very frustrating, but I was just agreeing with you because it's like, at some point I gotta be like, hey, man, I personally can't stop all these scalpers.

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  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 gonna sell out, man, you gotta buy. I'm like, okay, so kind of trying to strike balance of like, nah, I'm serious, it is actually gonna sell out.

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  Cause how do you solve that, right? You 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 first guy. It's like, no, thanks.

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  The ticketing guys, it's a tough business. I'm glad that's not what I do.

• 1:04:14Speaker 00

  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? Cause 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?

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

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

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  It's crazy. It's on an island and you go there and you're, 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. It's just nuts.

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  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 did 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, 7,000 people, whatever it is. So it seems big because somewhere after like three or 4,000 people, it's 100,000 or

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  10,000, 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. Cause 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.

• 1:05:52Speaker 00

  Can only see the first three rows.

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like even that, sometimes I'm like, it's just a little people out there like, yes, their hands are in the air. That's awesome.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  I'm wondering, can you even see those people?

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  At certain times in the show, I can see the audience and others I can't. Cause 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, I'll 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, cause 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. Okay.

• 1:06:38Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  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 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.

• 1:07:30Speaker 00

  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?

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  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 pre-vis.

• 1:08:22Speaker 02

  A pre-vis is they got this program where they can say, hey, this is what it's gonna look like, but it always looks so much better in person and it can rehearse. And what we do in those situations, just go over dozens and dozens of looks. Oh, this song's gonna look like this. This song's gonna look like this. Here's the visuals for that. And we just go and work it and work it and work it.

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  How long does that take?

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  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 were 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.

• 1:09:00Speaker 02

  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 on their desk. Nobody's peeing in a cup. We do have food breaks and stuff like that, but they 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, 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. When they're working for four days before I get there, okay, I get there and hopefully

• 1:09:45Speaker 02

  a lot of it's ironed out and we're just going over the cues.

• 1:09:48Speaker 00

  So they figured out the lighting placement.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Colors, placement, there's been a full directorial process that's happened before I get in there.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  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 dead mouse 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.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic MyLowe's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  Whoever said, "Good things come to those who wait", never shopped Black Friday early at Lowe's. Right now, get up to 50% off select major appliances. Plus, get free delivery, free haulaway and free basic installation and parts when you spend $896 or more on select major appliances. Shop Black Friday early in-store and online now at Lowe's. Valid through 12/2 while supplies last. Selection varies by location. See associate at Lowe's.com for details.

• 1:11:16Speaker 00

  We got a subreddit for the show if you want to discuss episodes with listeners, the team of the show fans, that's over on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. All right, now for the rest of my conversation with Cascade.

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  Are we talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, venue rentals, people's time?

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:11:31Speaker 00

  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." And it's like, "No, 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.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  I'm comfortable saying, "Yes, I make millions of dollars, but there's millions of dollars spent to execute these moments."

• 1:11:59Speaker 00

  I meant to ask before, "Do you have hearing aids?"

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:12:02Speaker 00

  Is that music related? Is that from?

• 1:12:04Speaker 02

  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 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 saying.

• 1:12:35Speaker 00

  Why do you keep trying to kiss Jordan during the show?

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  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 perfectly and then I bring in people that I trust, mix engineers and like, "Hey, we'll make fine tune adjustments." Like, "Man, it's a little bright, dude. You're, some of your tappings..." And I'm like, "Yeah, it's worn down a little bit."

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  But dude, I am blown away at how many people in my industry that are wearing these.

• 1:13:29Speaker 00

  Hey, guys, if you work at a club, wear some fucking earplugs. Pardon me.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  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, y'all are like putting these things on so we can hear the service."

• 1:13:48Speaker 00

  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 Cascade's wearing hearing aids because he 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.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  And I think it's specifically my generation because when we came up, hearing perception was not even a conversation. I don't think one, we had the tech there. Like, that wasn't even a thing. "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 and 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."

• 1:14:44Speaker 02

  I tried for months and I was like, "I can't learn this, my brain won't allow me." So I'd start shows and I'd be like, "Yeah, later, 10 minutes in, 15 minutes in, 30 minutes in." I'm like, "F this, 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.

• 1:15:13Speaker 00

  Probably healthier than COVID.

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, then, exactly. I'm glad it's this and not meth.

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  You're LDS Latter Day Saints. If I say "you're Mormon," is that not the term you use actually?

• 1:15:26Speaker 02

  I think everybody were 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.

• 1:15:35Speaker 00

  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 you're, they're like, "Hey, I've got the best MDMA you've ever tried." And you're like, "I've never tried it and I'm not doing it tonight." That must still happen.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  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 this 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.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  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...

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  Oh, you had guyliner.

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Putting on like a woman's dress and shopping at this store called Lecheteau, 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, "Whoa, hey, man, whoa, are you one of those?" People want to put all these things on that.

• 1:17:31Speaker 00

  We've all seen a lot of cult documentaries on Netflix, that's why. So we're like, "Wait a minute."

• 1:17:35Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:17:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Speaker 02

  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 was 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's cool. Yeah, don't worry about it, dude. All is well." Dude, I teach early morning seminary and this is my eighth year. I've been doing this two, three days a week. I team teach because I travel quite a bit.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  But yeah, before school this morning, actually, before school starts, I've got... Before the fire, I had 14 students and now five. But 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 Wednesday. It's like, "Nah, man, I'm the same guy here." And I recently played here in Santa Monica and appeared locally and I invited, I'm like, "Hey, oh, you guys want to come? You should, you guys should come out." Because I think...

• 1:19:23Speaker 02

  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. And I want other people who 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 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

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:20:26Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:20:56Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:21:19Speaker 00

  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 to don't quit your day job.

• 1:21:46Speaker 02

  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 at 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

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  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 in Billboard Dancer. 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

• 1:23:10Speaker 02

  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 gonna have a freaking number one in Billboard. You've been 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 got to check in and have those honest conversations

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  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'd 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 de Chicago inspired West Coast San Francisco sound. And I was like, one of the guys, Miguel Miggs, 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.

• 1:24:38Speaker 00

  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 da, da, da. 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.

• 1:24:53Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:25:17Speaker 00

  Do you all fly to each other? Or is it sending a track on Google Drive?

• 1:25:20Speaker 02

  I've flown out to Joel's house. I think we, 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. We, 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. Let me change X, Y, and Z. We're just sending stuff back and forth typically.

• 1:25:39Speaker 00

  People have these grand ideas in their head, right? Because you look at those photos from the 80s where, 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.

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  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, come in here and throw on high fives. Like, yo, let's sit down at the desk and pull the tracks up.

• 1:26:11Speaker 00

  Turn the lights on, put some wires around, so it looks like we're plugging things in.

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  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

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  production wise, it's like, hey, let me send you a kick drum. It's 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. Cool. 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.

• 1:27:18Speaker 00

  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 going to be fine?

• 1:27:38Speaker 02

  All of it. I am savoring all of this. I think with post-COVID, I got a new flow. But really, this last like, 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'm gonna 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 while I'm sitting here, I would argue, I didn't savor the moment. It was always what's next. I'm literally

• 1:28:23Speaker 02

  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. It'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 stroke go off during the 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, posted one another, patted each

• 1:29:04Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  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 a Coachella show for most of this year. I introduced a bunch of new music and that there were nine new songs I played in the set, which is very unusual to be on a stage and for that 30,000 people streaming to hundreds of thousands of people and to just play a bunch of new music. That's what I wanted to do. Cool. We're gonna do it that way. Cool. Let's savor the moment. And 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

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  lamenting that version four that he played here in Las Vegas, this recording was so much better than what's on the record. And that's kind of been fun to kind of see that conversation. 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, dude. 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

• 1:30:47Speaker 02

  what I do. I'll always do it on some level. But that's just quieted down.

• 1:30:52Speaker 00

  Feels good, doesn't it?

• 1:30:54Speaker 02

  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'd 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.

• 1:31:37Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:31:55Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:32:10Speaker 00

  And 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 has been, but we kept playing and the celebrities kept dancing and cheering.

• 1:32:32Speaker 04

  The weird thing is, things started to go wrong when I stopped feeling that way. 1999, I thought that my career had ended.

• 1:32:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:41Speaker 04

  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. And 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.

• 1:33:14Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:33:24Speaker 00

  The thing that stuck with me was Cascade was describing how he could walk offstage 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 loved this interview. I had a blast doing it. Thanks to Cascade and his whole team. All things Cascade and links to the new album will be on the website at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts also on the website at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Please

• 1:34:08Speaker 00

  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 was created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tadisidlouskas, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Ryan Hartford filmed and set the audio up for this one down in LA. 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 Cascade 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.

• 1:34:55Speaker 00

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.