Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

What the DJ Kaskade can’t travel without

Kaskade

Rich Fury / Invision / AP

In this Oct. 6, 2016 photo, Kaskade poses for a portrait at Edge Studios in Los Angeles.

Ryan Raddon, the Grammy-nominated dance music DJ better known as Kaskade, spends at least two-thirds of every year on the road, playing to tens of thousands of people at gigs and festivals around the world. And he does it all with just a carry-on. He recently collaborated with Incase to design a line of travel bags and accessories, but nothing so big it has to be checked.

“I’ve done something like 5,000 shows and 6 million miles, and I’ve checked a bag maybe two or three times,” Raddon said. “I’m always concerned about weight since I’m responsible for carrying it around, so everything has to be the smallest it can possibly be.

He usually makes four trips to Asia a year. Tokyo is one his favorite cities. “Every time I go there I feel like I’m transported 10 years into the future; I went in a time machine and I’m living ahead of everybody,” he said. “I’ve probably visited Tokyo 25 times, and I’m always trying new places to stay.”

He also loves returning to Sydney, Australia. “Sydney is cool because I always feel like I walked through the wrong sliding door and into an alternate reality,” he said. “It feels similar to LA, but the accents, the food, everything is just a little off-kilter. It’s beautiful."

Here is what he packs on every trip:

Flip-flops

“For me to really and truly to feel like I’m at home, it’s the small things. When I get to the hotel I like to have my own pair of flip-flops. That’s probably one of the most essential items that I travel with. I wear Locals. I bought them years ago at the ABC store in Hawaii for about $2, and I became a huge fan; they’re insanely light and the most comfortable flip-flop ever. Basically, I plan shows in Hawaii every 18 months and load up on these flip-flops every time I’m out there.”

SD cards

“For me, it was a big deal when things moved from analog to digital. For the first half of my career I was carrying records around, big pieces of vinyl that were extremely heavy. Now I carry all my music on SD cards. I use the SanDisk Pro 128GB cards, and I carry probably 12 at a time — the backup of the backup of the backup.”

Headphones

“I have noise-canceling headphones for watching movies, and then I have my Sony 7506 headphones that are my professional headphones.”

Laptop

“I bring my MacBook Pro; I compose music while I’m on the road. I’m a ProTools guy and have been for a very long time. More recently I got into Ableton Live, which I look at more as a sketchpad to work out ideas. It’s a light piece of software that works really well. Rekordbox is where I do my preparation. It’s kind of like the iTunes for professional gigging DJs.”

Gillette shaving cream

“It comes in the smallest container I could find. No one has figured out how to make shaving cream super small. I’ve got like 20 of these sitting in my bathroom. There’s only one or two shaves in a can.”

Stance compression socks

“Someone told me it helps with jet lag because it keeps the blood flowing through your system. I tried them and I liked it and now any time I’m on a flight of more than two hours I wear them. I don’t know that they really help with jet lag, because I’m always tired; I can go to sleep at any time. But I feel like I recover quicker when I’m wearing the socks.”