Make Room for Happiness

Kaskade. Just even saying that word makes me happy. Ryan Raddon has always stuck to his roots of deep, melodic tunes that tap into any situation a person is experiencing. But would you ever guess that Pasquale Rotella, the CEO of Insomniac, had this guy who DJ'd his wedding, performed a 2 year mormon mission trip in Japan while in college for the Church of Later Day Saints. Yeah, that happened and then Ryan began working in record shops from Utah to Chicago to San Francisco and the rest is history.

Kaskade has been in the musical scene for over 15+ years making him the veteran of headlining festivals, selling out stadiums, and even spontaneously driving me to the 3 day festival, Coachella for one day, stand in a close, sweaty crowd up front for an hour just to see him in action and point at things as the sun was setting upon the desert.

I was not into Kaskade as much a while back because like many others claim his music is "too slow" or "boring". The first and only song I did love of his though was "Angel on my Shoulder" in 2011 because the groovy melody and the vocals attracted me to it. But fast forward to me becoming more open minded and "Something Something Champs" release in 2014 and my life was forever changed by Kaskade's melodic tunes that literally gives me goosebumps and the "feels". "Something Something Champs" builds you up, kinda like forcing you to raise your arms in unison to the rise of the song and then once the uplifting beat comes makes you jump and appreciate life. That pretty much sums up my feelings towards his music.

All his music is self-written, self-produced, and sometimes even includes Ryan performing his own vocals like his "Atmosphere" track off his self-titled 8th album. His mainstage sets start off slowly, like any Kaskade tune does, but then he eventually mixes all those mainstage bangers with his own tracks. His lyrics are so simple, yet relatable and you combine that with his production skills of a calming, melody that makes it easy to groove to. His Redux album is the most favorited as it is more of deep house tunes, no crazy drops, just his old school self yet why people love him and why he would attract a large crowd at EDCLV, playing away from the stages and groove on an art car.

Another reason I am a fan of Kaskade is he has so much LLOVE for his fans. Especially the "West Coast Massive", he always sticks to his roots, and occasionally sneaks one of his old tunes into his sets that people, including me still have so much love for. I recently attended his Automatic Tour and he dropped a vocal version of "Eyes" and played with the storbelight to his crowd a bit as we all sang along. He gives the people what they want. He is the perfect driving music for me. If I'm on a late night drive chances of me playing "4 am" in my car are very likely.

This family man with 3 kids and a wife has claimed his spot as not only an EDM pioneer with his own label, Arkade, but a musical genius.