Posted Date November 2006

West Coast house ‘It’ boy had to adjust to playing bigger rooms.

There’s a defining, popping house sensibility found on Kaskade’s most recent productions - in particular, the output that came right before his latest album, Love Mysterious dropped in September. In 2005, his distinctive house style was cemented in the minds of club and lounge goers alike, as the thumping, glorious and Billboard #1 spot taking remixes of Pussycat Dolls “Don’t Cha” and David Morales’ “Here I Am” rolled onto soundsystems everywhere. At around the same time, he gave us his Big Room remix of “Everything” (also Billboard #1). Taken off of his second album In The Moment, “Everything” hinted at what was to come. But it wasn’t always that way.

The San Francisco transplant recalls early years growing up in Chicago as foundation for his DJ aspirations. During the mid-late ‘80s, Kaskade, real name Ryan Raddon, went out to popular teen clubs like Club Medusa’s to hear Frankie Knuckles. “We called em juice bars back then,” he says. “Back then, it was just dance music. People were escaping the pressure.” Blasting Chicago radio waves at the time was WBMX with Julia Jumpin Perez and Bad Boy Bill as well as the legendary Hot Mix 5.

Little known or overblown fact is that Kaskade, his wife and (we deduce) his kids are Mormon, a religion well understood to be unforgiving about things such as sexual preference and nightlife. Truth be told: when we conducted this interview, it was a Friday night at Pacha, NYC, the party was on and I really had no interest in talking about religion or politics. But Mormonism led Raddon to Salt Lake City.

Utah is where Ryan Raddon met his future wife and graduated with a communications degree from the University of Utah. He also took it upon himself to create a weekly house party there, which went off the hook and drew 500-800 person crowds over the course of its five year run. And to cap that chapter in his life, Raddon owned and operated a record shop during the Salt Lake stint, called Mechanized Records.

Then it was onto the West Coast, where Kaskade began to build up his name on deep house stronghold Om Records, by mixing three compilations and releasing his first two artist albums. His deep, soulful and warm selections came polished with electronic beats and breaks, sprinkled with the sounds of live musicians who came in to play parts he already had samples and keys for. His serenades are about love life and happiness, factors Raddon himself admits are inspired by loving “his wife, children and what he does.”

Ryan Raddon was coined a deep house producer from the second he dropped It’s You It’s Me in March, 2003. But right after In The Moment, touring intensified and he started playing progressively bigger events. “I was used to playing 250 person rooms and playing very deep and slow, very soulful house,” he remembers. Kaskade’s core audience began to grow, as he began to travel far and wide to Japan, Australia, South Africa and North America. Most recently, he played Coachella this year, as one of the opening acts before Madonna.

Raddon came-up in the West Coast deep house community. But by the time his second album dropped, it was time for the grown fish to go swimming in a bigger body of water, which meant changing things up a bit. “I still wanted to play [deep, soulful music],” he explains. “That’s who I am, but I was like, how can I communicate and share that to this new audience?” Raddon chose to “tweak” it, using a lot more soft synths and synthetics.

“Melodically and lyrically, things have been very consistent over my career,” Kaskade remarks. “Musically this record is bigger in scope, a bit more epic sounding, but still in a very deep sense.” And as for his DJ sets, he says the programming has to be different, with a more “grand sounding” vibe.

His DJ sets are not only peppered, but drenched with plenty original productions and remixes he’s accumulated through years spent in the studio. And since he’s become a bit of a house sensation, Kaskade, 35, finds more and more people coming out to catch his act. To appeal to new fans and to keep them up to speed, Kaskade plays his biggest tunes that are most well-recognized. “I always try and hit those songs in my sets, to give the listener, the fan, what they came to hear.”

The verdict is in. This Onbeat editor, gone out to investigate the house “It” boy of the moment, was overjoyed to hear Kaskade’s classics captured, then relayed on Pacha’s pumping soundsystem. As a DJ, Raddon is more than proficient, seamlessly mixing jazzy house blends with his inspiring and beautiful, female vocal-laden tracks. Rarely do you find a deep house DJ that doesn’t dull it down in the big room at some point, but somehow the “It” boy kept it down and the sea of drunken bodies moving. Watch for this guy in a city near you.

Love Mysterious is out now on Ultra Records.
For more information, visit:
www.kaskademusic.com
www.myspace.com/kaskademusic

By Dennis Sebayan