Kaskade Tickets

Short Biography

"Kaskade's signature sound is as unmistakable as it is beautiful; a combination of dewy female vocals, tough electronic underpinnings, and memorable melodies." -- Billboard

The New York Times may have called him the "new face of electronic dance music" in a recent profile, but Ryan Raddon, known as Kaskade, has been in the trenches of the EDM scene as an original recording artist and in-demand DJ for more than a decade.  He has released seven studio albums, including his latest, Fire & Ice, scored nine Top 10 hits on Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay Chart, created chart-topping remixes for everyone from Lady Gaga to Beyoncé, appeared at all the major summer festivals, and has performed between 150 and 200 headlining shows a year for the last 10 years, building a name for himself as an innovator of the EDM scene as we know it today, which has opened doors for the likes of Deadmau5, Tiesto, Skrillex and more.  In doing so, he has helped to lay the groundwork for a titanic musical and cultural shift: a post-rock EDM revolution that has captured the imagination of a new generation of music lovers across North America.

Kaskade has been named America's No. 1 DJ by DJ Times and Pioneer DJ.  In 2012, he will appear at this year's Coachella and Electric Daisy Carnival festivals, for which he has special performances planned, and will hit the road in June for his biggest headlining tour ever — 70-plus North American shows in just over three months.  His own live show is a jaw-dropping spectacle that finds him performing in front of an 80-foot wide, three-stories tall LED screen that blares images synched with the music while strobe lights scan the crowd.  Kaskade's belief in the transformative power of dance music to uplift thousands of people at once has had a significant effect on the U.S. scene. His ground-breaking double residency in Las Vegas at the Encore Beach Club (which had not even been built when he signed on) and Marquee has elevated the city's status as a premiere club-going destination on par with London, Berlin, and Ibiza, is another testament to his influence.

Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, Raddon was heavily influenced by New Wave bands like The Cure, Echo and The Bunnymen, and The Smiths that ignited his love for melody and lyrics and was strongly impacted by the house music scene that developed in Chicago.   Following stints spinning throughout college and in A&R at OM Records, he began working on his own music, which includes multiple singles, EPs, and remixes, as well as the albums:  his most recent 2011 release Fire & Ice  -- which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Chart, No. 3 on the Independent Albums chart, and No. 17 on the Top 200 Albums chart, while the iTunes version debuted at No. 4 on the overall album chart.  The Fire disc contains ten original songs geared firmly toward the dancefloor, while on the Ice disc, Kaskade delivers the perfect down-tempo post-club experience by remixing all ten songs.  Both discs showcase the musical versatility tat has characterized his work ever since he began writing his own songs.  This album was preceded by It's You, It's Me (2003), In the Moment (2004), The Calm (2006), Here & Now (2006), Love Mysterious (2006), Strobelite Seduction (2008), Dynasty (2010) and Dance.Love (2010).

In-depth Biography
Though he was born in Chicago, the DJ, A&R director, record store owner, and producer known as Kaskade found his spiritual and musical home in San Francisco by way of Salt Lake City and New York. One of the hardest-working people in the San Francisco house scene, he's Kaskade the house music producer/DJ by night; by day he's Ryan Raddon, A&R director for OM Records. As an A&R man, he helped kick-start the careers of many artists, including Ming + FS and soul-house act Soulstice.

In the early days, Kaskade familiarized himself with the rapidly changing electronic music scene wherever he went, eventually finding that house music was the subgenre he loved best. He started out as a DJ in New York and Salt Lake City clubs. During the tail end of his stay in Salt Lake City, his first attempts to produce tracks were released on his own tiny label, Mechanized Records. He also sold a few tracks to Chris Smith, A&R director for an up-and-coming house label in San Francisco. Though no one could have predicted it, this ended up being the precursor to Raddon's most important career move. When family matters initiated a move to San Francisco, Smith hired Raddon to assist him at the label -- which was, of course, OM.

His own full-length recordings as Kaskade began with 2003's house-inflected It's You, It's Me. A soulful, more organic direction provided focus for the following year's In the Moment, and Raddon kept his name in the record racks by piloting editions in the San Francisco Sessions DJ series (as well as the label mix House of OM). He proved surprisingly dedicated to his production craft, releasing Love Mysterious in 2006, which placed on Billboard's electronic albums chart. Strobelight Seduction became his biggest commercial success, following in 2008, and 2010's Dynasty celebrated his new reputation with a parade of vocal features and a co-production with Tiësto. ~ L. Katz & John Bush, Rovi