DJ Keoki, ONE OF AMERICAN DANCE MUSIC'S TOP-SELLING ARTISTS, HAS ALSO BEEN A POSTER BOY FOR THE CULTURE'S EXCESSES. WITH HIS EIGTH RELEASE JEALOUSY AND OVER TWO MILLION FREQUENT-FLYER MILES UNDER HIS BELT, HE'S READY TO SHAKE OFF THE OLD DEMONS AND PROVE HE'S MORE THAN JUST THE ORIGINAL SUPERSTAR DJ.

Ten years before Ecstacy made it's way to the cover of Time, DJ Keoki was preaching a new, dark brand of techno trance to legions of highly chromatic club kids in New York's legendary Limelight. He was the prototypical DJ bad boy, cutting his teeth at Disco 2000, the night club where unsupervised drug use was the norm and patrons routinely stripped naked for a 3 a.m. bacchanalian ritual. This was the world before Giuliani broke the back of Peter Gatien's club empire and when GHB, ketamine and rohypnol were off the Drug Enforcement Administration's radar. DJ Keoki may not have been the ringleader of the nocturnal freak fest, but as the club's resident DJ and soon-to-be-infamous "king of the club kids" Michael Alig's roomate, he was definetley the star.

But the El Salvadorian-born and Hawaiian-raised DJ Keoki says he doesn't want to live off the macabre celebrity that Alig's gruesome murder of a New York drug dealer affords him. Nor has he become a tell-all tabloid caricature, like much of his club-kid fraternity who appeared on late-'90's Geraldo, Jenny Jones and Ricki Lake shows as frequently as mullet haircuts. He's recently turned down appearances on E! Entertainment Television and The Howard Stern Show, much to his label's dismay. Instead, DJ Keoki Franconi would love you to focus on his near sobriety, PLUR and his latest CD, where he sings, among other things, a techno cover version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax." Having sold over 580,000 records and mix CD's - no small feat in America's still-burgeoning scene - he sees his recent years and new album Jealousy as a move toward the center of American dance music's dramatic rise. A movement that he helped start.

For a person who once reveled in shock value and comical excess, DJ Keoki has blossomed into, dare we say, an elder statesman of the rave scene. He spent the past few years putting his life in order and was recently married in Maui, on his parent's front lawn.
"Mom, this is my new husband."
"Partner,"his mother corrects lovingly, supportive but still catching up to her son's world.

Q: Have you always wanted to be a singer?
DJ Keoki: I always wanted to sing. I mean, are you kidding? On Ego Trip, every song I was singing, and it's like,[Moonshine's in-house producer] Dave [Aude] and I would listen to the stuff, and it's like, I can't sing. I think the only song on Ego Trip that I hit the note was "Space," and Dave, I remember him going, "You hit the note! You're singing! Okay, maybe you can sing." I [recently] took some vocal lessons. Dave sent me to a couple cool people and just a few half-hour lessons and writing things down. Working with Dave in a positive atmisphere, I was able to do it.

Q: How important do you think the live element is to dance music?
I think it's important that someone come up with a really good live show. I am on [Moonshine label boss] Mr. [Steve] Levy's ass every day trying to get him to put together a Kid Rock-type show for me where I can go up there and have explosions. KISS did it twice - I think people want to see this live. He was considering sending me out and touring [the song]"Jealousy" live and do DAT tape things... but you can't; you have to go forward with my music, you have to go another step.

Q: You were pretty much the first superstar DJ.
I'm the original superstar DJ. [laughs] The reason I call myself superstar DJ is because I remember the night I was DJing Area, which was 157 Hudson. I had been bugging the manager Howard Schaffer, who actually went on to be my first tour manager. I was like,"Please let me DJ - please, please, please let me DJ. I know I can do it. I have records at home. It looks so easy and fun." He's like, no way, get back to picking up cups like you're supposed to be doing." And they needed a fuckin' DJ one night... I was like,"I can do it, I can do it." I had a mowhawk or something at the time. I went home and I put on all my gold chains and I was like,"What do we put on the flyer? 'Superstar DJ" - just quick like that, easy. But all of a sudden I started getting flack for it, like,"Who the fuck do you think you are?" At first I felt like, "Why am I not a superstar?" All the insecurities kicked in so I wrote "Ego Trip." That sort of came out of that.

Q: How important is your image and look to your success?
It's important to my life. If I wasn't a famous DJ persona or anything I would still dress and be an individual. I would still fly first class and never wear sneakers and a jogging suit. If I am on a stage, I'd feel like you're the visual, you're the information. So if people see you up there in jeans or bremuda shorts and a T-shirt [like I have seen lots of big DJs], it's like, to me, even if they play the best music, they say,"It's about the music only." Great, the music is fucking great but I'll hear great music again next week.But if you would have blew me up with your visuals, with your stage performance, with everything, I'd remember the entire event and the evening, and everything about it.

Q: DJs almost seem like they feel they need to dress down to maintain their coolness.
It's so bizare to me. You have a megaphone. Use it. Turn it up - to 11. You got their attention. Give them something and make sure it's unique and from your heart and individual up there and people are gonna stay interested. And you're gonna get the karmic energy across that - you're bringing something fresh and it's worth it to even pay attention. If the music is going along with it and you're entertaining people, you got magic. It's perfect. I love it.... I am an individual and I always have been - Mr. Levy loves it. Although he freaked me out this last tour. He said to me,"We are doing a photo shoot for DJmixed.com, why don't you just play it down? Wear a T -shirt." I was like, "What are you talking about? I never do that," and he said, "Just do it." I said, "Mr.Levy, you just want me to be plain." "We are just trying to tone it down. Just to get you back into people's lives. You've hurt a lot of people and you've shocked a lot of people and a lot of people don't want to see your freaky face right now." He convinced me to just do a simple shot. My mom loves that cover. [laughs] Plain hair, plain everything.

Q: What difference do you see in the club kids and candy ravers of today and those at Disco 2000?
Oh, god. I think the candy ravers that I see now, they're not changing. The club kids were always changing... Because it was New York and it was happening there, they were always coming up with something new and different, and future forward thinking. Reinventing. Wheather it was seeing Ida Slapder preform on stage...
Q: Ida Slapder?
Her name was Ida Slapder. She performed on stage. She shoved an entire roll of Christmas lights up her ass and she plugged it in, taped one end to the ground, then she would do this little tiptoe across the stage to the tune of "Popcorn." They came out of her ass... pop, pop, pop.
Q: This at the Limelight?
At Limelight Disco 2000 during the Hot Body contest. [The song} "This Ain't No Disco" is kind of about how that's over and this is now. You can hear me in the background chanting "Take it off! Take it off! Give it to 'em,[promoter] Larry Tee." Because everyone was screaming at 3 o'clock in the morning; that's how we would keep people there. I'd play tripped-out fuckin' trippy music after 3 o'clock. People would stay for the sex show and we'd play bizarre fucking music.

Q: Let's talk about sexuality.
I just did an interview with LA Weekly and the guy is like, "Most of your fans don't know you're gay," and I'm like, "I'm gay?" I never really thought it was important. I've always known that if I fall in love with someone, I fall in love with someone. I've certanly dated more men than women; I've known that. I didn't really come out to my family until I was 21 - "coming out" meaning verbally saying, "Mom, I am in love with this person."
Q: But they had an idea, right?
My mom did. I remember one Haloween she was like, "What do you want to be for Halloween?" and I said, "A girl." She says, "You do? Okay." So I dress up as a girl and I went to the party down the street. And I looked so good as a girl that this boy who was there, who didn't have a costume, comes up and he's like, "We're the only ones here with no costume. Do you want to dance or hang out?" I was so scared I didn't know what to do. I ran home crying. I was terrified.
Q: How old were you?
I was 10 years old. I wanted to dance with him but I didn't know, I couldn't dance with him. I did not have the Ida Slapder in me then. I didn't have the power to believe and be in the House of Unique, to go with it then.

Q: Do you think dance music has broken in the States?
I think it's here. I think it's about to bust. I know - I have toured the entire country. I've been to every little city from Chattanooga to fuckin' Little Rock.
Q: Have you really played in Chattanooga?
Chattanooga, Tenesee. I hear radio stations playing more music and I certanly love the idea of having a song on the radio because I want more ears. That's my goal. My goal is to have as many people listening to my music and loving it. Wheather that's commercial or not, or underground or not, I don't know. I'd love the whole world to be turned upside down and it would be perfect then. What is underground meand to me is a breeding ground where ideas are coming from people doing what they enjoy doing and they're not oppressed. Where there are artists living happily off their art and showing it. That to me, is the true underground. Having that on top [of] over ground or above ground would be the perfect world. So I strive to reach for that. I know I ride the waves if it [and] there is a chance that people will say, "Oh, he's selling out" if I don't do exactly what's in my heart. As long as I do that then I know I'm not selling out... more people are getting it and I'm really feeling that I have an effect. I have a chance of breaking some of my music out and getting it on the radio. That, to me, is when dance music breaks out - if I can get one of my songs to be a dance song and be played on the radio with people loving it, I'll be sure that [it] is exploding.

Q: What about Fatboy Slim, Prodigy and the Chemecal Brothers?
They're not American. I'm thinking America. I have concentrated on DJing in America the last two or three years... I've been to Tokyo, Mexico, but I concentrate on American soil'cause it is exploding here. I am from America, why not be here and be in their face and tour? I know touring helps, I fuckin' tour so much, being in theirface and at these partys, being part of that. I wouldn't stop DJing for anything because I know what's happening at the pulse of it, by doing it in America...
In America I really feel like I am enlightning people and I'm giving those kids who only have imagination, giving them some experience. I've got records and I've got years of DJing knowledge and I know what I can do with that mixer to make it sound a certian way. I know I'm gonna make you hear something tonight that you haven't heard before, and that makes me feel good. That's what I had lost originally when I started doing loads of drugs and abusing myself - I had lost that thought and desire. That, I know, comes from God, that desire to kick culture around like a soccer ball, to push people forward. Eventually it will get to the point where everyone knows exactly what they already know in their heart and it will be like that.

Q: Do you feel that the fall of Michael ALig was an end of an era in the NY club scene?
The end of an era? The end of an era, yes, and the beginning of a new era for me and my thing. I left New York immediately after that. I was blown away. He was my best friend. At first I blamed drugs and then I didn't. I realized that it wasn't drugs, it was just his lack of information and lack of reaching out to key people, especially his friends like myself. I didn't know enough about him. I thought I was in love and I was just infatuated with what I knew of him. I didn't know everything about him. Everything came out afterwards. The anger that he had inside of him and all that. I feel that it was an end of an era, yes. He definitley had a cult thing going on there that was really interesting. He was defenetley an individual.

Q: What do you think has been the most noticeable changes in the scene in the last decade?
The amount of money I get. That is fucking most notable for me. It is notable, it is like, "Whoa." The ammount of money that is being made, the amount of kids generated overall. Forty-thousand [person] events here in LA. I don't even DJ them, I can't. To me it is too impersonal. I can't go up there and play for a half-hour or hour and really feel like I've done anything. Each DJ plays his favorite fucking six records and the next DJ plays his. Paul Oakenfold for an hour! If I hear him for three hours it might be good. I'd like to hear you play all night. That would be an interesting night. Like in New York.

Q: What is the wildest story that emerged from Disco 2000 relating to you?
God, there are so many silly ones. That I used to get head every Wednesday while I DJed in the DJ booth. That's a good one. That we would put acid in everyone's drinks... That Michael [Alig] would piss in people's drinks. That came from the Pee DRinker. We had this guy who would drink his own piss. [He would] piss in a cup and drink it on stage. He would run toward the crowd and the whole crowd would be like, "Get the fuck away from me!" The "I passed out on the turntable" story that I have heard forever that never happened. I guarantee you that never fuckin' happened.

Q: If you were spinning a horrible set, what record would be guaranteed to win back the crowd?
[The theme song to] "Speed Racer" ...I actually have kids holding up signs, "Play 'Speed Racer'!"

Q: Do you think PLUR stands up?
That's a funny question. My brother just turned 18 - my little brother - and my mom had been calling, saying, "We are having a problem with Matthew. He is staying out all night, we think he is using drugs and we don't know what it is and we sat and talked to him and all he says is,'PLUR.' What the hell does PLUR mean?" My mom called to ask what it means. She is all, "He writes it on everything, he tries to explain it to me but we don't know what it is." I'm like, "Mom, it means 'peace, love, unity, and respect.' It's a phrase that younger kids have attached themselves to and they all unite behind it 'cause they really believe in those words..." Again, the experience of what peace, love, unity, respect is not really installed in them so they don't have it. They know what the word kind of means but they don't know how to put it in action. So I don't think it stands up completley. If it did, we would have a lot better time at these raves. More peace, love, unity, and respect, you know? You have to earn respect and when you love something and you want to unite with it you have to really unite with it. You have the good and the bad: All for one and one for all. Those are big words and it's good to hear the kids are even thinking about stuff like that, but it is sad that we can't know that they're going to unite and respect each other. I don't see it happening too much.
What do you think needs to change regarding American drug policy?
I think what needs to change is the press and the attitude of city officials who have thousands and thousands of kids who are [going to parties]. [These parties are] a playground where you can go and give information. You can have your own paramedics and information pamphlets about drugs. Do things. You have these kids there and, for the most part, they're young kids at these raves who are under 24 who are still developing in their ideas... the problem is when you tell them "No" and you repress it. I know for myself, nobody wasn't going to learn from anywhere, from nothing. Until I learned from my own spiritual awakening and things around me, through my own connection with God. I started losing things in my life that were really important to me. They weren't there anymore. They weren't physical things. THey were things like love for music, love for nice things. Everything was gone and I knew, at that point, it's fucking drugs. I even said it out loud: "It's fucking drugs." It was me that did it. I had to do it myself and there are lots of people that go through that.
Q: Are you sober now?
Uh-huh. I just smoke pot. That's all I do.

Q: Is it unrealistic to expect that the mainstream media is going to exercise any kind of restraint when it comes to sensationalizing drug use?
It is, but then again, why not have the government give [out] information about it? Real information about it. Not just the bad shit: what drugs have done, what drugs do to you, what happens. When I was growing up, my mom found pot in my pocket and she was like, "This is going to fuck your head up. It is going to make you stupid. Drugs are going to make you stupid." Then she gave the drugs back to me. She's like, "You do whatever you want; these are going to fuck you up." So I always had that in my head, that drugs are going to fuck me up if I do 'em. I didn't learn it anywhere else.
Q: But you did them anyway though.
I did them anyway, yeah, but I knew beforehand. A lot of these kids who are dying don't know beforehand what they're doing. They are thinking it's fun, it's good, everybody else is doing it. Not everyone had a fortunate life like I did where I had a family that loved me enough to talk to me about things like that. And when you don't, kids are going, "I just took my first pill, you're the first DJ I ever heard and I just want to take a pill." And I am like, "Why did you take a pill?" I dunno, I thought that's what you're supposed to do, supposed to feel the music." That's not what you're supposed to do, you're supposed to come and enjoy the music first. Pills are something else. If you're gonna try a pill, why don't you think about it, plan it, do it with your friends and go to the park? Go to the beach. Or go somewhere else and experience it first before you attach anything else to it. 'Cause the music itself is already so brilliant. And I found myself saying these words and I'm just like, "Wow," it is fucking with my head. It's a turnaround.