DJ and producer A-Trak (né Alain Macklovitch) has been zigzagging around the world since he was little more than a teenager with his vinyl collection in tow. Since then, the 30-year-old has traveled with Kanye West as his official tour DJ, started the super-group Duck Sauce with fellow mega-DJ Armand Van Helden, appeared on the cover of Billboard magazine as one of the leaders of the EDM movement and racked up more frequent-flier miles than most people will collect in a lifetime. Here he shares some tricks to surviving life on the road.

Carry on, carry on...
I've had to deal with lost luggage a lot over the years and I've learned to live with carry-ons. I rarely ever check anything. Before we could play with laptops, I used to check in crates of vinyl. I can't even count the number of times the airports would lose them and then find them three days later. It was like a heart attack every time.

You just need to have one roller bag and one little carry-on bag that you put on top of it, and you have to know which airlines to fly. You don't fly Southwest or some cheap-ass airline that's not going to let you take two carry-ons. I'll pack 45 minutes before I get to the airport. My parents are like, "We're leaving for Florida next week so we're packing," and I'm like, "What? Why are you doing this?" There are a couple of weird hidden rules that I've figured out with packing. There was a point when I learned I didn't really need three pairs of jeans. There are these tricks you can do with just a few pieces: switching around one element so it looks like you're wearing something different everyday. I have systems. I'm very methodical. When I get a new bag it's important for me to figure out where everything is going to go. That's the best way to stay on top of what you're forgetting because you know that that little pocket on the side is where you put your clippers and the other side pocket is where you put your charger. You can just look at it and you know right away [that something's missing]. If you close your bag and you think, "My bag closed so easily I didn't even have to sit on it or struggle with it," inevitably you forgot to put something in it. Sometimes you have face-bomb moments -- like when I went to Miami for the Winter Music Conference and I forgot to bring underwear, shirts and socks. I forgot to pack a whole category. I had to send my tour manager to go get me boxers.

Get a tour manager
Most DJs travel by themselves, but there was a point where I was like, "I'm going to hire someone to travel with me," and that was a complete game-changer. When I get to a city there are so many things that I have to deal with. I might have an hour and a half where suddenly it's like, "Oh shit, I have to upload this file for a record that's coming out next week; I have to do this interview and I don't know who's calling me on what number; I need to get some laundry done and check my email." In terms of life productivity I'd be scared to count the number of hours lost forever just looking for outlets. If there's someone whose job it is to tell me to show up in the lobby at 6:45 and that someone is calling me in 15 minutes, then I can handle the rest. I live so much on the road and still want to have moments of creativity where I'm not thinking, "Did I remember to print my boarding pass?"

UnplugI'm not a fan of using the Internet on flights because it makes me try to do too much and I end up doing nothing. You're always waiting for a YouTube video to load or you're like, "maybe I should tweet that I'm on a plane right now." When there's no Internet I'm like, "OK, I'm going to clean out my inbox and write a couple tracks and I'm going to organize the BPMs on this new playlist for my set tonight." I rarely talk to people on the plane, but I actually had a cool conversation with this old retired judge on a flight to South Africa last week. He saw me working on my laptop on some music software -- which I guess looks pretty fancy if you don't know what it is -- and he asked me if I was a pilot.


One of the only times I've ever felt homesick was the first time that I was away for my birthday. I remember just waking up and being like, "What is this feeling in my chest? I've never felt this... I think I'm homesick for the first time in my life." But I do tend to play gigs with friends. I played in Liverpool last night with two DJ friends and I played in Bristol the night before with two other friends, and I didn't even know I'd be with these people. That day I Googled the flier and I was like, "Oh cool, I'm playing with these guys, they're homies."

It's not very hard for me to figure out my comfort zone in a place. I'm not one of those travelers who brings a certain blanket or pillow with me. As long as I have those little moments where I can catch up with friends or check in with family back home I can just carry on traveling. On the road, life priorities get shuffled, like having a nice meal becomes so important. I'll get used to eating in a hurry with the promoter before a gig and then I'll go to a city where I have friends and they'll be like, "Oh we'll take you to a nice spot." That can flip a whole day around. Things like an enjoyable meal, a nice shower and a decent night's sleep become so precious. When you live in the same city all the time you take those things for granted. There's something kind of primal about the traveling life. When you get just the basic life needs -- like real silverware -- it's the nicest thing in the world.