SKRILLEX COVERS ROLLING STONE; DETAILS NEW ALBUM, FUTURE DIPLO COLLABORATIONS

Coinciding the release of his debut album Recess, Skrillex sat down with Rolling Stone for his first ever cover story for the forthcoming March 2014 issue (on stands this Friday).

The “sub-bass scientist and superstar dubstep-importer” opened up about the album’s Easter Egg unveiling, stating the Alien Ride app was inspired by the release of Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero which involved clues scattered online and thumb-drives left in public spaces.

He also spoke to the numerous collaborations on the LP, which include Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos, Ragga Twins, Diplo, K-pop phenom G-Dragon, and Chicago’s Chance The Rapper.

 “I call my songs vibescapes. There’s always a foundation under the tracks that you can feel and pick up on. An emotion. There’s a lot of organic samples: wind, breaths, clocks cut into tiny pieces. I wanted to make a crazy record, but I wanted to stay true to who Skrillex is.” 

In a separate interview with NME, he elaborated even further.

On the opening song:
I didn’t think so many people would take [the title, 'All Is Fair In Love And Brostep'] so literally and not get that it’s totally tongue-in-cheek. It’s more of a statement that I don’t care – you can take it any way you want. Haters will use that [song] name and do what they want with it. But other people will get the humour. The idea was just to open the record with something super in-your-face. It’s a wake-up call.

On selling records:
I guess what it comes down to is crowd size. A couple of my tracks, like the Chance the Rapper song [which was recorded at a Skrillex show on a mobile phone], got like 80,000 hits in a week. By the next day, kids were already singing along. So that’s the measure of my success, if everyone is singing along and having a good time, that’s dope. The record sales are trivial.”

On nostalgia:
“It is about innocence and fun. I do try to achieve that. Maybe that’s why there is cheesiness in my music; I love that feeling you get when you feel like a kid. And that’s why people tend to hate me because [my music] makes you feel something no matter what.”

On collaborating with Diplo:
“We probably have like five other tracks that we haven’t released that we’re going to release together on each other’s record labels or as collaborations. We bring the best out in each other, I think. We’re not releasing anything under a name. I’ll probably have a collaboration on the Major Lazer album. And we might release a single together as Diplo and Skrillex.”