In a fascinatingly well-written, well-voiced, and informative piece on Sonny Moore in the UK publication The Guardian, many avenues were explored from the unique perspective that only Skrillex’s P.O.V. could offer. Referred to as a “rave idealist, hippie culturalist and sci-fi dreamer,” many sides of Sonny’s personality are revealed by the author Joe Muggs.
The piece began with a slight background of Sonny’s jump from his prior band From First to Last into the dance music arena, as well as the subsequent backlash from the purist dubstep community in regards to Skrillex’s commercial successes. This led to a self-imposed media cut off by Sonny, but for further explained admirable reasons. The article then goes on to describe Sonny’s stomping grounds in L.A., and the collaborative nature of electronic music record labels in the area, showcasing a very down-to-earth voice and approach to life and relations with fellow humans – beyond a business sense. Sonny’s optimism peaks when musing about the electronic music scene:
“This dance music thing is not a bubble,” he says, sitting in his apartment chain-smoking menthol cigarettes. “Because it’s not about dubstep, or techno, or house, or any other sound: those things coexist and support each other. It’s not like when grunge or nu-metal or whatever became the new trend and everyone was chasing one sound and that scene turned in on itself and lost what it had to begin with. There’s room for everything.”
He continues, this time in reference to the effect of the Internet on the Tumblr Generation and its massive boons to opening awareness to existence surrounding all of us.
“I think there’s a whole new voice and a whole new energy,” he says, “aesthetically and culturally, coming from the internet, but you can feel it all around. The internet is weird, and people use it in freaky ways – we’re going to have to go through this learning curve as a civilization about what it is to have these things. But now you have kids growing up with things like homophobia just seeming ridiculous, or with this willingness to think about space exploration and aliens, these are just part of the youth culture, younger kids are being educated in this whole different way, like ideas spreading through Tumblr – do you know Tumblr?”
Skrill goes on to portray his outlook on media firestorms against events like Ultra, and his opinions about the industry in general. If interested, pop on over to the original source story from The Guardian to get the rest of the scoop, and see how members of the mainstream media across the pond approach electronic music in their coverage.