This past month at New York’s Gov Ball, deadmau5 revealed his latest stage, a Thunderdome-inspired transfigurable mousetrap. The reveal wasn’t without its hiccups, as there were some technical difficulties upon the iron cage’s opening, despite this singular incident however, the stage production has performed exceptionally well and has received high praise from fans. The hidden beauty to his new show is that it’s essentially live.
“So all of my show is more or less live, right? So I’m banking out all these stems and I’m playing synths and I have MIDI going, recreating the original production as the show goes…”
It’s widely known that Zimmerman has long since been an advocate for live shows, or interactive performances, and he’s moved away from the industry standard “press-play” practice many other have headliners undoubtedly adopted. During his show at this past weekend’s Glastonbury Festival, he had a moment during “Seeya” too take a bit of a comedic break, and many have taken it as a commentary on how mainstream DJs perform. In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, deadmau5 took a moment to comment on this moment, and explain what was really going on.
“A lot of people were speculating, ‘Oh, yeah! He’s anti press-play DJs and that’s why he did it’. Actually, it’s because I had nothing better to do up there.”
“…So I’m banking out all these stems and I’m playing synths and I have MIDI going, recreating the original production as the show goes. So I was working on that [‘Seeya’] segment of the show and I lost all the stems for it. So I was like, ‘Fuck, man!’ I gotta play that track because it’s a good little break. But I didn’t have any of the parts or the MIDI files – anything. I can’t do a harmonica solo on top of it. So I said, ‘Fuck it. I’ll play the two-track (album version) back.’ But then what can I do? I could just sit there and fist-pump and at that point, then yes, I’m a DJ.”
“So I thought, ‘Let’s just get some goofy costumes and sit down and have a beer’ — a little improv theatre. Actually, it’s really great because after 90 minutes or 75 minutes or however long it is, I just want to take a seat.”
He’s admitted to being imperfect an unprepared, and handled a situation as fittingly as possible. Given his outspokenness, it’s understandable for people to read between some line that don’t exist and go a little too deep in the matter. That said, the topic of interest did present a moment to make it clear that he doesn’t just want to provide a DJ set to his performances.
“The way I see it: If you’re going to pay a guy upwards of $500,000 to a million fucking dollars to stand on a stage in front of however many people at ‘X’ EDM event, if you’re not putting at least 200 grand into your stage show other than an LED wall and some backline stuff, it’s just the biggest ripoff.”
Though this definitely wasn’t planned, his latest upload to SoundCloud adds a little extra grit to his commentary. He’s answered Jack Ü’s track “Where Are Ü Now” (possibly the most pressing questions since “What Does the Fox Say”) with “Where I’m At“. This comes just days after deadmau5 trashed the tune, before realizing that he was actually listening to another artist’s remix. Check it out below for the lols.
If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out the Glastonbury Show, peep it below. Also if you’re interested in the full interview, scroll down to the source link!
[H/T]: inthemix
