Skrillex on 12-year-old haters and illegal downloading

Held earlier this month the IMS Engage or (International Music Summit) called to the stage some of the most influential artists and minds behind the worlds music including EDM. One of said artists was Sonny Moore or as most might recognize him as Skrillex. During the question portion of the summit, Sonny was asked for his opinions on some of the haters and their part in his rise in the EDM world:

“A lot of it is internet hype; Something that’s negative can seem a lot louder than positivity. When you click on the Facebook profile of someone who’s hating, it’s a 12-year-old kid talking crap.”

While said quite simply, Sonny has a point; A majority of people, or EDM fans in particular, greatly respond to negativity or negative themes in the air surrounding an artist. One of the best examples of this is Justin Beiber, because he was the kid that almost every internet user wanted dead, whether it be because of his physical looks or his voice in music; the fact remains that “the haters” had a huge amount of influence in his rise to stardom. Perhaps the tides will turn and instead we’ll ignore music and things we don’t like and try to show the world the things we love and enjoy, but we’ll have to wait and see.

When questioned on other aspects of his rise including illegal music downloading, Sonny had this to say:

“I guess essentially what the blogs are doing is illegal, but I’ve always been cool with that,” he said. “Any time I have a release, I want all the blogs to post it and I want people to download that stuff. There’s a certain group of people who download the stuff who don’t buy records anyway, and other people do. I’m not trying to fight the way it’s going. A lot of people think there was this giant machine behind the Bangarang record, but we did no advertising or radio campaigns,” he added. “It 100-percent came from my Facebook, then the blogs started to pick it up. So social media is everything.”

There seems to always be a sense of moral confliction for blogs and media sites when it came to downloading music. On one hand you love the artists and want to support their music by “spreading the word” and getting more people to listen, yet in a sense you’re depriving the artists of that revenue. On the flip-side, you’re giving the artist a huge boost of “free advertising” just because the music listeners and bloggers happen to love your music and want to spread the word for free. In a sense there are a lot of blogs that don’t receive any type of profits and they write into the late hours of the night simply for the love of music, and I think that says a lot about the status of the way music and social media work together.

There was also a portion of the summit when Sonny was speaking on the musical influences of the younger/new generation of music makers;

“You want to keep their souls pure, because that’s what’s going to make them grow into something bigger. If you dilute them and give them crazy ideas and give them that pressure, if can fuck with their heads.”

Every since Skrillex started OWSLA, and started releasing music through The Nest the amount of support behind different types of music, music the doesn’t traditionally sound like it would be supported by Skrillex, is gaining in size. There can be no arguing that the “EDM Scene” is over-saturated; tons of underground artists who aren’t being different and just creating the same stuff that headliners are creating. It’s no wonder why there seems to be a sort of stagnation when it comes to EDM, because essentially, there aren’t many people on top, supporting artists that are willing to be different and break down barriers; One of the main ones supporting said artists, is indeed Skrillex and while he may be subject to the ocasional 12-year-old hater trolling facebook and youtube comments, the fact remains that it’s still making you feel something, and that’s every bit as important as anything else.

Source IMS ENGAGE
Source inthemix