When we go to see a DJ play, we’re not really that concerned with how they got their name. However, when you’re sitting down bored at home, these questions pop into your head from time to time… with help from EDM.com and a few choices of our own, we thought we’d help out with those bored moments.
Kygo
“It was a learning program at school. You were handed out a username. And I got <>, or something like that. Then some of my friends started to call me that. Until recently all my friends called me Kygo. But they think it’s kind of lame now. Most have gone back to Kyrre now. Maybe they have to find a new nickname.” (source)
Skrillex
“It was a stupid old online AOL screen name. There really isn’t a meaning behind it.” (source)
Bassnectar
“One Sunday morning, a few hundred friends and I were deep off in the boonies on a beach outside of Santa Cruz. We had been there all night absolutely raging, and as the sun rose over the water and illuminated the beach I noticed another sound system and group of people way, way down on another side of the beach. I was usually the sober guy who would go talk to the cops if they came to bust our fun, or to basically handle whatever needed to be handled, so I started walking over to this other party. Halfway there, I met one of their representatives, a small guy who looked kind of like an Ewok. He introduced himself as “Brother” and explained that his group (they were called “Spaceship Gaia”) had noticed our party and wanted to come make friends… Brother was (and is) a huge influence on the early Santa Cruz full moon collective scene, and also one of my favorite DJs to this day. One time he gave me a sticker he made that said ‘Butterfly Beings Drink Bass Nectar’ and as soon as I saw it I thought that if I ever made a band again I would name it ‘Bassnectar’… “(source)
Hardwell
Indeed, it was Hardwell’s dad who came up with his DJ name. “My original Dutch name is Robbert van de Corput, and if you translate ‘Corput’ in English you get ‘Hardwell’!” he says. “So my name in English is Robert Hardwell.” (source)
Calvin Harris
Apparently, he decided to be “Calvin Harris” instead of “Adam Wiles” because he thought the “racial ambiguity” would bode better for his career. “I thought people might not know if I was Black or not,” Harris said in 2009, after his first soul-infused single dropped. “After that, I was stuck with it.” (source)
Zedd
“Because, except for USA, everywhere in the world, the letter “Z” is pronounced as “Zed / Zedd”; which is the first letter of my last name. I was too lazy to think of a name so I just took “Zedd” since “Zed” was already taken by same random dude.” (source)
H/T EDM.com
