Skrillex calls Deadmau5 an asshole in radio interview; Deadmau5 responds in Twitter rant

Skrillex gave intelligent and measured responses to a variety of questions while speaking with New York radio station AMP 92.3. Skrillex\’s PR team deserves a medal for helping Skrillex become this good at interviews. You can watch the whole interview here. Here\’s the highlights:

Responding to a question on Deadmau5, Skrillex gave a pained response. Skrillex personally has love for Deadmau5 despite the twitter trolling, but called Deadmau5 an \”asshole.\” As for Deadmau5\’s music, Skrillex has \”become less connected to [Deadmau5\’s] music because of his personality is almost overshadowing.\” And Skrillex \”feel[s] like a lot of people are almost getting tired of his attitude, you know calling people out on twitter.\” Read the full transcript of his Deadmau5 answer below, but the video is highly recommended as even the full transcript misses some important and interesting non-verbal queues.

Responding to a question about being bullied as a kid, Skrillex returned to music by suggesting the ideal path forward for anyone was to \”squad up\” with good people and to continue to evolve. He provided examples of both suggestions earlier in the interview. On good people, Skrillex noted that his Jack Ü album grew out of unplanned collaborations with Diplo that the two decided to collect and release as an album. Jack Ü served as a creative outlet for both of them to produce sounds that simply wouldn\’t fit within Diplo, Major Lazer, or Skrillex names. As for Skrillex as a dupstep artist, Skrillex claimed he never saw himself as confined to a single genre. Instead, he noted his sound changed from album to album in pursuit of the simple goal: making good music.

I respect the hell out of Skrillex for this interview. Phrasing his Deadmau5 thoughts as personal feelings is a useful semantic trick for discussing art. And his goal of surrounding himself with good people in order to make good music without holding to any particular genre or sound suggests that he\’ll remain musically relevant for a long time. Very rarely can artists remain at the forefront of music by dominating a single genre rather than evolving their sound, and regardless of whether Skrillex realizes that evolution is necessary for relevance, Skrillex wants to evolve anyway.

Here\’s the transcript of his now controversial remarks about Deadmau5, which starts at about 6:30 in the video.

\”I\’ll always have love for Joel, because he put me on at an early time, but he\’s an asshole. And everyone knows that. HE knows that. I think that\’s kind of his thing, you know? I mean, the one thing that is unfortunate about it is he has a record label, and when you have a record label you got to be a leader, and he has people that are like signed to him, and I just feel… I couldn\’t imagine being a leader, you know, going out in the public image being such a negative attitude, you know? So that\’s my one thing. I couldn\’t… you know I\’m not gonna judge him, tell him what to do, and like, I don\’t take it personally because I\’m secure with myself and what I do, I love what I do, but I almost feel bad that that\’s his one way of getting attention rather than like going into the music and helping curate this thing. And I think his attitude\’s changed over last couple years. so you know, like I said, I\’ll always have love for him and I don\’t take it personally, I almost feel worse for him because he\’s making… I feel like a lot of people are almost getting tired of his attitude, you know calling people out on twitter, you know maybe that\’s his thing, that\’s how he does his thing. Like, I personally have become less connected to his music because of his personality is almost overshadowing that when he\’s such an incredible artist and has created this amazing world of this imagery, his live show, you know, the only thing I\’ll say is you don\’t need to be like that but if he wants to that\’s cool too.\”

Deadmau5 didn\’t like that too much.

He went on one of his signature Twitter rants about the scenario on Tuesday. First, he said he doesn\’t really give a fuck and said Skrillex should\’ve made these comments back when his first album (Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites) was released on mau5trap records.

He then called the remarks just \”certified psychoanalysis\” and admitted he can be a diva sometimes.

He then tagged Skrillex in a tweet and sarcastically apologized for being an asshole:

After he was done with his rant, he left to build a PC:

You can catch Deadmau5 this weekend at Summer Set Music & Camping Festival, where he\’s closing the entire weekend from 9-10:30 on Sunday. Tickets are still available here.

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