DJ Skrillex keeps pushing the boundaries of pop

SONNY Moore, aka DJ Skrillex, is busy making pop music a slightly stranger place, working with the likes of Usher and Ed Sheeran.

Best Weekend - Skrillex, US DJ visiting Australia for Stereosonic festival, Nov 2014

IT’S no shock famous people can skip queues at nightclubs, restaurants and even airports.

But American Skrillex has discovered yet another upside to being one of the most popular DJs in the world — being fast tracked through the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Skrillex, born Sonny Moore, was renewing his licence in California when he found there’s even a velvet rope at the DMV if you know the right people.

“I had a hook up and did a bit of queue jumping,” Skrillex says. “It was like I had a jetpack on and flew over everyone. I didn’t even know that was possible, it was a little treat. I’m knocking on wood right now. Although if you’re smart enough you just go early and you don’t have to wait that long anyway.”

The magic bump came in handy — Skrillex, 26, is insanely busy. He’s spent circling the globe on the back of finally releasing a debut album, Recess. The DJ’s live show features the kind of production you’d expect from a rock band.

“DJing for me is the most fun thing for me,” he says. “It’s a real simple art form, its like playing acoustic guitar. You can only play so many chords, but it’s how you choose to create that story.”

“DJing is a different experience to watching a band. People want to hear new music and they don’t hear dope music on the radio so they come to their favourite DJ to hear it. And they get to enjoy it in a social environment. There’s no smoke and mirrors, everyone knows we’re DJs, we’re mixing records and it’s fun and people love to go to the shows. It’s very simple.”

DJ with cred ... Skrillex has worked with other famous musicians. Picture: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Skrillex, who started his career in punk bands, regularly walks through the audience and gets fans to crouch down in preparation for one of his trademark ‘drops’.

“It’s spontaneous. I like to communicate with the audience. Especially when it’s a big show it makes me want to get on the mic even more so I’m not just this little speck surrounded by lasers.”

He’s now working on another project, Jack U, with fellow electronic icon Diplo, with an EP ready to drop any minute.

“It’s dope,” Skrillex says. “We’re working with some crazy artists on this EP — there’s Usher and 2 Chainz and some people I can’t talk about yet. Me and Wes (Diplo) go in the studio with people and we’re not sure if it’s for their record or our record. We’ll go and write a song with people and figure out the production later, so now we’re piecing it all together as songs we can play. I’ll play some of them at Stereosonic.”

Unfortunately Skrillex was too busy to work on the new Madonna album with Diplo.

“I’ve been at the studio, there’ll be a few of my drums in there but nothing huge. I would have loved to work on it if I’d had time, what I have heard sounds crazy. Intense. So full on.”

The DJ enjoys the fact that if anyone asks to work with him, they’re up for experimenting.

On a high ... DJ Skrillex loves experimenting with different artists. Picture: Supplied

“It feels like I’m infiltrating pop music but doing it in an awesome way,” he says. “We’re pushing the boundaries of what pop can be. Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites sold millions of copies worldwide but it’s not technically a pop song, but it became popular. That rewrote what pop music really means. It doesn’t have to be verse chorus verse bridge chorus outro. You can f — around. I think that song had a big part in changing the structure of pop music and I want to keep pushing it that way. If an artist comes to Wes or me they want something crazy, they want the crazy obnoxious records. We do weird stuff and try and make it work.”

Skrillex was in the studio with Ed Sheeran this year, but nothing was finished.

“We messed around, we made some weird New Jack Swing acoustic hip hop weird stuff. Ed’s a really talented dude.”

Skrillex used to date Ellie Goulding (”she’s a great girl”) who is the reported subject of Sheeran’s hit song Don’t. Did that ever come up?

Global star ... English singer Ed Sheeran has worked with Skrillex. Picture: AFP

“I heard something about that song but I haven’t heard the song,” Skrillex says diplomatically. “I stay out of beef. I’m all about love. Hey, I’m eating pita chips and hummus right now dude!”

The DJ is more comfortable talking about his love of Australian electronic music.

“Australia is way ahead of the curve than they get credit for as far as how much awesome music comes out and how much music they know,” he says.

He signed Flume’s other project, What So Not, for its American release.

“I got Flume’s album when it came out and I remember seeing him at this club in LA and he told me he had this other project. What So Not really changed the scene. You hear that all the time, that melodic hip hop post trap organic soundscape or whatever you want to call it. It’s huge, they really made a dent in the scene, you hear a lot of records influenced by them.”

> SEE Stereosonic - Adelaide Showground, Friday/Saturday, Melbourne Showgrounds Saturday/Sunday, Brisbane Showgrounds Saturday/Sunday. Two and one day tickets available from Ticketmaster.com.au

Listen to Skrillex’s music below on Spotify.

Originally published as DJ Skrillex keeps pushing the boundaries of pop