Features

Summer Stars: Skrillex

Here is another of our “Summer Stars,” emerging acts featured in the 2011 Relix Festival Guide who will be making the rounds this summer…

Ironically, Skrillex no longer plays rock and roll like he used to. Scotty Moore first gained his footing in the post-hardcore band From First to Last, touring the world before he was old enough to drink. This year, Moore’s a mainstay on the U.S. festival circuit (he already slayed ‘em at Ultra and Coachella)—but is also a solo electronic artist with an exciting, highly danceable collage of dubstep, electro-house, whompy bass and whatever else you want to call it. “I’ve been getting into a lot of dancehall and reggae with my new stuff,” he says. “Whatever. It’s just music.”

And while Spin recently called him a “recovering emoholic,” the fact of the matter is that he’s been making electronic music since he was 14. “Overall, I’m just happier,” he says, about switching from the band to the solo act. “I enjoy what I do a lot more, so everything just feels better.”

It’s working. Without so much as a marketing campaign, he’s been able to play with the big boys such as Rusko and Deadmau5, the latter of whom has been something of an older brother to him. “[He] took me under his wing and I got to hang with the cool kids,” he says. As if he wasn’t already one himself.

Appearing at: Summer Camp, Sasquatch!, Wakarusa, Starscape, Camp Bisco and more.