In between puffs on a Newport at Petco Park in San Diego, Sonny Moore contemplates one of the biggest moments of his career. The Padres' baseball stadium serves as the first stop of his first headlining tour, whose start is a day away. Not bad, considering the L.A.-based DJ and producer known as Skrillex is only 23 years old. In fact, he's already become a dance-floor god, regularly performing at festivals and nightclubs across North America and Europe to hordes of fans. In 24 hours, 3,000 kids will be losing their minds over his cutting-edge show.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STAR FOREMAN
Skrillex
At San Diego club Voyeur, Skrillex DJs with 12th Planet, from L.A. party crew/record label SMOG.
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That is, if it happens.
Right now a pair of men are strapping him into a black outfit that looks something like a wet suit — except that it's fitted with sensors. A critical part of his stage show, it will turn him into a wireless human joystick by connecting him to a complex motion-capture system. On a screen behind him will appear an animated android he calls Illgamesh, twice his size. When Moore raises his arms, Illgamesh will raise his arms; when Moore drops his hands out of sight to fiddle with his computer, Illgamesh's hands will reveal Moore's techniques. "It's never been done live before the way we're doing this," he boasts.
But something is amiss. Moore's insane schedule has given his crew almost no time to rehearse, and a series of technical difficulties related to the motion capture begins to surface. His managers and production team are running around inside a stadium lounge that serves as a backstage area, pounding out messages on tables lined with MacBooks. The pressure is becoming intense, and PR people are starting to freak out.
Moore lights another cigarette.
Long gone are the days when all a DJ had to worry about was his record collection. Moore's show relies on complicated technology to create a massive visual production. At the center of it is a sci-fi-looking structure called the Skrillex Cell, some 20 feet high, composed of bright white cubes. They frame Moore as he performs, and the Cell's walls light up with 3-D images: bright green grids, spaceships, trippy spinning columns, the android on the back wall. The music is so closely tied to the spectacle that tech problems could practically sink the show.
With round cheeks and big eyes peering through oversize Sabre glasses, Moore looks way too young for all this. He's short and prone to slouching, his long, dark hair oddly shaved on one side and hanging over his right eye.
Yet somehow, this digital wunderkind has moved to the forefront of the electronic dance music movement, the new rave scene that's sweeping the country. After kicking off his DJ career only three years ago at tiny Hollywood venues like Cinespace and Boardner's, he's played a gig practically every day this year, including such massive shows as Coachella and Las Vegas' Electric Daisy Carnival. (Moore performs at Hard Haunted in L.A. on Sat., Oct. 29.) He was just on the cover of Spin magazine and he's cute enough to be plastered on bedroom walls, but his specialty is new media. He's not yet a household name, but he's done something better: He's gone viral.
In fact, the Internet is brimming with fans paying him homage, from those replicating his songs' beats on violin or piano, to the photos of comic book convention attendees dressed like him. There's tons of fan fiction in his honor, as well as out-and-out Skrillex-inspired porn, some of which imaginatively pairs him with his mentor, the electronic music star known as Deadmau5.
But Moore's popularity is in contrast to his shyness, which seems at times to border on social anxiety. He rarely gives interviews, and here in San Diego makes little eye contact, his high-top sneakers pressed tightly against the stadium seat in front of him. Text messages and phone calls concerning his vast commitments batter his (already cracked) BlackBerry, until its vibrations knock it onto the concrete. "I overcommit myself," he imparts.
It's understandable if he feels overwhelmed. After all, not long ago he was anonymously lugging his gear into ratty Los Angeles DJ booths. Now Moore's millions of social media followers obsess over his every move, and he has a team of tech geniuses scrambling to make sure his custom-built show functions.
And, at the eleventh hour, it finally comes together. When he takes the stage the following night, Illgamesh — glowing in shades of white and red — is an immediate hit. The music, meanwhile, carries the crowd to another plane. Revelers gyrate next to the baseball diamond, the girls largely underage and dressed in bikinis, furry boots, neon tutus and even cat ears. Lanky, zit-faced guys in loose-hanging jeans and T-shirts bob their heads. (A section serving drinks for those of age, meanwhile, is nearly empty, which gives a sense of the demographic at play here.)
Unlike a typical by-the-hour DJ, Moore combines live performance with his prerecorded tracks. He mixes cuts like Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" into his own songs, which he reproduces live by taking their components and reconstructing them, using popular DJ software Ableton Live. He dips into genres like progressive house and even a little soul, but the crowd goes crazy for dubstep, a recent dance-floor phenomenon known for its gratuitous bass lines and, oddly, its almost undanceable beat.
