Festival interviews are fast-paced, hectic affairs, as performers juggle meetings with dozens of publications. Music Times did its best to get the most out of a ten-minute meeting at Governors Ball with The Glitch Mob, a representative of the Los Angeles beat music electronic scene. We touched on festivals opening up to EDM acts, the music world opening up to EDM acts, and how many decades it will take before we see another Glitch Mob album.
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Music Times: Tonight Skrillex will be headlining, tomorrow night Axwell / Ingrosso. Do you find that more generalized music festivals like Governors Ball are opening their doors more to electronic acts?
Justin Boreta: Yes. I think last year or two years ago...I don't know the details...Deadmau5 was the first person to play on a Lollapalooza main stage (it was 2011). There's definitely headway being made where acts on that level are being lumped in with all the main stage headliners. It's been happening at Coachella for a little while but it's definitely been happening more. I think it's indicative of people not lumping EDM or whatever you want to call it in its own side room category. It's been like that in Europe for a while. Glastonbury's been having electronic artists play main stages for a long, long time now. But the States have been like 'so you have real music and there's booby music.'
Music Times: Is there a difference in audience reaction between playing something like Governors Ball versus Ultra (Glitch Mob played the Miami festival during 2014), which is more electronic-oriented?
Edward 'edIT' Ma: Yeah, there's a difference in the nature of the festival itself. One of the great things about EDM festivals in general, especially all the Insomniac festivals, is that they market it in a way that the headliner is the festival-goer, and they list everybody in alphabetical order. They take the whole headliner mentality out of the festival and it's all about the experience itself. Whereas something like Governors Ball is more about the lineup and the music and who's playing. It's definitely a different vibe. I think those style of festivals, like Ultra and Electric Daisy Carnival, the production value is extremely high on the festival itself...going over the top and making it larger than life. Something like this, it's a very cool lineup and I think that's the emphasis. At the end of the day, everybody's coming here to have a good time and experience some good music. At the core of it, that's really what it's about.
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Music Times: Electronic music is the thing right now...it's growing so rapidly. But the radio is somewhat dominated by house. Do you think the continued growth of electronic music will allow stuff like beat to take a more prominent role?
Justin: Everything moves in waves...it comes and goes. Today it's house but who knows what it's going to be in a couple of years. I never thought I would hear a trap song on the radio...when trap first blew up, I was like 'really?' (referencing DJ Snake's "Turn Down For What"). I think as things continue to grow you will see more obscure and more forward-thinking music come onto the radio. But we don't pay too much attention to the radio. Radio is very powerful but I don't know a lot of young people that actually listen to the radio these days.
Josh "Ooah" Mayer: In electronic music it doesn't really mean as much. I don't think that's where quote-end-quote "EDM" fans go to find and soak in new music. I think it's all about going to the festivals.
Music Times: It seems the radio DJ's within EDM have the most sway out of any genre. Thoughts?
Justin: I can't really speak to how that works in other genres, but coming up, we were part of the whole Los Angeles beat scene Mary Anne Hobbs with the radio show in the UK was a crucial piece of that whole thing. I think in the States...I couldn't tell you a single f--king electronic radio show. But in Europe it's a lot different.
Josh: In the United States you have to go to satellite radio, like BPM on Sirius. Which I don't really consider like radio. They play everything on there and that doesn't necessarily mean you're blowing up. I heard a Gladiator song on BPM the other day. Those guys are awesome and they're great producers but they're a small L.A. trap duo.
Music Times: But do you think that's helping to get the word out about smaller acts?
Josh: Oh yeah, of course! It's awesome. I was listening to BPM on Sirius the other day just for fun and I heard a bunch of my homies on there. They played a Brillz remix, which I was stoked to hear. Just a bunch of cool underground stuff. That's helping. It's getting music out there.
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Music Times: It's been four years between Drink The Sea and Love Death Immortality. Will it be another four year stretch or can we expect something sooner?
Justin: It's funny, when you look on paper between the release dates, it was four years but we also released a three-song EP in the middle...but no. We don't want to have another four-year break. We did a lot of touring but we're gonna hit the studio again later this summer and later this year and hopefully we're gonna get some new music out before 2038. But we'll see. We're detail-oriented...sometimes these things can take a while...we never really know. More important we focus on getting out good quality music that'll stand the test of time versus getting something out right now.
Josh: we never wanna rush music. We finish when we feel like it's finished. Taht's the most important part. Music is what drives all this. If we don't feel 100 percent about the music because we were rushed, or because we were supposed to put out music at a certain time, then what's the point?
Edward: The most important thing is that the music is quality. If that means it takes four years, eight years, twelve years, that's how long we'll wait. We've never been about getting the music done just so we can have another tour cycle. It's just not what we do.
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MT: I've only got only a minute so I'm going to go to a stupid question. You guys feature members named "Ooah" and "edIT," and your PR rep goes by "SiouxZ." Was that planned or interesting coincidence?
JB: Huh. I really don't know. You'd have to ask her.
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