Joel Zimmermans been on a roll as of late. After his recent breakup with Kat Von D, Deadmau5 has been busy twitter ranting, soundcloud uploading, prepping for a new tour, and all while performing his contracted gigs at Las Vegas’ MGM Hakkasan. Joel has never been one to censor himself and is quite vocal on all subjects EDM (and not) so it’s no surprise that most recently, Deadmau5 was interviewed in promotion for his headlining set at Toronto’s Veld Festival where he touched on mainstream EDM:
“I don’t think enough EDM artists are taking risks right now and that’s the big problem…Everyone wants to be safe, and do that thing you know is going to work. Someone, please take the wheel and turn it. Not to say I’m going to be that guy and I’m going to crusade on that journey of making turbo dub neo pro step but I would just like to encourage a bit of diversity and the way that I do that is the only way I know how, which is to make some downtempo thing… and just like flex engineering muscle on a piece or two. We can all make these one-note-wonder Avicii sounding songs.”
Deadmau5 isn’t alone in his thoughts. Recent beatport hits such as Martin Garrix’s Animals have been critisized as being lifeless songs that follow a formula and social media to make their mark. Between that and ghost producers, Joel feels his work brings more of a “sense of community” to it than those works of other EDM artists.
Don’t mistake him for hating though. “I’m not bashing anyone, Avicii is just doing his thing. Besides, he beat the crap out of Alan Thicke’s kid (Robin Thicke) in the UK charts…I can just play the game like anyone else can.”
Check out the whole interview with Joel here
