If you happen to be in New York City for New Years, the Jack Ü show at Madison Square Garden will be the place to be. With support from Rudimental, A$AP Ferg, and Yellow Claw, it promises to be a night to remember. Preceding the festivities, Skrillex and Diplo sat down with Time Out New York to discuss the Jack Ü project, New York, the EDM scene, and their plans for New Years and beyond. Below are some highlights from the interview. Read the full interview here.
Explain Jack Ü.
Skrillex: The whole idea with Jack Ü is a way for us to showcase different sounds, even outside of records we make. There’s so much underground stuff that’s great. Like C-Set, Half of a Name, people who are playing to 500 people at their shows. We’re taking them and incorporating them.
Diplo: We met Justin Bieber at a party and got a vocal from him. Everything we’ve done so far has been spontaneous. We’ve played people’s demos for crowds of 60,000 people. We’re able to give people something brand-new, and they’ll listen, and we want to take advantage of that privilege and opportunity.Is the goal of the project a proper collection of tracks with an official release? Does that traditional approach even appeal to you?
Diplo: I think we should do six records, take eight songs that aren’t ours and make an awesome mixtape and release it. That’s the idea. Maybe early next year. We want to get it out fast, because we both have other things in the pipeline. There’s more Skrillex stuff next year, and I have a new Major Lazer record out next year. If people love it, we’re gonna go back and do more. And if people hate it, we’re gonna go back and do more.
Electro has become an increasingly moribund, corporate genre. Does it have fans, or is it just kids looking to get wasted to a soundtrack they don’t really care about?
Skrillex: The kids know that there’s culture for them. They’re downloading mixtapes. What we do as DJs is the most direct art form, musically, that there is. It’s all about hearing something that you like and reacting to it, whether you know what it is or not.
Diplo: It feels like we are curators of a scene. Not to be offensive, but the EDM scene is dead in a way, and the curators are the festival guys who want to keep it simple for themselves. They’re the corporate sponsor guys who are keeping the stuff that’s easy to sell, and I think it’s our job to curate newer things and new horizons and give new things to people.Can you talk about your work with Madonna?
Diplo: The single comes out in February. There are two songs [the label] loves as singles; I don’t know which one will come out first. I go back next week on my birthday to mix more. She’s actually kind of hard-core. You can’t get away. I’ll be glad when we’re all wrapped up. It’s been a lot of work. I’ve worked harder on these songs than I’ve worked on our songs, and that’s a lot of fucking work.
Skrillex: I’ve never seen him more like, Fuck, I have to go back.
Diplo: If I can go back and wrap this up and make great songs for her…She’s the queen of making music. I remember having songs like “Cherish” and “Vogue” on cassette tapes. I’ve loved her production, and I’ve always loved how she’s a forward-thinking motherfucking beast. She was the first person to really bring in different sounds and co-opt things for her own sound, and I’ve always loved her for that.How are you going to do that at MSG on NYE?
Skrillex: Madison Square Garden is going to feel intimate and personal. We don’t have a real rock-star approach with security all around us. It’ll be a party. We’ll have lots of special guests come out. We’ve already announced the supports—Yellow Claw, ASAP Ferg, Rudimental. It’ll be incredible.
Diplo: You’ll be hearing some of the Jack Ü songs we’ve done, live, for the first time. The artists we’ve cut the records with will be performing with us. Both of us take it very seriously; if you’ve ever seen us perform live, you’ll know the production value is insane. When I do Diplo or Major Lazer, we try to make a carnival atmosphere.
Tickets for the New Years Eve show are still available, so get them while they’re hot! The pair have a huge production planned for their first appearance at MSG, and it might even include some surprise guests.
Source: Time Out
