A rare moment of reflection. Skrillex has given his first formal interview in over 10 years, sitting down with Ecco2K for the Summer 2026 print issue of Berlin culture magazine 032c. The conversation lands as a wide-ranging one, taking in the evolution of the rave community, the value of art in the AI age, and the bootstrapped early days of his 2010 breakout EP ‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’.
Speaking to Ecco2K, Skrillex (born Sonny Moore) said he had been turning over the AI question for a while, and had come to believe the worth of any piece of art can be measured by whether it makes a listener “feel seen.” He pointed to his own experience revisiting Justice, Daft Punk and Metallica, noting those records still land because they carry something recognisable that had never been done before. “Maybe there are some AI songs that can go viral, but you can’t have that feeling of being seen if there isn’t a human on the other side,” he said.
Elsewhere, Moore recalled the bootstrapped $2,000 marketing budget behind ‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’ and the lukewarm reaction from label executives when he first played them his early Justin Bieber demo, ‘Where Are Ü Now’. “They were on their BlackBerrys like, ‘Justin Bieber, hmmm interesting,’” he recalled. The 2015 track later hit No. 1 on the charts.
The full interview is available in the Summer 2026 issue of 032c, on sale via the official 032c site. It is a rare direct look at Skrillex‘s mindset going into his post-Atlantic independent era.
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