In a cluttered home studio in downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District, mere blocks from where he wrote “Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites”, the song that sold millions of copies and helped instigate one of the largest shifts in modern American music in recent memory, the galvanizing totem of a youth movement daps at a midi controller, ceaselessly cuing the same snare sound over and over for literally hours.

Despite being one of the biggest names in music, Skrillex hasn’t walked away from the ‘do-it-ourselves’ attitude he’s had since his start. "It's all about making true partnerships. I think the less you can take out of something and the more you can do yourself, it's more equal-interest. So you're not taking out big bank loans, you're betting on yourself and you can sustain everything. Maybe it takes a little longer — it's been since 2004 to get to where I am now, with the same team, the same manager. hat's how we did it. There was no rush ever to get giant checks.”