Electronic-music pioneers Joel Zimmerman and Richie Hawtin spoke before a capacity crowd at the Austin Convention Center in their “Talk. Techno. Technologu.” seminar, delivering a pointed message:  Today’s electronic dance music suffers from the pursuit of commercial success and the ease with which the music can be made. Better known as Deadmau5 and Plastikman, respectively, Zimmerman and Hawtin agreed many of today’s EDM musicians have developed an instinct to copy rather than create.  The irony, they said, is that there’s a vast array of software available to create new sounds, but artists are following a narrow path while using them. .  They reminisced about the early days of making electronic music on equipment picked up at pawnshops.

“Probably how we first bonded was we’re two kids — or we were two kids — who found a love of technology and communicating through technology … that took us to a place where we never imagined we’d be today,” offered Hawtin. “It’s probably because we’re both geeks. We feel pretty cool with computers rather than people sometimes.”  as reported by The Toronto Star.

 

On the modern music production: 

Joel: ”It’s so cool today that people can just download demos [of production software] and try things out so easily”

Richie: “It’s great that it’s so easy – but is it better?”

On performing live:

Richie: “Do the complexities of a live performance weigh you down sometimes?”

Joel: ”There are the four chin-strokers in the back that care about everything, and then there are the other 98% that wish to remain agnostic and be in the moment. [...] We are the only people that care, everyone else is more interested in seeing the show.”

On the monotony of DJ technology: 

Joel:I have considered the possibility of having two studio setups and treating them like two CDJs. Homeboy wants to play Levels, let him play it. But does he have a 32-part stem file of it? [...] But then you are one man banding it again..

Rich: Wouldn’t it be good if we could have a new format? An 8-channel multi-file that we could all be playing with? As DJs we are a little handcuffed creatively.

The availability of new technologies, and the pace at which they arrive, can be overwhelming, they agreed.

“What do you lose when everything is easy and accessible?” Hawtin asked.  “There’s very little time to practice.”

“I have to take crash courses on all these things that come out,” Zimmerman added.

Now on hiatus, Zimmerman said his time away from electronic music opened his mind to the possibility of new modes of music making.  Referencing his fiancé Kat Von D, he said, “One good thing that came out of me disappearing for awhile and living with Kat, she’s a very organic musician.  No technology of any kind.  It was nice to get my head out of the over-complication of the studio.”

“I’ve always aspired to be a lot more underground and less big room sound.   I listen to techno, to the dubby old stuff, your stuff,” he said, nodding toward Hawtin.  “It’s nice to know I can break out of a mousehead.”

Hawtin pointed to the dilemma Zimmerman faces as a global EDM brand.  “You’re the number-one gatekeeper in electronic music.  It’s your responsibility to open the door as wide as possible.”

Zimmerman allowed that his image can be a burden.  Five year olds like Deadmau5, he said, perhaps more so because of the brand than the music. Without the mousehead, he conceded, young listeners might not be interested. Hawtin, in turn, urged Zimmerman to use his Deadmau5 notoriety to lead the kids and the new-gen dance-music fans down the rabbit hole.

Because today’s EDM artists want commercial success, they conform to the market’s tastes.  If they don’t, the audience will move on to someone who will. “My first record came out in 1990,” Hawtin said.  “I had to slow burn.  I don’t know if it’s as easy for the new artists to stay in control.”

On the forumla of pop music: 

Joel: “The songs sound the same,” said Zimmerman, calling it “cookie-cutter stuff.” “I go to Pinkberry a lot – and they have a rather interesting playlist. You hear one song, and then you hear another one just like it by another dude. I am actually shocked that the record labels don’t just go home and make the music on their own! Cut out the middle man!”

“There’s a manual now,” Hawtin said.   “The attraction was doing something different.  I had to do my own thing.  The double-edged sword is taking a little bit of the life out of it. Maybe that’s why EDM is so big now.  It’s homogenized.”

As to the question of why two of the biggest names in electronic music today hail from within three or four hours’ drive of one another in Southern Ontario, they both had the same answer.