Diplo Quotes

I still listen to a lot of the classics from Bob Dylan and John Martin, but I love electronic music as well. I'm a big fan of an Australian DJ and producer called Flume, who I think is incredible. He should be more successful in the U.K.!

I'd been DJ-ing in these clubs in N.Y. and I hated everything that was coming out. So I decided I would make it myself. People were making mash-ups or remixes, but I was extra bored, so I actually started remaking these records from scratch.

I love music, and I loved dance music immediately. So I bought some equipment and started making my own. When I started this, I didn't say, 'okay I'm going to do this step and then this step' to become popular. I just created music that I loved.

I started as a rave promoter when I was 17 years old; then I started DJing at 19.

I was a drum 'n' bass DJ at first but not any one of note.

I first was introduced to really, I guess, underground electronic music when I was in middle school.

I was always interested in mixing experimentation with pop music, and Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream - we were all doing it at the same time, just very isolated from each other, all in our different cellars, in different worlds, without the Internet - underground in every sense.

I know a lot of grime artists started off on pirate radio, but I missed that era; I was way too young.

I put some songs on the Internet back in 2009 - that's kind of how everything started with Washed Out. I had never really planned on being in a band or anything like that. It was kind of a hobby I did on my own, just recording music.

I love Deadmau5 as a producer, as a person. He's super interesting. He's very funny to follow on social media. But as a producer, he gets every single credit I can give him. He's nuts.

It all started with social media, building a fan base via Tumblr and YouTube, doing covers, and releasing a project with original music. Labels started to peel interest then. It was around the same time I was applying for college.

In a way, the traditional album is no longer as important as it used to be. But at the same time, I don't want to be the kind of artist who just releases one song after another.

With a Grammy, if you're releasing your record with a major label, you have a chance with any record. You also have a very long shot with every record.

The music industry the last 120 years has been insane. It's just continual chaos. So it's not unusual that something like the Internet comes around, but as one door closes another one opens, and that certainly is the case where now, artists can have a lot of control over how they display to the world, all at once, their new record.

It seemed record companies wanted bands to be creative because they didn't know how to manufacture underground music. We could do our own thing and go at our own pace. But that changed when major labels started wanting bands that would sell 7 million records.

I used to DJ in Atlanta, and that's how I kind of got into the music industry.

I really had no aspirations for becoming a DJ, and now I find myself having to campaign to be in the DJ Top 100.

Success happened for me when I dropped my first major label album for Def Jam, 'Live From The Underground.'

The DJ thing is just a way for me to perform my songs in public. It put me on the map, and a lot of people discovered me because of my DJing and later found out that I made beats.

Every dollar I made from DJing, I put into my videos, promotion - everything.

I'm not a DJ, I'm not a scenester.

I don't really know the logistics of a Soundcloud rapper.

I kind of liked the idea of filming musicians. I could like a musician and know, at the same time, maybe nobody else maybe liked them much or appreciated them.

Whether I'm on a major or an indie, I don't think this is important, but at the same time I do.

EDM is, like... Event-Driven Marketing, I think, is the acronym there. It reminds me a lot of disco. That had some hang-time, like, 10, 15, 17 years tops... Not too many people are forward-thinking about electronic music. They're just kinda like, 'Now, now, now - do it, do it.'