Lorin Ashton's underground bass music project, Bassnectar, is way ahead of it's projected career trajectory in 2015. Things are booming, and it's hard to keep up. After wrapping up Summet Set Music Festival this weekend, Bassnectar gave another great interview with the Star Tribune (read it here in full) which continues to dive into his craft and the state of electronic music – which he tends to fight with one eye open.
When asked about his dislike of the term “EDM,” Ashton confessed that he mainly hated the terminology that has become of the industry which he thrives.
“What does that even mean anymore?” he asked.
It's true, all forms of music are electronic now. Ashton even talked about different forms of music using all-electronic technology these days, even referencing country act Kenny Chesney.
“I don’t even view ‘electronic music’ as a thing anymore. That’s like saying, ‘An electronic day.’ The world is electronic. All music is electronic these days, unless it’s someone playing an acoustic guitar on a porch. Kenny Chesney’s music is electronic, and Jay Z’s, Justin Bieber’s. It’s all made using electronic equipment. It’s consumed using electronic machines.”
Summer Set is the type of venue Ashton grew up going to… sort of. The stages are isolated to the point where you can purely focus on the music playing and get lost in an experience. Despite having Deadmau5 and a number of electronic headliners, Summer Set also had a lineup that includes plenty of rock bands and hip-hop artists. After talking about his love for playing during a storm last year, he also discussed the ebbs and flows of genres over time.
“Dubstep obviously is already a thing of the past. This new wave of shoegazer, hipster brand of dance music that’s popular this year — which I think is boring as hell — will soon be a thing of the past. New terms and styles will emerge. But the broader brand of electronically enhanced dance music — which I just think of in my heart as just music — will always have an audience.”
With such an explosive rise over the past few years, he seemed to express frustration when talking about the past and how electronic music “was very much an underground thing, which is what attracted me to it. I saw it as a music for the rejects and the freaks. The music then was like a flag you could wave.”
This is the first year that Bassnectar has not formally toured in 13 years. He acknowledged how cool it's been to see familiar faces at his specifically targeted venues this year.
“That’s where I really started noticing I was seeing some of the same people 13 shows in a row,” he said. “People in the middle of the country don’t seem to think much of it. A kid from Nebraska will drive to a show in Texas, or a fan from Michigan won’t think twice about coming to Minnesota.”
Read the full interview here.
