05 Mar Skrillex: The Man Who Redefined Bass
▶ 5:32 Reading Time
On January 15, 2026, Sonny John Moore turns 38. On his birthday, he drops an EP – unannounced. Three tracks. Almost no drums. No drop in the classical sense. The man who, in 2011, overwhelmed the world with the most aggressive bass in music history is now making music that whispers. This is the story of Skrillex. And it’s wilder than any of his drops.
The Punk Kid from Los Angeles
Before Skrillex, there was Sonny Moore – a teenager from Los Angeles who became lead vocalist of a post-hardcore band at age 16. It was called From First to Last, and Moore screamed his soul out. He recorded two albums with them: Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Bodycount and Heroine. Then he left.
What happened next changed music history. Moore withdrew, began producing electronic music, and uploaded a few tracks to MySpace in 2010 – under the name Skrillex. The EP was titled My Name Is Skrillex. And just like that, the punk singer was dead – and the bass architect was born.
Scary Monsters and Three Grammys in One Night
Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites arrived in late 2010. A single track that changed everything. Its wobble basslines were so aggressive, so uncompromising, so unlike anything previously heard in electronic music that it split an entire generation down the middle. Some hated it. Others had finally found the sound their bodies had always been searching for.
At the 2012 Grammys, Skrillex won three awards in one night: Best Dance/Electronic Album, Best Dance Recording, and Best Remixed Recording. He repeated the feat the following year. No other electronic act has ever won more Grammys. Nine in total – the latest in 2024 for the collaborative track “Rumble” with Fred Again.. and Flowdan.
Sources: Grammy.com, Billboard
OWSLA and the Empire Behind It
On August 17, 2011, Skrillex founded his own label: OWSLA. The name comes from Richard Adams’ novel Watership Down, where it denotes the ruling class in a rabbit society. No coincidence. Skrillex wanted a label that made the rules – not followed them.
OWSLA became home to producers like Valentino Khan, What So Not, Getter, and Hundred Waters. Then came Jack Ü, his project with Diplo. Their hit “Where Are Ü Now” featuring Justin Bieber won a Grammy – and proved Skrillex could do pop, not just bass. If he wanted to.
The most dangerous moment for an artist is when everyone loves their sound. That’s when they must destroy it.
2025: The Explosion
In April 2025, Skrillex released an album whose title said it all: F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! Thirty-four tracks. No clear genre. Drum and bass alongside ambient, gabber beside R&B – an outright rejection of everything fans expected from him. Streaming platforms didn’t even know which category to place it in.
It was his final release under his Atlantic Records deal – and felt like a controlled demolition. Skrillex dropped 34 tracks precisely so no one could define “his sound” anymore. Mission accomplished.
Kora: The Silence After the Storm
And then, on January 15, 2026 – the Kora EP. Three tracks. Features from Siiickbrain, Varg2™, and Eurohead. Almost no drums. Textures instead of drops. It’s the antithesis of everything Skrillex is known for. And that’s exactly why it matters.
Because it shows Skrillex understands something many producers never grasp: Your sound doesn’t belong to your fans. It belongs to you. And you’re free to burn it down anytime – and build something new from the ashes. Like the greatest albums, it’s not about what people want. It’s about what the artist needs.
OWSLA: The Label That Shaped a Scene
On August 17, 2011, Skrillex launched OWSLA, named after the warrior caste in Richard Adams’ Watership Down. The label became home to an entire generation of electronic producers. Zedd, Dillon Francis, Porter Robinson, What So Not, and Flume all released early work on OWSLA.
What made the label special? It wasn’t a dubstep label. It was an anything-goes label. Trap beside future bass, moombahton beside experimental electronica. Skrillex’s own genre-agnostic obsession mirrored the label’s philosophy. The only filter: Is it good? Is it new? Then put it out.
OWSLA also became a cultural phenomenon – its own clothing line, events, and a network extending far beyond music. For many producers who now fill stadiums, OWSLA was their first contract. Their first sync deal. Their first festival slot. Skrillex didn’t just build his own career – he built the infrastructure in which others could thrive.
Jack Ü, “Where Are Ü Now,” and the Pop Moment
In 2015, Skrillex did something no one expected: He made a pop album. Jack Ü, his project with Diplo, released an album that fused dance music and mainstream pop. Its pinnacle: “Where Are Ü Now” featuring Justin Bieber. The track won the Grammy for Best Dance Recording – and brought EDM into every playlist on the planet.
The song has a backstory. Bieber originally recorded the vocals as a slower ballad. Skrillex and Diplo took the acapella, pitched it up, laid their signature bass underneath, and transformed a melancholy ballad into an euphoric club anthem. The result sounds accidental – but it wasn’t. It was the perfect demonstration of Skrillex’s greatest strength: taking raw material and turning it into something that didn’t exist before.
What Jack Ü also revealed: Skrillex was never the dubstep bro his critics imagined. He’d always been a sampler in the broadest sense – someone who assembles something new from disparate sources: post-hardcore, dubstep, pop, trap. Genre doesn’t matter. The moment does.
2024-2026: The Quiet Return
After the 34-track behemoth F*CK U SKRILLEX… (April 2025), things went quiet. No tour. No singles. No social media blitz. Instead: club gigs. Unannounced sets in small venues – London, Tokyo, Berlin, Los Angeles. Skrillex playing for 500 people in a club is a completely different experience than Skrillex headlining a festival for 50,000.
These club gigs reveal where the journey is headed: away from stadium EDM, back to the underground; away from drops that make stadiums explode, toward beats that make basements sweat. Like Peggy Gou and KAYTRANADA, he believes the best moments happen in small rooms.
His most recent Grammy (2024, “Rumble” with Fred Again.. and Flowdan) fits the picture perfectly – a track fusing UK garage, grime, and bass music. Not a mainstream play. An underground track that won a Grammy. That’s the ideal version of Skrillex’s career: big enough to win awards, hungry enough not to care.
Skrillex didn’t invent bass. But he slammed it into the mainstream – and co-founded a genre that influenced a generation of producers. Nine Grammys, his own label, collaborations with music’s biggest names. And yet he’s still the guy spinning at 3 a.m. in a London basement – as if he had nothing to lose. That’s Skrillex. Uncompromising since 2007.
Q&A After the Show
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Header Image Source: Pexels / Ezequiel Da Silva
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