EDM has come to Music City in a big, big way. If you caught
last night's episodeof
the ABC series Nashville, you heard some heavily accented up-and-comers speaking of The Bluebird like it's Mecca and telling one another they "killed it at The 5 Spot," thanks to that Link Wray tone. Yes, Nashville dips its toes in the waters of rock 'n' roll ever so slightly. But will we ever see fictionalized versions of Jeremy Todd's (aka COACH) Y2K dance parties, or the KDSML Review? Will characters in the vein of Wick-It the Instigator and Dee Goodz ever make appearances? Will Nashville ever flirt with EDM and hip-hop?
Probably not. But real Nashville is indeed becoming romantically entangled with electronic dance music. For this week's cover story on With Your Friends Fest at The Lawn, I spoke with a slew of folks — from EDM fans and EDM purveyors to a dude by the name of Road Hog. I spent an hour on the phone with electronic superstars Skrillex (Sonny Moore) and Pretty Lights (Derek Vincent Smith), and we spoke about the reasons behind the EDM explosion, why people love great big events like this, what the word "dubstep" actually means, the similarities between dudes like The Avett Brothers and dudes like 12th Planet, what's special about Nashville, and electronic songs in K-Mart commercials. Follow me after the jump to see what these guys have to say for themselves.
Notes: Moore had a bit of phone trouble and didn't hop into the conversation until about 10 minutes in, and Smith was under the impression that the stage would be atop a barge of some sort — I don't believe that's the case.
