Artists spend countless hours and sleepless nights crafting sounds to be orchestrated into the perfect song. These songs get remastered and edited for events around the globe, but the reason these DJ’s and producers are able to do what they love a million times over comes down to one factor: their fans. Fans are who provide the exposure, growth, income, and feedback for every project released and remixed. Across all genres some level of performer to fanbase interaction is seen; however, this interaction is evident in abundance in the EDM scene.
My first experience came about a month after I first entered the community, after attending Wet Electric at Big Surf waterpark. The day after the event the duo Bonnie X Clyde followed me on twitter, which may seem small but it was new to me and felt surreal to be seen by such an influential group. Since then I’ve had more encounters that continue to show how much these artists care for and appreciate their fans to a level not commonly seen in popular performers.
Less than a month ago, I had one of my most shocking experiences with one of my favorite artists, Decadon. He was coming to perform at Aura in Tempe, and I had been waiting months to see him again. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend due to having work four hours after the event ended. So I took to twitter to say how upset I was to be missing a show I so desperately desired to attend. Not even an hour later Decadon saw my tweet and replied, saying he was putting me on his guest list, and messaged me privately for my information. I was overjoyed and deeply saddened because I still couldn’t attend. However, the fact that he cared about the fans experience enough to reach out and do what he could to help me attend meant the world to me. And if you were to scroll through his tweets you’d see he spent the whole week tweeting at people who couldn’t go, buying them tickets and getting them passes just so they could experience that night.
Photo from RelentlessBeats.com
I reached out to twitter to get other fans experiences and the responses I got were phenomenal. These ranged from artists buying fans tickets, to going out of their way to meet with them. A friend of mine is attending SvddenDeath this week and was scared to go alone, so she tweeted asking if anyone else was willing to go with. The artist himself personally retweeted and reached out to help her find a group so she wouldn’t be alone and would have a more comfortable experience. One story I received was from a friend at the University of Arizona saying last year Bonnie X Clyde came to perform at a fraternity on campus. After the event the duo hung back and stayed to socialize and party with the frat almost all night. The association couldn’t contain their disbelief for weeks. One of the most intriguing stories that I came across involves the husband and wife duo of ARUIS. They are well known for interacting with their fan base not only on twitter or after the shows, but during major festivals as well. You can usually catch them walking around the festival grounds just like anyone else during a festival that they are performing at. Phoenix Lights is one of those experiences that I came across where they were taking photos with a bunch of people, and even went to party with a group after the festival! The most intriguing part of this story is that they got close enough with one group that they even hosted them in their own home in Los Angeles when they went out to visit on a trip. These are the most amazing experiences and this is what I love about the EDM community.
There’s countless situations of other stories similar to these throughout all of the EDM community. This consistent interpersonal relationship between artist and fan takes the music a step deeper than a simple product. The music is the basis of the artists emotions and their desire to share this freedom of expression builds a bond between them and the listeners that transcends the common appreciation of music.
