Splendid: Your remix career is great, in that you're remixing such a diverse group of artists. I want to ask you a little about a few remixes and how they came about. First of all, Peaches.

Kid 606: Their label asked me 'cause I'm cool.

Splendid: Depeche Mode.

Kid 606: Their label asked me 'cause I'm hella cool.

Splendid: Do potential "clients" (or whatever you want to call them) let you do what you want when remixing their music (i.e. do they want you to sound "like yourself")?

Kid 606: It's always different. I'd say I get about 50/50 requests where people ask me to do a certain thing versus people just wanting me to do whatever. I like both. It's funny, 'cause it's always the smaller people or my friends who get all editorial and give me direction, whereas with most bigger stuff they just want me to do what I want.

Splendid: Are there any you've had to turn down for integrity reasons? Any you had to turn down that you kick yourself over now?

Kid 606: Never on integrity, but I've turned down some big money shit just cause it sucked really bad and I didn't wanna do it. Most of the time I say yes and just flake on it and then kick myself. When I realize how many big money remixes I've flaked on, it bums me out, 'cause if I took the time out of my life to do them, I'd be a lot richer. But I didnšt do them, and there's probably a reason for that.

Splendid: Collaborating is pretty difficult when you and your cohorts all have such strong opinions and make really solid music on your own -- but you do it so often. I know it's different every time, but what kind of state of mind do you have to be in work on, for instance, your former projects with Matmos and Lesser (aka Disc)?

Kid 606: We never worked much together on the actual music, mainly just on the ideas and concepts of releases. I used to be real hard to collaborate with when I was younger 'cause I took every second of sound too seriously. Now I really just worry about Kid 606 stuff and let myself be critical of that, and with collaboration just let the things happen without too much head-butting.

Splendid: When I was at school we (that is, me and, like, one other guy) fought pretty hard to smear the idea that certain types of music belong in certain venues. Is one of your intentions to change, maybe not the way people think about music, but their preconceived notions of genres?

Kid 606: To some degree, I think genres are good for helping to sell records, but other than that I get kind of depressed with the extent to which people give weight to the placement or misplacement of musicians within genre cages.

Splendid: I know a few people in academia, big-time electroacoustic guys who think you're the next Stockhausen (minus the Germanic heritage and snobby attitude, but heavy on the innovation). Does this idea frighten you?

Kid 606: Wowza, it just makes me blush. I'm mainly honored that people assume or expect me to keep making music as long as someone like Stockhausen, because that is the biggest goal I hope to achieve in my life: to never run out of steam and always lead a life that is consistently inspiring and forces me to make music and not just be a spectator. This is why never try to work on music unless I'm super inspired and really want to, which is easy, because I do enough other things in my life that when I get a chance to sit down and work on music, it's just like, "Yay" -- a mixture of extreme excitement and a wild outpouring of energy.

Splendid: Do you still get offers to do raves with hippy flower girls on the fliers?

Kid 606: Sometimes, though hippy flower girls aren't as common with rave flyers as wildly annoying crazy 3D vector graphics.

Splendid: I haven't kept up much on this, but is there any chance of a revival of Vinyl Communications?

Kid 606: Oh yeah, I just played with Titwrench in San Diego and they were awesome. Bob Barley, the founder of VC, wants to do VC100 as a double 7" of Titwrench, Lesser, Men's Recovery Project and myself. Hopefully, it'll happen one day.

Splendid: Do you pursue many artists for the label these days, or is it more a listen-to-the hundreds-of-demos thing? Do you do all that yourself, or just pop in the demo at a party and see how everyone reacts?

Kid 606: I never have time to listen to most demos; that's not how I prefer to find musicians, and it's too time consuming anyway. The best way for me to get into someone is to see them live or meet them and get along with them.

Splendid: This is definitely not a crime, but do you think you're drawn to artists just because they're different?

Kid 606: Absolutely, and it's only a crime when people don't have a similar appreciation for things that are new and different. I try to assume most everyone listens to some sort of pop music, whether current or something they grew up with, or just occasionally hear on the radio. I'm more interested in producing and releasing stuff that is a companion, not a replacement, for people's current musical diet.

Splendid: Rjyan (Kidwell, Cex) mentions that you have an uncanny ability to spot a great artist five albums before he breaks. What's your voodoo on that? Or do you think you just get lucky?

Kid 606: I don't think it's luck at all. I just don't think I'm as biased as most people.

Splendid: It recently became really apparent to me that the "mainstream" is the new underground. I would rather...um...listen to Justin Timberlake then anything I hear on alt-rock stations, including lots of "indie" stuff. There, I said it. When I hear (Tigerbeat6 bands) Gold Chains, Numbers and The Bug, I think that maybe you've figured out the same thing. Am I way off here?

Kid 606: Nope.

Splendid: I find it really noble how you respect the motives and integrity of the bands on Tigerbeat6. However, allowing all the artists to do whatever they want seems sort of anti-business and contrary to what it would take to run a label and stay afloat, financially. How do you stay afloat?

Kid 606: If there is only one label trying to be original and letting artists do whatever they want for the most part, then I think there is room in the world for that label, and I would like it to be us. Let's be honest -- we don't have much competition.

Splendid: As I shopped at the mall a few weeks ago, I got a sneaking suspicion that hip-hop is becoming what "punk rock" became a few years ago: an homogenized template used as a backdrop to sell Mountain Dew. What I mean is that the really interesting hip-hop with all the cool noises and experimental textures plays on Muzak stations in every clothing store. What was once so exciting that "people are finally getting what I've been raving about" turns into "damn, not another K-OS video" (which I'm still not sick of, by the way". What's your view on hip-hop today?

Kid 606: I don't really think about it. It's one amazingly hot tune for every dozen generic ones, which is a pretty awesome average for mainstream radio-friendly music. I never gave the generic stuff much weight, so I never really got burnt out on it like a bunch of people I know.

Splendid: Do you think, in the digital age, we're capable of a Renaissance in hip-hop, going back to doing it Grandmaster Flash style (remember, I'm in Salt Lake City and we're a cultural wasteland compared to Bay Area artists)?

Kid 606: Not really. It's more of a "Retro-ssance" if anything.

Splendid: Do you get resentful of a society in which (as was the case a few nights ago here in Salt Lake) someone like Cex busts his ass to play for twenty people while Mariah Carey or 50-Cent or any other heavily produced "artist" sells out 20,000 seat venues?

Kid 606: Not at all, as long as you're doing what you do to make yourself happy. That's all I care about. Mariah Carey goes insane and has a mental breakdown, which I assume is partly caused by having to sell out 20,000 seat venues. Good for her? I haven't really read enough Eastern philosophy to get on a soapbox, but I honestly feel that doing anything solely for money and fame is evil, and not worth it in the long run.

Splendid: I know Rolling Stone and MTV say differently, but do you consider your work to be fairly straightforward and consumer-friendly?

Kid 606: Not really, I don't think about it much, but I'm starting to realize that when strangers ask me what kind of music I make. I usually respond with "crazy-ass stuff I can't really explain". So maybe I feel it's like that.

Splendid: How would it affect your work (music) if you woke up tomorrow to find out you had a top-ten hit with a video on heavy rotation on M2?

Kid 606: It would either turn me into a completely well-adjusted person or make me even more manic than I already am.

Splendid: Does it piss you off to go to a CD store and see your work lumped into the "electronica" section, alongside Banco de Gaio and Paul Oakenfold?

Kid 606: Not at all.

Splendid: Okay. Umm... It's a common thought that an artist must have something to say, but too many of them take this to mean that they can turn into self-important, self-absorbed assholes. You, on the other hand, don't really come across as having an agenda other than...okay, what do you think you're saying?

Kid 606: I have an epic personal agenda, but I'm not always considerate about what goes on publicly, or about spending too much time translating things for people.

Splendid: John Cage wrote in 1939, "Percussion music is revolution". What do you think of that statement?

Kid 606: Sure. Percussion music was revolution and it changed everything and it was televised and here we are now and many people are waiting for a new revolution, but I really donšt want it to happen anytime soon.

Splendid: Okay, I don't want to breach any security, but I'm curious about your live setup. You're generally running two laptops, but, if I might look over your shoulder, what are you running as far as software? How do you put it all together (feel free to geek out, we like geek-outs here)? Is a lot of what you're doing muting tracks, or are you creating things on the fly?

Kid 606: Hehe. I geeked out too much when I was young and no one was listening, and in my ripe old age I'd rather save my overworked computer processing hands for more important stuff.

Splendid: Fair enough. Do you still rely on a lot of external hardware (stuff outside of a Mac) in your studio work?

Kid 606: Yeah.

Splendid: Would you consider your live work reminiscent of a "jazz" style approach, as far as taking basic ideas that rarely repeat?

Kid 606: No, I don't.

Splendid: Okay... How did your deal with Native Instruments surface? Do they have you working on patches or beta testing products as part of your endorsement, or do you just get the kickbacks? Do you create your own patches?

Kid 606: They're nice guys and they give me free software sometimes, and I use some of it; I'm really not much of a programmer at all.

Splendid: But when I listen to your stuff, I'm not hearing any of the program presets. You must be a good tweaker. I listened to an interview online where you said you refuse to sit down for a few months, write an album, put it out, sit down for a few months, write an album, etcetera. What is the new material on Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You about? What's the timeframe?

Kid 606: It spans about three years worth of material, with some stuff on it from even earlier, like pre-Down With the Scene, even. I don't feel that a piece of music always has to reference the time in which it was made, and I tend to most like the stuff that doesn't.

Splendid: I know you release various "types" of your work on several different labels. Do you write with an audience (label and/or fans) in mind? How has that changed during your career?

Kid 606: No, I don't write with any of that stuff in mind, but I sure as hell package it up with that kind of forethought.

Splendid: How has that changed during the course of your career?

Kid 606: I release less stuff and release it slower in the hopes of giving everything its perfect outlet or framework where it'll be consumed.

Splendid: I read something a few years ago that suggested that if you go away from a piece of music you're working on, leave it unfinished, that you'll never finish it. Does this still happen? Do you find yourself going back to your hard drive, loading up ideas from a few years ago and finishing them?

Kid 606: No, I've become sentimental and find myself not wanting to finish things because I am more interested in how I would finish it at a later point than in the heat of the moment. Sometimes I am a work in progress as a person, so why can't I let my music do the same? I loathe deadlines and the need to rush things.

Splendid: So do you find yourself going back to ideas from a few years ago on your hard drive and finishing them?

Kid 606: Yeah, all the time now.

Splendid: Do you have a huge catalog of material you haven't or won't release, finished or unfinished?

Kid 606: Sure, but anything's possible.

Splendid: I know that you often write fairly personal stuff. Do you ever write something so personal that it's best just kept to yourself, or do you just smear it a little bit and never reveal what it's about?

Kid 606: Both, but more often I find myself just holding on to it, waiting for the perfect place to release it, which sadly doesn't come around.

Splendid: Do you face periods of just utter "where do I go next" and think of taking a civil service test?

Kid 606: No, more like, "Where have I gone", and that's depressing. "Where do I go next" fills me with happiness. Looking backwards doesn't do much for me.

Splendid: Do you wait for inspiration or just take the sit-down-and-work-and-it'll-come-to-me approach?

Kid 606: I don't have to wait long. I personally am not into doodling 'til I find something that sticks out, but that's probably more because of my crazy obsessive guilt over time issues. It makes me not enjoy doodling, and wants to scream rather then recite.

Splendid: About you, one writer said, "Attempting to analyze his back catalogue is like tiptoeing through a minefield". I'm not sure exactly what that means, but how do you look at your work from, say, five years ago? Does it still feel relevant, or do you not think of it in those terms?

Kid 606: I don't look at it.

Splendid: Do you spend much time trying to second-guess people? That is, do you think you run from people's attempts to label you?

Kid 606: I used to. Now I try not to read magazines or interviews or many reviews, and just don't give a shit 'cause I'd rather work a nine to five job then be a slave to my audience. This is especially true for Tigerbeat6, and is why I have to hire other people to care.

Splendid: You've played in Germany, Montréal, Spain, Japan, the Bay Area, New York, etcetera -- many of the meccas of electronic music. What audience do you think "gets" your music most?

Kid 606: Luckily, there are always a few people at every show who I think "get it most", and that's why I have to play so many damn places and why I don't have a target audience. But regrettably, since it is so far away, I find that Europe has a higher ratio of people who "get" it.

Splendid: On tour, are you able to relax or do your business duties fill your time off during the day?

Kid 606: No relaxation. Today was spent at a body shop trying to Frankenstein our van into a usable state after we got hit and run by a car at 120 mph!

Splendid: I know! I drove out for the Denver show only to find it canceled. I hope you got it working. So, do you collect anything interesting during your travels?

Kid 606: Some of the best memories of my life.