20 Questions With Subtronics: ‘I Always Say Subtronics Is a Company I Started, But I Just Turn the Knobs’

It’s 9 p.m. on a Monday when Subtronics materializes on Zoom. In the last 72 hours, the artist born Jesse Kardon played his first set on the main stage at EDC Las Vegas, bringing a crowd of roughly 80,000 on the sonic rollercoaster ride that his thunderous dubstep facilitates. The set included a very special guest: Kardon’s wife Sonya Broner, who produces music as Level Up and who appeared alongside her husband for their debut as Leveltronics.

Before the show, he wrote that his 15-year career had been leading up to this mainstage performance. Talking to Billboard 72 hours later, he still seems floored that it happened.

“It’s one of those things where it’s like, ‘As respectfully as possible, what the f— am I doing here?'” he says with a laugh, the lights of his studio behind him giving the room a pink glow while his dog, Ellie, casually wanders past.

But there’s no rest for the in-demand. After EDC, Kardon flew across the country to Alabama’s Hangout Music Festival, where he was the Sunday night (May 19) headliner on the festival’s electronic-focused stage. These sets and other forthcoming summer dates, which include sets at Electric Forest and Hard Summer, follow a 16-date spring tour that included shows at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena and Brooklyn’s massive Barclays Center. Meanwhile, the tour behind the 2023 Subtronics album Antifractals grossed $5.2 million and sold 115,000 tickets over 40 shows, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. (Boxscore also reports that the rest of Subtronics’ 2023 tour dates grossed another $4 million and sold another 71,000 tickets.)

If that sounds like a lot, consider that the producer basically did it all again this year, releasing his LP Tesseract this past February. The album is a dubstep master class, deftly maneuvering between bass as sharp as steel and softer, headier, more celestial flourishes, altogether emphasizing that the hard-hitting genre can still be cerebral. His shows behind the LP continue Thursday night (May 23) with the first of a two-night headlining run at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater.

Here, Kardon talks about his career, the schisms that exist between electronic music genres and more.

1. Where are you in the world right now, and what is the setting like?

I am home in my studio. I just got home today. Things are really calm. I’m recuperating. I’m going to quickly work on my set tonight a little bit. I’m feeling really grateful and a bit emotionally hungover from EDC, because it was such a big thing. There’s so much preparation for Red Rocks and EDC. This is literally the eye of the storm.

2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself and what was the medium?

OK Computer by Radiohead. It was a CD, and I played it on my Discman. I can’t remember if I saved up allowance money, or if I got it as a birthday gift. The second thing that comes to mind is when I was 12 or 13 and figured out Limewire. I downloaded a bunch of alternative rock stuff on the Internet, like Mars Volta and stuff like that.

3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do they think of what you do now?

My dad is actually in the music industry. He’s an independent concert promoter. Now he’s a talent buyer for various independent venues around Philadelphia. Before I was born, he was a tour manager for a band called The Hooters and would travel all over Europe. When I was born, he settled down and opened a small independent music venue called The Point where acts like Tegan & Sara played before they got big.

4. So you were raised in music?

I was raised in music for sure, but he works with primarily folk music and Americana. My mom has always had various office jobs. The longest one I remember was an outpatient clinic for young children with mental and physical disabilities. She worked as the main office manager in a small private practice. They’re super supportive. When I turned 5, my dad was like, “OK, which instrument do you want to play?” I play drums, and that was the forefront of my life until I started making music electronically.

5. Maybe there’s no such thing, but what is a typical day for you?

It’s so interesting. I have two extremely different lifestyles, but they both repeat exactly the same. Monday through Thursday when I’m home, I wake up around 12, have coffee, brush my teeth, shower, walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes, shower, have breakfast with my wife and I always do sourdough and egg over medium with pesto and guac with cauliflower hash browns. We walk our dog, and then I sit down to start working on music at probably 2 or 3 and work on music the entire day. Normally around 5 or 6, we feed and walk [our dog] Ellie. Around 11 or 12, we’ll be like “OK, let’s do dinner.” Then normally, we’ll either watch a movie, or if it’s really stressful, get back to work on music for a little bit. Then we just shower and go to bed. It’s pretty much exactly that day, every single day.

6. Then what’s it like when you’re on the road?

On the road, I think it’s probably the pretty standard DJ cycle of wake up in hotel, go to airport, hopefully no layovers, get to next city, get to next hotel, obsess over set, overthink random transitions and details that no one’s going to notice. Go to the site, play Steam Deck in the greenroom until I go to the stage, play the stage, then go back to the hotel, go to sleep and rinse and repeat.

7. How do you make part of the job sustainable for yourself?

One of the big things is that I’m not much of a partier. I’ve never really been a party kid. I’m definitely more a nerdy individual. I like to play video games and be on the Internet. More recently, I’ve been learning to clock out, so to speak. To be like, “This is my identity, but I should clock out and resume normal human life.”

8. You’ve previously mentioned being anxious. How do you manage your anxiety?

I actually started therapy a few months ago. It’s ironic, because I’ve been in and out of therapy and stuff like it for my entire life, for anxiety. So that, breathing exercises, reassurance. My wife is my rock. We have a group chat with another DJ and his partner. We vent constantly and are just petty in there. So venting frequently, breathing exercises, food, creature comforts, getting enough rest and recognizing when the voices in my head are being really mean. I realized, “Oh my god, I can be super mean to myself and not even realize it.” That’s so unnecessary. So various different exercises where I go through and remind myself that things are good, and that I’ve worked hard. But I think more than anything it’s probably just talking to my wife, Sonia, and creature comforts like nicotine, caffeine and marijuana.

8. You and your wife performed together last weekend at EDC as Leveltronics. How do you successfully launch a project like that with your partner?

It definitely came organically, because we both work on music all day, every day and our studios are next to each other. We both got offstage and were blown away at how easy and awesome it was.

[We both have] a really intense, involved, busy and complicated way of mixing. So every time either of us has ever done a back to back, we struggle. It’s hard. I have so many back to back memories where, because I mix in this particular way, it’s really challenging. The whole time I’m overthinking and I’m watching what they’re doing like, “Oh, they just missed that cue.” So being able to DJ with someone who does the exact same thing was like mixing in the mirror. It was so easy and so effortless. We kept having flashbacks to all the difficult back to backs and how amazing this one was.

9. Ahead of your EDC set you wrote on Instagram that your 15-year career has been leading up to that moment. What did playing the main stage at that festival mean to you?

It’s so hard to wrap my head around it, but it’s really validating, and it’s really self-affirming, and it’s unbelievably surreal. It is so beyond my wildest dreams. When I first downloaded Ableton, I just wanted to get good at making weird, niche music in a not popular genre I was interested in. I had no intention of being an artist in that genre, let alone a professional artist, let alone successful enough to play shows, let alone headline the biggest one. I say this a lot, but it’s one of those things where it’s like, “As respectfully as possible, what the f— am I doing here?” I’m floored with gratitude, flooded with emotion. I just can’t believe it.

10. What was going through your head on that stage playing for a crowd that size?

I’m honestly grateful that it’s taken this long to get there, because I felt experienced and seasoned enough that as soon as I was mixing, I just switched into the mode. There were a lot of moments of like, “Holy sh–, this is the big one.” But then also autopilot kicks in. … But I was definitely hit with frequent waves of, “Dude, this is main stage EDC. What the f—?”

11. I feel like bass music is still often positioned as underground. As you’re saying, you’re playing the main stage at EDC and going on these massive tours that sell a lot of tickets and make a lot of money. This is not a small thing. What’s your take on how bass music is positioned in dance music culture?

It’s really interesting, because when you’re really in it and the tunnel vision is going, dubstep feels like it can be massive. We have Lost Lands and Seven Lions playing Ultra main stage and there’s dubstep on the EDC main stage. I’m playing riddim edits in front of 80,000 people. Like what?

So it feels massive, but then there’s perspective shifters. I’ll never forget when I first went to Lollapalooza and saw a crowd of a major pop star and the scale that’s on. Or watching the Billie Eilish documentary and seeing the grandness of that and how massive it is. I’ve had many times where my perspective has been changed, and I’m like, “We really ain’t sh–.” This is niche, small stuff for sure. It almost feels like there’s a responsibility to push dubstep, because we’re nearing the ceiling of how far dubstep has gone, and we want to push it farther.

12. How much bigger do you think it can get?

It’s so interesting, because at the same time, you see the term “big EDM” on Twitter, where there’s been this internal schism, where people think the agency artists that play the big festivals have become the corporate mainstream thing, and then there’s this underground resurgence thing. But [look at it more broadly] and what is labeled as “big EDM” is still more underdog and underground. Compared to the rest of EDM as a whole, bass music is tiny in the grand scheme. And then dance music compared to all of music is tiny.

13. Say more about that.

It’s really easy for perspective to warp on how big or small stuff really is. But what I definitely remind myself of is that I’m unbelievably lucky to have made a career in dubstep. I’m so excited for how big it has gotten and how many fans there are, but in the grand scheme it’s definitely a niche. To that end, as someone who had under 10,000 followers for the longest time, I feel a tremendous responsibility to put on as many small, underground artists as I can possibly help support.

14. You mentioned the schisms within the electronic scene itself, and it’s such a broad world and spectrum of sound, so it often feels ridiculous to even compare things that are going on under the broad umbrella term. But then you have all of these different types of electronic artists playing under a banner like EDC or some such festival, so there’s obviously major connective tissue. Do you experience the fractured-ness or a sort of separateness between the genres?

What’s interesting is that in real life, no. Barely. What’s so surprising when you put your phone down is how much love there is between genres. I believe there’s good examples of good music in every single genre and there’s great examples of terrible music in every single genre. So I love everything, and I think a lot of our fans love everything and a lot of other genre fans love everything.

We noticed this when we were working with John Summit and other artists that do something completely different, but such a large percentage of both of our fanbases are really excited to see a crossover, because they really like both. So in real life, there’s so much more overlap than I ever could have imagined. I think social media is just oftentimes the Yelp of the world, where if anyone has complaints, they’re going to go to social media with those complaints. So that’s where that schism is put on display.

15. It often seems like people don’t really know what’s actually happening in the genre they’re rejecting. They just reject it on the principle. Does that feel true to you?

That’s something I definitely grew out of as I got older and more mature. But when your personality is based around an underground grassroots movement, if you see something coming in that gives you the sense of it being threatened and you don’t want to see it change, it’s extremely valid. There are instances where gatekeeping makes sense in my head, because people don’t want to see something capitalism’d to death. They don’t want to see a bunch of businesspeople come in and extract authentic art for all the money they can and suck out of it for. That’s real. That’s valid.

But I think there’s almost a witch-hunt atmosphere where people see something get popular and all of a sudden their preferences and artistic tastes don’t necessarily overlap as much. Then they’re like, “Oh, this is corporate nonsense now, and I hate it.” I think people are trying to protect stuff they hold dear, and they might be coming from a place of being totally valid, but then sometimes the wrong stuff gets caught in the crosshairs.

17. You’re returning to Red Rocks this week. That venue is such a rite of passage for artists, especially electronic artists. What are your strongest memories of that place?

The first time I played there, I definitely cried mid-set. There is absolutely a magic to it. My favorite memories are probably the big crowd responses and the excitement of getting the sold-out trophy and cutting the cake with the little character of me on it that they give you backstage.

18. What is the best business decision you’ve ever made?

Years ago, I had a manager who is now sober and who has hit me up and sent his best wishes. I wish him the best. But at the time, he was struggling with addiction, so things were not going well professionally. I wasn’t really doing anything on any legitimate scale yet, so I was super naive and had no idea how anything was supposed to work or be going.

I had this agent, Eric Silver, that came to me like, “Hey, your manager is hitting you up at 5 in the morning asking you to PayPal him. I’m pretty sure he’s doing drugs. I’m starting a management thing. Do you want me to be your manager?” I’m a conflict avoider, and I’m a huge pushover, so it was really tough, but I had to let go of my previous manager and go with Eric Silver, and then later Elise Young, and then later Brandon Garber. They’re the greatest team ever. They’re extreme geniuses. I always say Subtronics is a company I started, but I just turn the knobs and play the sets.

19. Who’s been your greatest mentor and what’s the best advice they’ve given you?

Longest term would be my dad. I always get paranoid when I tell people my dad is in the music industry, that they’ll think there’s nepotism there. I always try and reiterate that he’s a small, independent promoter. But all of the best advice I’ve gotten has been from him. Just him reminding me of stuff like success in the music industry is about relationships and being a nice, friendly person who people want to work with. These are things I’ve lived my life by and I believe are a huge reason why we’ve been able to be as successful as we have been.

20. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?

Be patient, keep working hard, start eating better now. A big reason why you’re so anxious all the time is because you’re putting garbage food into your body. Your brain makes serotonin based off the nutrients you feed into it, so you’ll feel better emotionally if you start getting more physically active and if you start eating better food, because you’re miserable. So just hang in there and keep working hard, because it will get better.