Skrillex

Los Angeles beginnings and From First to Last

Sonny John Moore was born on January 15, 1988, in Los Angeles. He spent early childhood in the Highland Park neighborhood of Northeast Los Angeles and in San Francisco before the family returned to Northeast Los Angeles when he was about twelve. As a young teenager he went to punk shows in East and South Los Angeles and later to electro club raves in Silver Lake and Echo Park, exposures that shaped his later taste for both live-band intensity and club-scale sound.

In 2004 Moore contacted From First to Last guitarist Matt Good about playing on the band's debut album. After flying to Georgia he was persuaded to sing instead, and Epitaph Records released Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Body Count that June. A second album, Heroine, followed in 2006 with producer Ross Robinson, and the band toured heavily, including the Vans Warped Tour. In 2007 Moore left the group to pursue a solo career.

Solo reset and the birth of Skrillex

Working as Sonny Moore, he posted demos on MySpace, played his first solo show in April 2007, and toured with a full band. An Alternative Press tour in 2008 and the digital EP Gypsyhook in 2009 followed, and he planned a debut album titled Bells with producer Noah Shain. He later set the project aside, saying in 2010 that Bells would not be released.

Meanwhile, in 2008 he began producing and performing at Los Angeles clubs under the name Skrillex, an old AOL screen name he has said carries no special meaning. On June 7, 2010, he released My Name Is Skrillex as a free download, then followed it with the Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites EP. The aggressive, vocal-chop-heavy style those records codified, often labelled brostep, set the template for his early solo career and drew both packed tours and criticism from dance-music purists, a dynamic he later acknowledged by telling the Recording Academy, "I don't like hype cluttering art."

Breakthrough years, OWSLA, and the first Grammys

Skrillex's 2011 output was relentless: the More Monsters and Sprites EP, the Project Blue Book Tour with Porter Robinson, remixes and soundtrack contributions, and the Bangarang EP, unveiled that December for a Beatport release. In August 2011 he announced OWSLA, his own label, whose early roster included KOAN Sound, Porter Robinson, Alvin Risk and the M Machine. He closed the year as a central figure in the American electronic surge, even as purists questioned his bruising take on dubstep.

At the 54th Grammy Awards in February 2012 he took home Best Dance Recording for Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, Best Dance/Electronic Album for the same EP, and Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for Cinema (Skrillex Remix), while also being nominated for Best New Artist. That same year he formed Dog Blood with Boys Noize, contributed music to Wreck-It Ralph and Far Cry 3, and co-scored Spring Breakers with Cliff Martinez, extending his reach far beyond the club.

Recess, Jack Ü, and the pop crossover

Moore's debut studio album as Skrillex, Recess, arrived on March 18, 2014, after an app-based rollout hid eleven new songs behind a countdown; it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. The record opened with All Is Fair in Love and Brostep, a wink at critics, and featured the Ragga Twins among its guests.

His side project Jack Ü with Diplo, first unveiled at the 2013 Mad Decent Block Party, released its album in 2015 with the single Where Are Ü Now featuring Justin Bieber, which became his first Billboard Hot 100 top-10 hit, peaking at No. 8. The partnership fed his work on Bieber's Purpose era, including the single Sorry; in May 2016 Casey Dienel of White Hinterland sued Bieber and Skrillex, alleging her vocal loop was used without permission. Jack Ü's album won Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 58th Grammy Awards.

Studio partnerships and a widening range

Between 2016 and 2022 Moore kept a wide collaboration schedule: composing and arranging 4Minute's Hate, reuniting with From First to Last for the single Make War and a surprise Emo Nite set in 2017, producing and mixing Incubus's album 8, performing with Yoshiki at Fuji Rock in 2018, and releasing tracks with artists from Habstrakt and Poo Bear to Vindata and Wale. With Poo Bear and Hikaru Utada he collaborated on Face My Fears, the Kingdom Hearts III opening theme released in January 2019, and issued the two-track Show Tracks EP that July.

Through 2021 and 2022 he returned with singles including Butterflies with Four Tet and Starrah, In da Getto with J Balvin, and Don't Go with Justin Bieber and Don Toliver, after playing his first US solo set since the pandemic began at Avant Gardner in Brooklyn in October 2021. Those singles set up the double-album return that followed.

The 2023 return, a ninth Grammy, and the Soma era

In January 2023 Moore announced Rumble, a single with Fred again.. and Flowdan, then released Quest for Fire on February 17 and, less than two days later, Don't Get Too Close during a Madison Square Garden headline show with Four Tet and Fred again.. that sold out in minutes. The Guardian's Alexis Petridis called the run alternately exhilarating, frustrating and a little exhausting, praising the menace of Rumble while finding the fifteen-track sprawl restless.

Rumble went on to win Best Dance/Electronic Recording at the 66th Grammy Awards in 2024, Moore's ninth career win, with Quest For Fire also nominated for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album. He kept collaborating, releasing Taka with Ahadadream and Priya Ragu and Push with Taichu and Hamdi, and surprise-released Fuck U Skrillex You Think Ur Andy Warhol but Ur Not!! <3 on April 1, 2025, a 36-track collection assembled like a megamix.

In 2026 he received two further Grammy nominations, for the single VOLTAGE and for that 2025 album, debuted the Contra event platform at Berlin's Kraftwerk on May 30-31 with more than 70 artists, and released Soma, his fifth studio album, on June 5. Featuring guests from ISOxo and Young Miko to Feid and Chris Lake, Soma consolidates the global, genre-fluid approach of his recent work. He is billed for October 2026 festival dates including Austin City Limits and Goldenvoice's Head Trip on the Coachella grounds.