The Glitch Mob, the revolutionary EDM trio from Los Angeles, play in Reno on Thursday, May 24, in support of its third studio album, “See Without Eyes,” which is No. 1 on the Billboard charts. After the release of its previous album in 2014, The Glitch Mob performed on an elaborate light and instrumental set called Blade. In advance of this show, which will be performed on Blade 2.0, we spoke with member Josh Mayer, aka Ooah.
Tahoe Onstage: You keep returning to Reno. You must love it here.
Ooah (Josh Mayer): There’s always been a really great response to our weird music thing. We are longtime Burning Man goers, so in a sense, by being so close to it, it’s a little bit like a tiny blip of the Burning Man culture. It’s always felt like a really comfortable and accepting place to play music.
Can you describe the conceptualization and development of your Blade 2.0 stage?
Blade 2.0 is essentially an updated version of Blade 1.0. There is a completely new programed light show from Martin Phillips, who’ve we worked closely with over the last handful of years, and there’s just a lot more of a performance aspect of the music and how much three of us can actually perform our music live with the technology at hand. It’s a huge endeavor, but we enjoy it immensely. It’s part of the whole journey.
How do Dell Computers contribute to the high level technological artistry?
The Dell team come to us with support and excitement in wanting to really push the boundaries alongside as far as what we can do with their computers and their test screens. It felt like a very organic, symbiotic relationship. We’re fully on board with them and their computers. They’re running some of the strongest computers that you can get to date.
You rewarded your fans by uploading in its entirety the new album, “See Without Eyes.” It must be satisfying to see that is No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Album charts.’
There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears that we put into this record. We like to always wear our hearts on our sleeves and make music that feels completely authentic to us and our process. We don’t ever use music as a device to gain numbers or charts or anything like that. We’re happy when it does. We’re very grateful for it, but that’s never the intention behind any of it. We really just use the music in the writing process to tell our story and to connect with people in ways that music does organically and naturally on its own.
The floating journey of “See Without Eyes” is easy to connect to. What was its inspiration?
There are many stories and tales throughout each song. But we also leave a lot of that up to the listener to kind of paint their own picture and tell their own tales of what resonates with them. There’s something about music that is kind of a magical, intangible thing that floats around in the universe. When people hear it and can grab onto it and find inspiration, meaning or healing, that’s all we can ask for.
-Tim Parsons
