00:04I never really had any like before show rituals per se, but I definitely do like to stretch
00:09before my shows. I think that's just like a good thing to do to get you warmed up,
00:15especially because I get like butterflies and nervous a lot.
00:25In Phoenix, I was young when I got into the music scene, so I was really into raves and
00:30that whole culture. As I grew up, I got more into the club scene and doing like weeklies
00:35like in downtown Phoenix. I always knew I wanted to create something really big and I wanted
00:41to bring people together and I wanted to create moments and experiences. I never dreamt really
00:48of being in front of huge crowds performing. I think I always kind of thrived in dark corners.
01:14Right now, we are in the Ausla Studios. This is where I work most of the time when I'm in
01:19town. Mija was a nickname that my ex-boyfriend gave to me. I started going by Mija about two
01:26months before I got invited to Bonnaroo, which is kind of where my career took off. And I
01:31ended up going back to back with Skrillex at Bonnaroo.
01:35Yo, my name is Skrillex. This is my girl Mija. We're going back to back right now. Y'all
01:40feel a good sunrise crew. I wasn't even expecting to play that morning and everything kind of
01:48just came together the way the universe tends to do it. As soon as everything finished and
01:53like it was the next day and I was like, did that really happen? That's like as much time
01:58as you can possibly spend thinking about it before you have to be like, okay, how am I going
02:01to get back on this festival stage again? And so I kind of came back from Bonnaroo to discover
02:07that my boyfriend had cheated on me. And it was very bittersweet instead of being really
02:12upset about it, which I mean I was inevitably, but I decided to take the name and just move
02:18over the world. At first, it was really hard to have my parents understand that because
02:27all they saw was me dropping out of college, not doing like the typical thing that you're
02:30supposed to do when you leave high school. And I was a really terrible angsty child. Like
02:37it made sense that we didn't get along. But that was kind of the family dynamic. I wouldn't
02:43say there was anyone there particularly that was influencing me to be part of this world.
02:47I kind of had to jump into it and tell them to trust me. Do you still like me after
02:55I do
02:55this? And then once I saw like success coming, now there's such huge influences and like very
03:01supportive. But once I kind of got that experience, I realized that there's something
03:05it's a completely different level that I haven't even thought of. I didn't even know existed.
03:09In that sense, I always wanted to prove myself that I was like worthy of like being where I was.
03:18I'm my own biggest competitor.
03:26Once I became a little bit more successful, you really see like the true sides of people,
03:32people that actually care about you versus people that didn't care about you before that
03:37really care about you now or like vice versa. I definitely lost like a significant amount
03:44of friends that I had from before. It was really confusing at first. I think maybe distance,
03:52I think maybe just change. People aren't as comfortable as change as others are. But I mean,
03:59I was just trying to like live and be happy. I never felt that it was any different being a
04:05woman
04:05than a male in electronic music until I started producing.
04:12Thing is like once you start producing as a female, people are skeptical. Like, did she really
04:17actually make that track? Is she actually doing this? Or is someone else ghost producing for her?
04:23Or is someone else making her set list for her? There's always going to be someone on the internet
04:28that's going to like try to shut you down. If you focus on what other people think of you anyways,
04:32it never ends up being good because you only focus on the bad things. No one ever focuses on the
04:37good
04:37things. But I mean, as long as you believe in yourself and you have the confidence and you
04:41just ignore those people and only fuck with people that are at the same level as you, then I think
04:46you're fine. Thank you guys for being out here. We love you so much.
05:25I'm just trying to be good to other people and change the world for the better and create music
05:29that will help influence that. I'm just trying to be myself at the end of the day.
05:37So that's what I'm trying to illustrate in my music.
