While his age may not define nineteen year old Porter Robinson, it certainly impresses. Only a year after legally being allowed to enter clubs (in Australia, at least), the producer has already signed with Skrillex’s label OWSLA, released his debut EP Spitfire and toured alongside Tiesto, Deadmau5 and David Guetta.

He’s also proven opinionated. Last week, we published an excerpt of our interview with Robinson that set off one hell of a dubstep v brostep debate in its wake. But of course, that’s not all we spoke to Porter about, and nor is it all he offered an opinion on. Just over a week out from the Future Music Festival tour kicking off, we also got the genre-bender’s take on the dance music boom, the newly-accessible nature of production and the breakdown of barriers for new artists – all in the space of fifteen minutes.

So, big day for Skrillex at the Grammy’s yesterday. Are you surprised he took home so many awards?
To be honest, yes. I’m totally thrilled that he has and I think even that he got the nominations was a sufficient enough landmark for dance music. I wasn’t confident that the Grammy voters would be progressive enough to recognise how incredible his accomplishments were this year, but I’m thrilled that they did. And three is just inconceivable, I’m so happy for him.

What’s it like working with Skrillex and being signed to his label?
Skrillex is awesome, man, he is so musical. I think there’s a lot of people who own labels and try to be discerning in a way that sort of disrespects the integrity of artists that they’ve signed, but Skrillex extends so much faith to the music of the people he’s signed. I think a lot of the people on his label, like for example me and Zedd, we tend to be haters. But he’ll show us something that he honestly loves and we’ll go “this is shit, this is not good” and after three or four more listens we’ll see the genius in it. Likewise, I think Skrillex he has this ear to pick out this fantastic music. He’s just a good dude and his label is amazing.

What do you make of the dance music explosion in the US at the moment?
I mean, it’s exceeded everybody’s expectations. I sort of consider myself part of that explosion. I can’t separate myself from it, because I wasn’t involved in any significant way in the dance music scene before a year ago. I mean, I’ve been writing dance music for seven years, but I wasn’t putting out releases, I wasn’t touring and I wasn’t even seeing DJs until last year. So I consider my rise a part of this movement.

I just have the highest hopes for its longevity, I hope that it persists and stays a significant part of culture. Sort of like hip-hop 25 years ago – it was very danceable music, it was an emerging style and it had this incredible lifespan and now, we’re kind of seeing it on the way out. It was very good music and I think it’s very well possible that electronic music could fill that void for the next 25 years.

So being 19, you’ve obviously grown up in a time when we’ve been able to do everything, musically, on computers. Do you feel like your experience of producing music would have been different to someone who started 10 or 20 years ago?
Oh, absolutely. It’s different in so many ways. But I think the most important one is that the barriers to entry are much, much lower for someone in my generation. The cost of my “studio” right now is like, I think, $600. And my most famous song I ever made, I made on like a $200 studio – well not if you count the laptop – but just the shittiest speakers, the worst laptop, you know. I think the message in this is something Skrillex is careful to emphasise too: that it’s no longer about equipment, it’s all about work ethic, and drive, and talent, and having high standards, and holding yourself to those standards.

I think a critical example would be Madeon, he is what, 17 now, 16? He and I have been trading music online since he was 12, and over the course of a year he too has seen a massive explosion and rise in popularity. And his philosophy is essentially the same. We’ve had the same studio equipment set up the last six or seven years, and just by working hard and only liking great music and aspiring to be amongst those people, I guess that’s how it was done.