Deadmau5 Rants Against Ultra Music Fest, Claims 'Severe Depression and Anxiety'

Posted on Jan 4th 2012 2:00PM by Jason MacNeil
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Mark Davis, Getty Images

Deadmau5 caused controversy recently with a YouTube clip ranting against the annual electronic Ultra Music Festival held in Miami while seeming to later blame his outburst on 'severe depression.'

According to the Miami New Times -- and reported by Pollstar -- the artist posted a 12-minute YouTube on Dec. 30 entitled "Ultra Rage About The Ultra Music Festival." The clip has since been removed as Deadmau5 terminated the YouTube account but revolves around the cost of tickets and other issues.

"Ultra to me is the definition of insanity: Doing the same f---ing thing every year, expecting different results every time," he said in the clip, following up on his Dec. 24 tweet. "It's fun and it's cool, and if you've never been, go. But if you are one of those dudes that go every year, it's like why would you go again?"

"Five hundred and ninety-nine f---ing dollars for a ticket?" he added about the VIP ticket prices. "Wow, someone is laughing to the bank."

Another annoyance for Deadmau5 is the festival's exclusivity contracts with artists which forbid them from playing other non-festival shows in Miami during the event.

"When they used to do it during the conference, it was awesome," he said. "But then there was some bull--- going down, too. I'm not gonna say anything about anyone. But say you are a headliner DJ dude, Ultra will pay you X amount of dollars to be exclusive to Ultra, which I guess is alright if you are an A-liner... [Winter Music Conference] use to be the Christmas for the f---ing DJ, because you go to Miami for a week and play up to eight gigs that f---ing week, easily."

Deadmau5 also described the festival as a "pissing contest between dudes who played all over the world." The DJ/producer headlined the 2011 Ultra Music Festival while also performing at the 2008, 2009 and 2010 editions.

Watch Deadmau5 Perform at Ultra Music Festival

"It's like that for all major North American festivals...Even if you don't want to, you are competing against the festival programmer, you are competing against the other acts, you are competing against the time slots."

Since it was removed, Deadmau5 posted a few more thoughts on Facebook. "I've been dealing with severe depression and anxiety all year," he wrote on Dec. 30. "Taking a long time off after my birthday to hopefully get it sorted out before I say or do anything more stupid than I already have."

A post earlier the same day had him promising to go to Quebec, "show up at the venue 3 minutes before I play, speak to noone, have the time of my life for exactly 2 hours, then immediately run off stage and back to hotel to avoid any other drama before the new year."

Reps from the Ultra Music Festival, now in its fourteenth year and set for March 23-25, have not commented on Deadmau5's rant. The festival announced its first wave of artists on Dec. 23 featuring New Order, Tiesto, Kraftwerk, Justice and David Guetta, among others.

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