The Best Quotes of 2016

We here on the editorial team took a little time out of our day to dig up some of our favorite quotes from 2016. We had many memorable interviews throughout the year, which made combing through all of our conversations to pull together the 20 most impactful was no small undertaking. But we did it, it was fun, and now we’re presenting them to you. Enjoy…

#25 Dinner at the Disco

“As a child, disco sounded like adulthood. And as I grew up, disco became the very embodiment of a lifestyle drenched in confidence.” —Courtney Nichols (Founder of Disco Dining Club)
Read the article here.

#24 My Life as a Hula-Hooper

“With anything creative, you’ve got to pour your soul into it. If you don’t, there are thousands of other people willing to.” —Angelina Rose (Performer)
Read the article here.

#23 Riot, Mayhem and Nightsticks: In Seventh Heaven

“I can tell by their body language that these guys mean business. They’re not fucking around. It’s almost like that frontal slo-mo shot that’s in every Bruckheimer movie.” —Michael Tullberg (Photographer)
Read the article here.

#22 The Old Dude at EDC

“I was forced into a two-day-long hibernation with heaps of rest, interrupted only by calls to room service for ridiculously timed breakfasts at around 4 or 5pm.” —Patrick Waechter (Insomniac Writer)
Read the article here.

#21 Artists in Action: A Creative Community Fights for the Refugee Cause

“The dancefloor filled with people who had lost everything—smiling, hugging, and feeling the love as their future hung in the balance.” Geoffrey Catchpole (aka Jeff23, aka DJ Tal)
Read the article here.

#20 Metallica Made Me Do It

“If a beat moves you, let it take the lead; if it sets your heart on fire, let it burn.” —Neda Hawkins (Insomniac Writer)
Read the article here.

#19 The Night I Fell in Love With Dance Music: Kaitlyn B

“I didn’t really know there was a rave culture beyond what I was taught in health class, which was that raves were a bunch of people dripping in sweat, dancing in warehouses, overdosing and foaming from the mouth.” —Kaitlyn Bracken (Founder, EDM Humor)
Read the article here.

#18 My Life as an Insomniac Performer

“I let the music live through me and completely take over my body, feeling nothing and everything at the same time.” —Lianne Aglietti (Insomniac Performer)
Read the article here.

#17 Meet Rome’s Human Drum Machine

“You don’t need to be a genius to impress people. Just do what you feel inside, even if you think the world doesn’t understand you.” —Dario Rossi (Musician)
Read the article here.

#16 Kennedy Jones on Bringing the Culture and Love Back Into the Music Community

“We have something special right now. We are making history right now. Why not find a way for all of us together to contribute to our communities and proudly represent the dance music family as the people we are?” —Kennedy Jones (Musician)
Read the article here.

#15 Feed Me and the Alchemy of Creativity

“People interpret music over time… but the painting is something you experience all at once and then slowly re-experience. I think that passage of time and the time it takes to interpret art is what separates music and the visual.” —Feed Me
Read the article here.

#14 Weird and Wonderful: Inside the Mind of El Huervo

“I think the universe is medicine and that human beings are viruses with shoes.” —El Huervo
Read the article here.

#13 Why New-School DJs Need Old-School Values

“I’ve always looked at the night as one big novel. We are each playing a chapter, and it should be fluid. I want to see all the same people there at the end.” —DJ Dan
Read the article here.

#12 What Defines a Great DJ?

“A great DJ passes on joy to the crowd. A great DJ can make you forget about everything. A great DJ can make you become present.” —Slander
Read the article here.

#11 HeadlinerHIGHLIGHT: Kevin Brandenburg

“After I got back from Afghanistan, I stopped raving due to anxiety and such. I fell out of love with raving; the scene wasn’t the same… Then I attended my first EDC in 2015, and the bassPOD stage reminded me of who I was and will always be: a junglist. I can truly say that music saved my life.” —Kevin Brandenburg (Headliner)
Read the article here.

#10 Electro vs. ISIS: Fighting Jihadists With Dance Music

“Their [ISIS] attacks make us stronger. They make their attacks, and we come back with our events… We will not take down our [fists], but we will instead continue to fight. And we will win.” —Samy Mhenni (Promoter)
Read the article here.

#09 HeadlinerHIGHLIGHT: Miranda Rachelle

“They didn’t want to give me the days off, so I had to pick between a job I was unhappy at, or EDC. I quit two days before we left for Vegas.” —Miranda Rachelle (Headliner)
Read the article here.

#08 Desert Dawn Dancers: Colonizing the Future Under a Full Moon

“He said it was like a techno church, with this spiritual house music. I didn’t know what to expect. But I never heard it described better after hearing it.” —DJ Brian
Read the article here.

#07 The Night I Fell in Love With Dance Music: Armand Van Helden

“This was like being taken to a cult and experiencing some kind of spiritual thing… and it changed me for life.” —Armand Van Helden
Read the article here.

#06 Drinking Beers and Talking Trance With Seven Lions

“I feel bad for the trance purist sometimes, because it seems as if he could be the type of person who eats a corndog every day for the rest of his life and be convinced that it is the best and only fucking food there is, and everything else sucks.” —Seven Lions
Read the article here.

#05 Beyond Lineups: Achieving the Ultimate Festival Experience

“An audience spoiled by events but jaded by lineups is a problem unique to dance music.” —Ross Gardiner (Insomniac Writer)
Read the article here.

#04 Why the World Needs a Disco Revival, Now More Than Ever

“At this moment—when politicians are erecting walls between us, the media’s 24-hour cycles make martyrs out of madmen, and the streets run red with the blood of our fellow human beings—we need dancefloors to be places of salvation and celebration.” —Ross Gardiner (Insomniac Writer)
Read the article here.

#03 Tommie Sunshine Travels the World for Red Bull TV’s ‘After the Raves’

“Within the first couple minutes of every conference call, some guy would get on the line and be like, ‘Yeah, we can’t wait to get our hands dirty with EDM,’ and I’d hang up.” —Tommie Sunshine
Read the article here.

#02 A Conversation With Fabric Founder Keith Reilly

“I sacrificed everything for the club: I sold two family homes, I lived my life in debt, and I even lost my marriage through it.” —Keith Reilly (founder of Fabric nightclub)
Read the article here.

#01 The Underground Made Me Do It

“While much of the younger rave babies might not appreciate or detect the nuance that accompanies underground house and techno, they don’t hate it. They don’t dislike us and the way we dress, or how engage with one another. The hatred here is all one-way.” —Ross Gardiner (Insomniac Writer)
Read the article here.