100 gecs alternative press spring 2023 issue
[Photo by Chris Maggio]

How Skrillex became a huge influence of 100 gecs

100 gecs have grabbed the attention of pop and alternative music scenes around the world, confounding them in the process. Combining noise, industrial, death metal, dubstep, chiptune, pop punk, trip-hop, emo cyber-pop, ska, techno, trance, house, 808s and lo-fi bedroom pop, the duo comprised of Laura Les and Dylan Brady have become celebrated post-internet genre progenitors who’ve inspired legions of dedicated fans. But one of the band’s main influences is really Skrillex. Read an excerpt from their cover story below, which appears in our spring 2023 issue.

Beyond the topic of their influences, 100 gecs dive into their cult-like fandom and the absurdity of their music, reminding people not to take everything they do so seriously.


Of all the genres 100 gecs manipulate in their expectation-bending music, emo, ska, post-hardcore, even crunkcore (if you remember Brokencyde, it is time to start using retinol) appear at the forefront. It’s unavoidable across their first record and makes some appearances on 10,000 gecs: in the raucous riffs of a song like “Dumbest girl alive,” or the Red Hot Chili Peppers-meets-Linkin Park nü metal of “Billy knows Jamie.” The band’s ties to these alternative-rock worlds are more than just skin deep: They opened for My Chemical Romance on their 2022 reunion tour. They also enlisted Fall Out Boy and Chiodos for their 2020 remix album, 1000 gecs and the Tree of Clues, in a reimagining of “hand crushed by a mallet.”

Perhaps most significantly: 100 gecs have collaborated with the EDM DJ Skrillex on a few occasions. Skrillex, aka Sonny Moore, was once the falsetto-screamer in post-hardcore/emo band From First to Last and has graced the cover of Alternative Press on a few occasions. Skrillex frequently comes up as an influence in 100 gecs’ music — in particular, his 2010 single “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” was a catalyst in both Brady and Les’ lives, transforming how they thought of music, how the dubstep song’s aggression feels like a necessary exorcism of our dystopian reality, as opposed to some kind of machismo. It’s not aggression for aggression’s sake. “Sometimes you need something to trigger catharsis,” she says of his music. “Sometimes you just want to fucking bang your head to something. It takes you out of yourself for a minute, you know?” The same could, and is often, said about their records

100 gecs alternative press spring 2023 issue

[Alternative Press spring 2023 issue with cover stars 100 gecs, shot by Chris Maggio]

But beyond any musical relationship, if there is a connection between 100 gecs and the Warped Tour acts associated with this publication, it’s the sense of community both foster. “We try to cultivate a vibe where people can be themselves, in all the corny ways but actually,” Les says. “There’s people who bring microwaves and stuff to our shows, who record them on a [Nintendo] DS. Like, yes, great! The people who come to the show make the show. We just try to allow a place where you can do that. Non-exclusionary type vibes.”