You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
Porter Robinson is a Grammy-nominated artist and DJ from North Carolina.
In 2014, his first album hit number one on Billboard's dance chart,
and he was named MTVU's Artist of the Year and one of the top DJs in the world.
But then he got stuck.
He didn't release his second album for seven years until April 2021.
In this episode,
he talks about what he was grappling with for all those years and how all of it became part of his song,
Get Your Wish.
My name is Porter Robinson.
I first started touring internationally at the ages of 18 and 19.
I was just like a nerdy kid in high school,
and I had been making beats on the computer purely for fun with no expectation of success ever.
But Friday afternoons, I would get out of school,
and I would go get on a plane, and I would do a show that Friday night.
I'd do a show Saturday night.
I'd fly home Sunday, and people were writing about what I was doing,
like the first... whiffs of success that, you know, the adults are proud of you.