For Deadmau5, electronic dance music is at an interesting crossroad.

"I think we're out of subculture-land and into it's own culture-land right now," says the internationally renowned Canadian EDM producer and performer, aka Joel Zimmerman, who is back in Toronto for the weekend's Veld Music Festival

In the attached video, he talks to CBC's Deana Sumanac about his unique, giant mouse-head branding, separating his onstage persona from his true self, dealing with fame and where electronic music exists now.

"It's at a fragile state right now... How much room on either side of the culture does it have to go, to be creative?" he said.

"You could have now... a festival specifically for a subgenre of a subculture and it would have legs and sustainability to survive on its own, which is kind of cool."

While peers like Skrillex are pushing the envelope to develop new electronic music offshoots, however, time will tell if these sidelines will endure or simply die out like musical fads of the past, he acknowledges.

Deadmau5 headlines the Veld Music Festival, alongside artists such as Above & Beyond, Kaskade and Steve Aoki, in Downsview Park Aug. 3 and 4