For a guy known for wearing a mouse helmet on his head, Joel Zimmerman -- aka the electronic dance music artist known as Deadmau5 -- has earned a surprisingly solid reputation for being one of the smartest, hardest-working and most outspoken DJs in the business, and for his cover profile in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, he did not disappoint.

Of course, there was a question about his much-publicized feud with Madonna earlier this year, which was sparked when she made a reference to Ecstasy at a music festival and boiled over into a series of tweets between the stars. Although he admits, "I understand she has millions more fans, and is way more successful than I'll ever be," Deadmau5 still has a problem with what Madonna said.

"You want to be 'hip' and 'cool' and 'funky grandma'? Fine. It's not my place to say you're irrelevant. If you're gonna come into my world, at least do it with a little more dignity," he grumbled. "It's like talking about slavery at a f---ing blues concert. It's inappropriate."

He went on to dismiss the majority of the modern dance music on the market -- "Just 120 bpm with a f---ing kick drum on every quarter note" -- and criticized many of the leading DJs on the scene, including David Guetta and Deadmau5's friend Skrillex, as "button-pushers getting paid half a million" to show up at events. "And not to say I’m not a button-pusher," he added. "I’m just pushing a lot more buttons."

So what does make Deadmau5 happy? The idea of working with the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, for one thing. As he put it, "Because f--- dance music, you know?"

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