Porter Robinson is stepping back from sharing so much of his personal life through music

"I was so f---ing nervous."

Less than an hour after performing a high-energy set to a packed crowd at Coachella's main stage on Sunday evening, Porter Robinson is still feeling the adrenaline rush. Lounging on a plush couch outside of his trailer located behind the stage, he's finally cooling off in the shade after changing out of his performance wardrobe into something more comfortable (he needed something dry after dumping water all over himself during the set, after all). As other musicians mingle around him, he simultaneously relaxes while his eyes dart around, taking in the organized chaos as music from distant sets continues playing in the background. He's still processing what just happened, but as of now, he's feeling great about how his set went — he just can't get over how much the nerves were getting to him onstage. "I always feel like a new artist every time I play Coachella," he tells EW.

This isn't the Grammy-nominated electronic wunderkind's first time performing at the massive festival in Indio, Calif. — it's actually his fourth appearance on the lineup over the past 10 years — but this set marked both an ending and a new beginning for him. As the final U.S. performance of his long-running Nurture tour, Robinson, 30, wanted to change things up. "It was the debut of this band, and I'm playing way more guitar than I've ever played before," he says. "And I just wanted to take on a different role, not being as behind the decks anymore. These are my songs, this is my music, I want to embody that and take up the whole stage."

It's an interesting dichotomy to how he's feeling about his career at the moment. It's been two years since he released the extremely personal Nurture — the long-awaited follow-up album to his genre-bending 2014 project Worlds — and he's been very outspoken about his struggle with depression and how that prevented him from making new music. "My lowest points creatively were when I was the most feeling like, 'It's about me, it's about proving myself, it's about my own abilities, it's about how good I am,'" Robinson recalls. "I had a pretty long, creative low point — it's not like I just lay back and smoke a joint and then beautiful music comes to me. I have to try really hard. It's not like trying to set a high score. It's not like trying to win a game. It's like this act of total surrender and openness and willingness. In that way of being so vulnerable, it's so personal, and sharing every little detail about my life is something that, I feel like this might be the end of that for me for a while."

Throughout his Nurture shows, including his Coachella performances (he'll return to the festival for another set on Sunday, April 23), Robinson projects phrases onto the massive screens behind him about how "music saved [his] life." He's never shied away from letting fans into his mindset and sharing his struggles, but now he's reached a point where he doesn't know if it's healthy to continue doing that to the same degree.

"That was the spirit of this album, a sense of intimacy and a sense of closeness and proximity," he explains. "I wanted people to really be able to see the beauty in every day, tiny things that might seem insignificant. That's why all the visuals are so about nature. But the downside of all that is just that there's a limit — the very nature of the relationship between artists and their audience makes it so that there's like a wall. People have talked about this idea of para-social relationships as if it's a one-way friendship, and I guess I just feel really aware of some of the dangers of that."

Robinson is ready to begin a new era in his career where he approaches all of that differently. "That's the evolution: I'm always going to be myself, but Nurture did that to the level of my maximum willingness to share," he says. "It's so addictive, seeking the approval and the excitement and getting recognized and all those things. But you don't want to lose your own space and your own time. I think about those things a lot."

As for what that means for his music and shows moving forward, he's not exactly sure yet. "It's just a little inkling that I have right now," he says. "There's this funny cliché that pop fans talk about: The joke is that every artist's new album is being promoted as their most personal work yet. There's just a level where you cannot possibly share more without becoming this caricature or not a real human being. I really value my happiness and sanity so it's just about protecting myself. We'll see how it affects the art."

For now, he's just enjoying this final chapter of the Nurture tour, as well as celebrating another past project of his: "Shelter," his hit collaboration with DJ/producer Madeon. During his set on Sunday, Robinson brought out Madeon as a surprise guest to perform the song together as an encore to their 2017 Coachella main stage performance (check out a video of that moment above).

"We always said that 'Shelter' was this one-time thing: 'Let's do one epic song and one big tour and leave it at that,'" Robinson says with a laugh. "We did so much with that song. We closed that chapter. But I asked him like a week ago, 'Are you interested in coming out to sing this track with me? Are you even in town?' And he was like, 'Oh my God. Yes. I would love to.' It's just a real honor to host him onstage."

As longtime friends, Robinson loved reuniting with Madeon for that fan-favorite moment. But he also wants to be careful about how much he employs nostalgia in his performances, so don't expect to see throwback surprises like this at all of his future shows. "I try not to do too much of tickling the nostalgia bone — nostalgia can be a rush, but it's fleeting," he says. "I always want to be doing new things, but that one was like, 'That's a freebie. He's here. I'm here. We've got to do it.' But it's never enough. Nostalgia doesn't really scratch the itch. Your memories of it are always better than the reality, so sometimes it's better to let it live on in people's memories, rather than to try to manifest it."

He thinks for a moment, then adds, "It's kind of like hooking up with an ex or something. Sometimes it's just better to leave stuff in the past."

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