Who Is Zedd?

You can't escape it: EDM's becoming a bigger part of the mainstream music landscape, and you have artists like Zedd to thank for that. He's the first EDM artist to perform live on Letterman, he's one of MTV's "artists to watch" for 2013, and he's currently signed to Interscope.

His solo success includes the release of singles like "Spectrum" and "Clarity," the latter yielding a recently released special remix EP, and featuring a multitude of different takes on what many see as a truly beautiful and crucial piece of dance music. Which goes without mentioning the fact that he's also got an undetermined number of tracks on Lady Gaga's forthcoming album, ARTPOP.

Artists like Zedd are what the EDM scene needs to continue permeating into the American music scene. He has a keen sense of what will work on a grand stage, but also knows how to blend that with tracks that will satisfy the EDM lovers worldwide. We caught up with Zedd recently to chart his path, from growing up as a music-making child in Germany to meeting Skrillex and, ultimately, signing with Interscope.

Who is Zedd? You're about to find out.

As told to khal (@khal), Editor-in-Chief of DoAndroidsDance.com

Growing Up

Zedd: "Well, I grew up in Germany, I was born in Russia. I moved to Germany when I was about 3, so I basically spent the time that I could remember in Germany. My parents both played instruments. When I was four I basically started to properly play the piano and write my own songs when I was five.

"I didn't do sheet music, I learned to play the piano, I played songs by sheets but I never really liked to do that. I was never really skilled at reading music sheets. I just used to make a song everyday and when my parents would come back from work that would be my daily procedure, to show them a song I made one day. Thats what I did every day."

Getting Into Music

Zedd: "For the longest time, I wanted to become a pianist. That was kinda my thing. When I was 12, my brother found a band. They didn't have a drummer and they were rehearsing in his bedroom which was right next to me. At some point I just decided I'm going to play with them, all without being able to play the drums really. It just happened. They got a concert early on and didn't have a drummer, so I just played that show and I ended up being part of this band for nine years. I spent nine years in that band and we wrote a lot of songs, made some albums, that was a good experience for sure.

"When we started off, I would say it was something like Muse. As we grew up it kind of became harder, hardcore metal, whatever you wanna call it. That was pretty much where the last album was, which still didn't come out, I just mixed two songs on that record. Most people actually don't even know about it, I still recorded it and put that album, so there's still some rock music coming out under my name.

"I'm not officially part of a band anymore since I just don't have the time. I still play the whole albums on the drums and mixed two songs and wrote all the songs, it still feels like my album. its still going to come out, that's for sure."

His Transition to EDM

Zedd: "I think the cross-point was probably at Justice. I was in the studio recording a rock album at that moment when someone brought this Justice CD and I heard it and it just immediately made me want to try to make music like that. I've never really done something like that, I've done some electronic bits here and there, had some electronic elements in our songs every now and then. But I never produced a proper electro-song and I just started doing that for fun at home as a hobby.

"I didn't listen to that music, I didn't really know if something was good or if something would possibly work in a club or something because I didn't really go to clubs so I was completely new to the scene. My friends that liked that kind of music all said that that was actually really good and really interesting.

"So I just kept on doing it until I saw this remix contest and I decided that that would be the first time I would spend as much time on a song as possible to really make it sound perfect. That thought of, 'I wanna make the song perfect and not just do it for fun,' made me kind of work a lot harder on it. I spent a lot more time on details. I ended up winning the remix contest on Beatport, that was like the first push for my career."

Meeting Skrillex

Zedd: "It's completely random, I saw DeadMau5 making a post [on MySpace] about this guy named Skrillex. I listened to one song that I just clicked on and it absolutely reminded me of that one song I was working on at the time—a song that I thought it was ahead of time and something different. I see the same vision in his song. Skrillex was fairly unknown at that point so I decided I would just write him a message, and who knows, maybe he'll answer, I didn't really expect it to happen. I sent him that message and he replied a couple minutes later saying that he loved the song and wanted to play it out that night.

"Skrillex has this idea of his label, OWSLA, which is not really big on signing artist for a long time. But if you find a song that you like, you release it, and if not, you don't. He had this idea for some time and I knew that when it was gonna happen, I was definitely really friends with him so, when he finally had his label done done I think I had the second release on his label."

Signing with Interscope

Zedd: "I thought I would never sign to a major label. I've worked with Dave Rene, who's now my A&R at Interscope, and my co-manager at the same time, who finally signed me to Interscope. I worked with him because he commissioned me for remixes earlier, so he was the first one to kind of believe in be at the label, and give me a chance to remix really big artists without no one really knowing me.

"Still, I didnt really want to sign to a major label because I wanted the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want. We figured out a deal where I basically have full control over what I want do but I still have the power of a major label, which you can't deny. I don't think I would have been able to achieve what I've achieved without Interscope.

"We found a system, its not a regular major label system. I'm almost my own A&R, it's not like there's someone who can tell me that this song's not commercial, has to be shorter or whatever. We're one team. We all do everything together, everyone is part of the marketing, everyone is part of the video decisions, so it's really not a regular major label system. That's basically the part that made me sign to the label. The major label does have a lot of benefits and there's a lot of people that can work with you to do things you can't do on your own and I wanted to have those benefits; that's what made me sign."

Working with Lady Gaga on ARTPOP

Zedd: "I started actually [working with Gaga] in the end of 2011; I've been working on this thing for a very long time already, but I still don't know how many songs of mine will be on the album, or what we'll end up doing with the songs that don't come on the album. But I'll have a major part of this album for sure."

His Debut Album

Zedd: "I've always dreamed of having an album. The problem is that it's just very difficult to make an album nowadays because through technology, music shifts so fast, especially electronic music. Once you make five songs, the first one you did is already old and you wished you would have put it out right away. So that's kind of the difficult part.

"What made it possible for me to make this album was the fact that I met Lady Gaga. She asked me to be in the studio with her for four months in the beginning of 2012. I took the time off to be in the studio with her, but she ended up having to spend most of the time working on her tour productions and her tour preparation, which started right after those four months. So all the time beside the time I spent with her went pretty much went into my album. If I did not do that I would have toured the whole time and I would have not had the time to make a record.

"The first time I was very disappointed because I thought I just didn't tour and didn't do music, but I ended up making a full on album. I realized later on so it was a really good coincidence. Everything was really lucky and I'm happy that I took the time off that Gaga didn't have enough time so I ended up having a full album."

Vocal Songs vs. Instrumental Songs

Zedd: "It can shift, but right now at the moment I really love working with vocalists. Whenever I make a song that doesn't have a vocalist it feels empty to me. I know that's just a phase because before that I preferred to not necessarily have to have a vocal in the song.

"I still like having instrumental songs to say that I found a really good balance currently with songs with vocalists and songs that are just instrumental. It's still interesting enough to not seem boring against a song with vocals. I think that kind of balance is really good, for my kind of music. At the same time, I don't know what my next album would sound like so maybe I'll have more vocals on the next one, or less, I dont really know yet."

Performing "Clarity" on Letterman

Zedd: "The people from Letterman were interested in me performing for quite some time. We've been discussing that whole thing for a few months. The problem was I didn't want to just go up there and press play and dance to the song. I wanted it to be special, I wanted it to be something that no one else can do. It's not easy to figure out something that is unique, that you can pull of live and still connect to your fans deeply.

"Basically, the version of 'Clarity', it's an electronic song, in the complete opposite way, just acoustic, 100% real instruments, no electronics to show people that my music is not just beats, and vibes, and waveforms; it's actually music that you can play out if you wanted to.

"That was kinda my vision so I changed the course of the whole thing, which we started shooting with the acoustic video I uploaded a little before that, then we arranged the whole thing for an orchestra and one day before the performance I actually recorded a full orchestra 28 piece version in L.A, got all the sheet music, then flew to New York to the Letterman performance. We literally had two or three times to rehearse it before we had to perform it. It was a very last minute thing although we plotted for so long. We got the confirmation five days before the show. It was the craziest five nights without sleep I've ever had in my life.

"I called Alvin [Risk, an EDM producer who sang back-up during the live performance] around 1AM and said it's going to happen and that I'd was on Letterman the next morning. He didn't say he would come or anything and then the next morning i woke up and he was in the lobby. He took a flight at 6am from Miami to New York and then he was just here.

He was like, 'Hey, I just wanted to be here.' He asked when the performance was. I told him but by that time he would have to fly back already because he had a show that night. So he flew all the way there without knowing when I would perform and he would actually miss it.

"So we made some calls and I told the promoter of that show he was playing that he has to be with me on TV and we decided to give him the role of a backing vocalist. It was very last minute, but if there's a way to kind of support the dog, we'll always do that, that's how we roll."

The Current State of EDM

Zedd: "I can see two things happening at the moment in the U.S. One thing is that Electronic Dance Music really gets big, and still bigger. Just this morning, I saw that DJ Pauly D released a single and its already beating Calvin Harris on the charts which is kind of weird. I don't really know what to think because the track is not even that bad. Its a fairly generic sounding electronic dance music song, there's nothing wrong with it I guess. It doesn't really bother me, but it's kind of weird, to see someone that I don't know if he ever released music before, but seems to be big in the Top 100.

"I don't know how successful it would have been if it was a rock song. These kind of things can pop in my eyes, and at the same time I can see a lot of songs that are very vintage and old school. The Bruno Mars thing at the moment, or even the new Justin TImberlake single has a touch of it.

"I can see 2013 being the biggest year for Electronic Dance Music, I can imagine after that the next wave being more, I don't want to say hippy, but something more towards Mumford & Sons even Adele and that kind of music, almost the opposite. I think it all all comes in circles, and I predict 2013 to be the biggest year for Electronic Dance Music in a long time."

Getting Mainstream Recognition

Zedd: "I remember a few years ago seeing all these things on TV and it was so far away, unreachable for me, and I would have never thought to ever be in that position. It's a great honor to represent the scene for MTV since i'm the only EDM artist in the Artists to Watch category.

"Every single time I either I find out that an artist I like knows about me, it doesn't really get old for me. Every time I find out that someone who knows my music its always the same excitement. Obviously, the first time being mentioned on the Billboard and being up there is just a crazy thing for an artist but every time I see someone talking about me in some form or wherever, it's always just unbelievable.

"It's a little more crazy for me than some other people because I've been making music and touring since I was a little kid. I started playing concerts when I was like seven, and I never really expected any success. I've been doing that forever and it was very normal for me to not really get a lot of recognition. I never made any money off music, it was something I did because I love doing it. Suddenly there's a switch and that happened really fast for me. It's still very unusual to see people from all over the world knowing the lyrics to my songs."

Forthcoming Material

Zedd: "First of all, we're starting the year with this single, 'Clarity,' which we just put the video out for. We will officially start working on another single in February, thats the first thing to happen for me this year. On the next single after that, we're not even sure what its gonna be. I will definitely use another single after "Clarity," we'll figure out what that one will be. We're very flexible in the way we work so we'll see what happens and just react to the things that happen and make the decision then.

"I think I might do another remix, I've done a lot of remixes in the beginning of my career, I scaled it down, more and more and I ended up only doing one true remix last year, so I think I might pick another song for a remix this year. It just has to be the right song.

"Besides that I made a new song with Ellie Goulding, which will be a new single of hers, but I'm not exactly sure what her plans are. I've done a lot of new music for several artists which I didn't really give to anyone yet, I just made music then I will decide who it is for. Then, obviously, make my own music, when I find time."

The "Clarity" Remix EP

Zedd: "There's gonna be a lot of interesting versions of the song 'Clarity.' We have a lot of plans for the remix. We have Tiesto working on the remix, we have incredible other remixes, unknown artists, people like Torro Torro, who I really really like. There's a lot of great remixes from all type of genres, Richie from Bon Jovi makes a version. Its gonna be a wide range of basic individuals to show that a good song is a good song, no matter what kind of genre it is. It kind of goes to show that every genre can make the song, not a hit, but just a really good song, that's why we picked who we picked.

"Besides that, we have a lot of bigger plans for the song that are definitely very exciting. The version I performed on Letterman I recorded the full thing in the studio, with the orchestra and I'm releasing that that as well."

Experimenting in Different Styles

Zedd: "I didn't always experiment, but starting last month, I did all sorts of things. I don't even know what that is, it's like a mix of hip-hop, R&B, and house I guess. Somewhere in between, I don't even know what type of genre that is. I made a song, of course I can't say who it is for yet, I made a drum & bass song, and one roughly at 110, not moombahton, it's almost like electro, and just recently I started to experiment and last night until 6am.

"I was working on an acoustic piano song, I don't even know what kind of genre that is, its somewhere between rock & hip-hop because it has a lot of 808's and it sounds really big. So I've recently really tried to experiment a lot because my album is done, I can take a little bit of time to widen my horizon and learn new things. I love to learn new things."

Future

Zedd: "There's actually a lot [of goals I have for the future]. One of them is making music for movies, and I've already started having meetings for some people who work for really big films that will come out in two or three years. I definitely want to experiment with that. It's always been a dream of mine to be able to make music for movies or soundtracks.

"There's also other things, like having the proper stage production. We just started doing that, by designing a light show, it's a lot of work and it's a lot of exercise. You have to time everything with light guys, and visual guys because I don't want to do anything that's played back or synced, so we have to get everything live. I have to be able to play the same set every night if I want.

"The difficult part is to teach the crew to know exactly what you're going to do in ten seconds. That's what we're working on right now and that's a big thing for me because it's like the next big step live, from playing the DJ show to playing full on production with whatever it will end up being. That's one thing i'm looking forward to.

"Still, making new songs is the most exciting thing for me, as simple as it is."