Zedd
Appearances
The School of Greatness
Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
If it's just a random photo, it's a little less. And all of a sudden, it dipped by half. Really? Just the next day. And I was so confused. I was like, did I say something wrong? Is that song not interesting? And all of a sudden, all your numbers go down. But that also translates to ticket sales because less people see you post it.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
When they see you played a show in their city, they're like, I didn't even know you were playing a show here, but I'm sitting there like, but I just posted the same thing. Interesting. I saw the numbers just trickling down. Now you can always say, well, maybe you're just less relevant than you were before. But it's always weird when that happens overnight.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And to me, that's usually a sign that there's some change in an algorithm and that it prefers something else. And I think it's way more extreme now than it was 10 years ago. I mean, those changes, the sort of reach that you had back then was astronomically higher than the one you have today according to the followers you have. So if you have 10 million followers, I remember times when like,
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I don't know, even 10% of your followers would see a post. I feel like in today's world, that's probably amazing. Yeah, anomaly now. It's like 1% are lucky. It's mostly like other people that see your posts, not your followers. It's all so algorithmic. And the issue with things being algorithmic, in my mind, is that what's being rewarded is repetition. Because something goes viral.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Everybody wants to go viral, so everybody will do the same thing. that went viral and it kind of almost wants you to copy. And everybody will do the same thing. So, you know, a lot of people complain about AI kind of you know, doing bad to the world. And I'm not here to argue one way or another, but we're kind of doing the same thing by just forcing ourselves to do the same trend over and over.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And somebody does something creative, everybody copies it. That's such a non-creative way of art in general. And, you know, your art doesn't have to be music. Your art could be just creating content, being funny. But if you have to kind of play that game, At some point, everybody kind of has to be like, okay, we can't do this, otherwise we're all gonna suffer from that.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Yeah, it's a really difficult, I don't know how that affects you and what you do or if it does at all.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Yeah, and to answer this question, I kind of didn't really finish where I was going with this. Sure, go ahead. But essentially... you see numbers go down, you start doubting yourself. You think you maybe did something wrong or everything you said, there might be somebody who's more relevant. So a fun way to kind of
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
close that question is that I just played a tour, I just came off tour, and we're on the, you can call it the lowest point of engagement possible. Right now you are? Right now. Really?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I think every day I wake up, it will always be the lowest point of engagement because, except for the things that go viral, it's just not the natural way social media, it's not the way social media works anymore. The platforms have changed, yeah. The platforms have changed, so it's kind of normal. The irony is that we had the most successful tour we've ever played. Really?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
With the most tickets sold, and we underbooked venues because we didn't. That's great.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
No, it really is. And it kind of reminded me that all those numbers, they just don't represent the real world, and they don't represent how people feel. It's a lot of echo chambers and you start doubting yourself and you kind of have to let go of what those numbers say because they don't really represent life.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So we take those numbers and kind of do our best to gauge how much interest there is in each city, and then we realized there's a lot more interest, and people aren't liking, and people aren't commenting, but they're there. They're showing up. They're showing up, and they might even find their own ways to know that you're playing a tour.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So that was kind of a moment for me recently, or the most recent, when I was like, oh, those social media numbers don't really represent life. You had your biggest tour ever. Ever, and by the engagement, I was like, I sometimes ask myself, how do people find out that I play shows? If you don't see it, I don't know. I really don't. But there's probably other ways.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I remember thinking this way back. Word of mouth and people just talking. Word of mouth and people follow their venues or people follow their own channels. And this is a really interesting thing about social media or the Internet in general. I feel like the greatest thing about the Internet compared to not having the Internet was that we felt internationally connected. You can have friends.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
anywhere in the world, right? If you can't afford to travel, you can still be connected to anybody, anywhere. Yet I feel like we've never been more separated. And I don't mean this just like, because there's distancing, but I feel like our internet is different per person. Your internet, your view of the world is so different from mine because everybody gets shown something else.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I think the moment I realized this was this previous election because I have my feed and I've noticed that everything I see in my Twitter feed has nothing to do with any of my interests. That's so funny. Why do they push another agenda that you don't care about? And I feel like at some point Twitter did ask about your interests to better cater it to you.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
but yet everything I see is like the opposite of what I want to see. So my view of the world and who's going to become president was one way. And somebody on my team was like, no, it's the exact opposite way. But I'm like, are we seeing the same things? And I think the answer is no, we're not. Everybody sees their own things.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
so while we're so connected and we use the same platforms we all live in our own little microcosm of what we see of what the platform you know can make the most ad revenue off we don't really see the same world that's why there's so much division too is because everybody sees their own version of reality and how often do you see like just like
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Right, but it's not even that easy though. I love what you're doing. I love the suggestion a lot. I love being fed more positive and like inspiring content instead of dividing and sad and brutal content. With of course the exception that we all want to know what's going on in the world. Be informed but not entertained.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So it's this loop we're in. As a society, how are we going to break out of a loop where the wrong things are being rewarded? And then the next person benefits of your wrong. It's basically a circle of wrong. I mean, I don't have a solution. Maybe we could use AI to help us figure this out.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
But it does feel like a strange loop we're finding ourselves in because, and you know, part of the AI conversation, I mean, AI is scary, right?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
The benefit of AI is that there's a lot of tasks that go into producing a song that are incredibly time intensive. And you sit there and go through 400 snare drums until you find the one that you like. Wow. And you could just say, find me four snare drums like X. and you don't have to spend the time. There's a lot of these tasks that you have to do, clean up, remove all the silence.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I mean, you name it, right? There's a lot of things that AI can be super helpful with. It's been beneficial for you already on your music? I think, I just hate calling it AI, but we've used AI. Software, tools. Yeah, right? It's always been there. I've always used AI, for example, an equalizer that shows me the frequencies that I need to cut. It's essentially AI, sure, you can name it that or not.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So I've used AI my whole career, and the more AI tools there are, as an example, you give me a random sound, a cowbell, your mug, right? And I want to be able to synthesize that sound. I would have to have extensive knowledge of how to create that sound digitally from nothing. There's no software that lets you
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
throw in any sound you want, it will re-synthesize it to the point where you can change and alter anything about it. That's something that was completely impossible my entire life. And now I can actually play and not sample it, I'm saying like re-synthesize it. There's a little bit of a nerd talk, but essentially it's really amazing. It lets us be so creative with something.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
That's a perfect example of AI being super helpful to me. One way AI is scary is that anybody can now write, make me a song that sounds like Zed, but make it better. Oh, no. And it will do it. That's crazy. Right? So that's, of course, scary. And every single time somebody clicks generate, it gets better because it learns off itself. Oh my gosh. But it's also, it's fascinating.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I mean, I have no idea how this will shape things. I also think that the human element and anything in civilization is something that will never want to get lost.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Right, because there's probably, there's definitely better songs than the ones I make. But what you started our conversation with is that a lot of people have met their partners or danced or relieved stress or, you know, got over something during a show of mine or while a song of mine was playing. That connection to a human, I think, is so much stronger than knowing that a...
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
a randomly generated song has you know is technically better sounds better it's mixed cleaner which i'm sure all of these things are true and throughout my whole career with the exception one song that was out of my hands i have mixed every single song i've ever released wow and i'm not the best mixer you know i i have a lot of things to do i write music i produce music i mix music
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I perform a lot of shows. I have a Vegas residency. I program my own lighting with my team, of course, but I do a lot of things. I don't spend all day mixing. So there's mixing engineers who are way better than I am and ever will be. But my choices, every single choice throughout the mix process of my songs, has personality. It's because I like things this way.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's because I like snare to be too loud if I feel like it. There's this Dream Brothers song on my album where the clap is unbelievably wide. Again, a little bit of nerd talk, but it's essentially very strange. And I like the idea of having something so bizarre and weird. And if you gave that to a mixing engineer, he would immediately pan it to the center because that's not normal. But I like it.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It has character and has this moment of like, I was in the car listening to it and it felt like the claps were coming from like the side of the doors. And I was like, that's cool. That's a unique experience. I've never felt that. I've never heard it. I like it. It's different.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So I think the connection to a human and a human making a decision is much more powerful than the connection to something that's technically on paper better. by whichever metric you want to go by. So is handmade furniture obsolete because we have IKEA? No. People still care for an Etsy as well in their life, I hope. I love Etsy.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Because there's people creating things by hand and I think there's a lot of appreciation for humans doing amazing things.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I think you're right. And I think this will hopefully never get old, and people still want to come to shows even though they can put... VR solutions on and technically experience it anywhere, anytime. They still want to be at a show and I've actually witnessed this on my last tour while one of my openers was playing and I loved watching this. So my opener sometimes have to play pretty early.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
because we only have so many hours we're allowed to make sound. So people are still trickling in and it's really fun. Not you opening, but someone else coming to open the show. Yeah, before I go on. And it is something that I've noticed that I really loved seeing. It was an empty hall. I think it was about 7,000 people in total and people slowly trickle in and you can tell nobody knows each other.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And then slowly, one person likes a song, turns to the left. You can tell they don't know each other. And I was kind of watching from side stage. And two songs later, there's a group of like 10 people that are clearly like now jumping together. And like when one person jumps, everybody jumps. And you see these little,
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
like circles built throughout a venue and slowly but surely they all become one it's like almost when you look at ants and you see them do something super coordinated like how the hell do you guys know how to do this that's how it feels when humans in a room slowly start spreading let's just call energy for like a better word and eventually i feel like a good show is when you captured all of the audience oh man
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And they don't know each other, but they're all on the same wavelength. And slowly throughout the course of the night, you can see how it spreads and how the circles become bigger. It's pretty amazing. I mean, humans are amazing.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
We're incredible. We're one of a kind.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I still feel surprised slash really moved by an audience singing along to my music, even though I know they will. I still go on stage and I'm still unsure if people know the songs. And that's why I said I never see myself as a celebrity. I never see myself as somebody whose music is widely known.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Maybe because I've made music for so much longer since I was a kid without anyone knowing anything I do that I'm more used to it. I'm not sure, but I still, when I go on stage, I mean, a festival is probably the best example because festivals have multiple stages. There's lots of amazing artists playing at the same time. I still am always wondering whether somebody's going to show up at my stage.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Come on. Yeah, every time. But you're freaking Zed, man. I don't know.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I know, but it's not really internalized in that way. I still see myself as Anton. And, you know, I meet my friends in video games just like randomly. I love that. I don't see myself as the person that people see myself as. Really? No. And I don't think I ever will at this point. I think that's actually beautiful. Maybe it's a good thing.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I mean, I don't experience that very much again because I don't see myself this way, but I do see other people go through that and I don't love seeing that. Maybe that's why I shy away from it too. I think the whole nature of like extreme fandoms and like- Celebrity and stuff, yeah. Yeah, people basically excusing any,
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
The behavior of a person because they love that person is like anything that person does is amazing. I just don't think that's healthy to any industry, to any CEO, to any artist, to any actor, whatever that may be. I think always being sort of Double checking, making sure you're not doing anything stupid is a good thing.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I don't think having an army behind you, supporting you through any move you do is a good thing. I don't think it's a good influence on you.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I mean, I'm very much... a son of parents that have raised me one way and I'm that way still. I'm really thankful for how my parents raised me. How did they raise you? It may shock you, but they let me do anything I want.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Yeah. Like if I didn't want to go to school, I would tell my mom, mom, I'm not going to go to school tomorrow. Once because I didn't study for my exam and if I fail this exam, it's going to be bad for me. Okay, I'll call in and say you're sick. Or, hey mom, I'm wasted with my friends. We're going to go out tonight. I'm not going to make it to school tomorrow. Are you sure?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Okay, I'll call and say it. Whenever. But I wouldn't really abuse it as much as you think I would. Having that power, I learned to appreciate it. And I used it. I don't want to sound bad saying this, but I used it strategically to get through school because I sucked at school. Wow, me too, man. I was not good. I was good at music and I would help my whole class. But I was not good at school.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's just not how my brain is wired. And maybe I'm using that as an excuse. But I've always been very... pushed into creativity, not by my parents, but like I always wanted to do something creative and whether that's, you know, I've always loved video games, I've always loved music, any sort of art. I just wasn't good with numbers.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I loved ethics and, you know, psychology and that kind of stuff, but I really didn't like most of school, but I didn't abuse it. I would, you know, strategically occasionally call in sick, but I learned to juggle power, right? Because as a kid, deciding when you want to go to school or not is the most powerful thing you can have as a kid. It's not really money.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
You have to go to school, but you don't? That's pretty powerful as a kid. So I think it kind of maybe taught me to be careful with the power that I'm given and respected. But yeah, to go back to the question you asked originally is like, I still am so overwhelmed by people singing along to my music, especially going from city to city or country to country or continent to continent.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And it's pretty fascinating because every Almost state is a different variation of human beings. Really? And you can feel it and see it. And I sometimes claimed I could hear a clip of an audience and I could tell you which country we're in by the pitch of them singing. No way. Philippines, best singing crowd in the world. Like, they're all amazing. Japan is like a close second.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
You know, when you hear sing-alongs, you're like, well, it's going to be either there or there. You know, Europe is maybe more a little bit of the soccer chant, like off pitch, but sounds bigger, louder. So each country has things that it has to do with weather. The weather affects their mood and attitude.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
The language, the language affects how direct or distant or, you know, how you express yourself. Like German is very distant, in my opinion. English, I remember when I came to America and I met Jimmy Iovine, who... who signed me initially at the beginning of my career, and I wanted to say you. I wanted to say something to you.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I didn't, I realized there's no other way to say you in the English language than you. While in French or Russian or German, there's multiple yous. There's a formal and an informal you. So you always use the, you know, formal you because you show respect to the person.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
But I was sitting in front of Jimmy Iovine, this like legend, who's signing me and I was like saying you, that felt so weird to me. So every country has something that makes them some sort of ball of energy and you perform there and it just, this energy feels different everywhere you go.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
But anytime I hear people sing along or jump, it's not something that gets old to me and I'm used to it, but it still doesn't make it any less amazing. What's the most spiritual experience you've had at a live show you've performed at? Oh man, there's going to be a bad answer because I'm unprepared for this, but there's been so many moments in my life on stage.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Like I remember playing Madison Square Garden. That was a really special moment because it was my first arena tour and I was on stage and I don't know Madison Square Garden well. I know it from hearing and seeing it, but up top in the center of the room, they have the ring and it says Madison Square Garden. I was just on stage and I kind of looked up and I saw that Madison Square Garden.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I was like, this is crazy, I'm actually here on stage and playing in front of all these people. So that was an amazing moment. Playing Red Rocks, have you heard of it in Denver? I've never been there, but I've always wanted to go. I remember I was or still am a huge fan of Incubus and they had a DVD.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I don't know if it was like a bootleg I got somewhere, if it was a real DVD or VHS or whatever it was, but they were playing live at Red Rocks and it just looked so incredible. And I was a kid and I set myself the dream one day I'm going to be on that stage playing Red Rocks myself.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So then when I finally was playing Red Rocks for the first time, it was another one of these moments of like, I can't believe these dreams I set myself so high that I would never reach them. I ended up actually reaching and it feels bizarre because I tried to set myself goals I will never reach.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And throughout my life, I've kind of surpassed my goals and I always have to keep reaching higher because I like having dreams and I like having goals. And I think it's important to have something you work towards or for whatever that is in anybody's life, but I like having the drive to achieve something, whatever that may be.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I haven't thought about what you just said specifically to kind of put the audience on stage in a sense. That's a really, really good approach, really good thought. What I definitely do is I change my show depending on where I play. I played a show in Mexico a couple weeks ago, and I didn't know this until I got there, but I was the only electronic artist that day.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Yeah, it really feels really awesome to hear that, to hear you say that, because it's not really how I think about my own music and my art and my craft. I'm not...
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And it was a gigantic festival to make it just the easiest. It's like their Coachella. huge artists. I was playing at the same time as Toto, which I would have loved to work with myself. Toto, the band?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I missed them because I had to be on stage.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
But it was this huge festival. First of all, my doubts came in. Who's going to watch me when Toto's playing? Really? As always. Yeah, it will never change. It's just how I think about myself. But I made my set that day in the green room right before I went on stage because I had no idea what to expect. I was talking to the drummer of the Mars Volta. They were playing like an hour before.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's like, what kind of audience did you have? And it's like, oh, they really like rock. I'm like, OK. I have some more rock versions or remixes of rock songs. So I added a bunch more rock leaning songs. So I will adjust accordingly. When I'm on my tour, The Telos tour was a work of art, a movie in a sense. I'm not gonna change the movie because of the theater it's playing in.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I made a movie and I'm there to present the movie as close as possible. And I've been adjusting the set a little bit on tour, but it is kind of, I see it as a work of art that I've created that I want people to see. While in Vegas, like if another artist shows up, I will always play a couple songs of that artist, you know? I mean, there's, I don't know.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
There's a bunch of things that have happened where I saw people making out in the front row, like an opening artist. jumped in the crowd to make out with somebody. I know this is a Vegas thing. And I immediately switched to Careless Whisper by George Michael because I was like, that's a funny moment. I know most won't get it because they didn't see it. But in Vegas, it's much more spontaneous.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
doctor I'm not here to heal others or to help others I'm genuinely still doing the same thing I did when I was four years old I sit behind a piano and I just play and the difference is that now I record and release and back then I recorded and played it for my parents mmm now to hear that my music has some sort of healing aspect to people or like is that people find each other meet each other get married maybe have their
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
There's no set list. It's whatever you feel in the moment. Whatever you feel in the moment. And I think I told you off camera, but in Vegas, I feel like I'm more of... I'm there to make sure everybody has the best night of their lives. I'm not there to promote my album. I'm not there to show the newest drops that I've got.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I'm there to sometimes test out new music because I want to get information about how a song I'm working on sounds and I feel like Vegas Wolf sounds weird, but they will film less because people are in their own, you know, they're drinking, they're partying, they're dancing. They're not necessarily there to film and upload it. And I don't want those things out. I just want to get information.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So I sometimes will drop a song really quickly, get the information I need and mix out. So every concert has a different purpose. Wow. My TELUS tour is a work of art that I spent a month with my team working on the finest details and lighting. And I still think it's one of the most incredible shows visually possible. And I'm really, really proud of it.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I'm not really looking into adding a new hit that just went viral, because that's not the purpose of it. Now, a viral hit in Vegas, that makes much more sense. A festival in Japan, I will maybe play. And you know, you gotta think about things like, A relatively unknown song of mine has been in a car commercial in Japan.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So that song is significantly more popular in Japan than it is in other countries.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So you have to consider all these things when you go to the... That's interesting, man. You don't have to. Right, you do.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Always do that. And I always do that at festivals with artists who play after me. I was like, hey, just letting you know, they really love, because some audiences love to sing.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
which you know tend to be the shows i do the best and some audiences want to rage like every festival is different so it's really good information if somebody shares that i always do with whoever's playing after me it's like hey by the way they really like xyz type of music they don't seem to know xyz and and it really helps the dj after me to be able to cater a little bit better and i really appreciate when people tell me that most of the times
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
People, when I'm like, how's the crowd? They're like, they're amazing, you're gonna love it. And they're not. I wish they were just honest. Like, I'm not gonna be, like, just tell me, you know? It only helps everybody. Like, hey, it's really rough. They only know the sing-alongs, like, maybe this wasn't on the radio, maybe they're on, or like, there's many reasons.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's not a personal thing, but I think honesty is just really good. But to what you said, where you would go into the audience and ask Suzy about something that's going on in her life and reference it,
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
which sounded crazy to me but i realized i actually have done this um i've done four nights in san francisco on my tour and after i think the first night i did a um album signing a meet and greet in a record store and people you know came up to me and like told me their personal stories which was you know a lengthy period of time where i got to hear people's connection to my music yes which was really really awesome which is how we started the conversation and one one person said
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I've been supporting you since Zelda came out, which was like, I want to say 2010, like before I was signed. It was the very early days. I'm like, wow, you've been there. I mean, I have probably had a couple thousand fans maybe in the world. Like, you were there since day one. So I was like, I'm going to play Zelda for you tomorrow. And I played it just for that one person.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
you know, dance or whatever to my music is really awesome because I never think about it this way. I've also never thought about myself as somebody who's famous, and I don't think I ever will. And it sometimes feels really nice to hear that and to hear people tell me their personal stories, which happens all the time where I meet somebody and they will just tell me what my music means to them.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It was 8,500 people in the room, but it was just for that one person. That's cool. But there might have been more who were like, I was there since day one. But it was this human sort of connection that, you know, maybe an AI on stage wouldn't necessarily appreciate or do. 100%.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I think the most important thing in a life where you're always out there, lack of sleep, you're surrounded by alcohol and drugs, girls, whatever that may be, is the people you surround yourself with, the team you build. It's the single most important thing. Building a good team that's there for you and not there for you to make money for them to make money.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
People who care about you as a human being first and foremost. Those are the building blocks of a long and successful career. Starting at the very beginning, everybody I work with, I've worked with since 2010 before I had any success. Really having trust in people is really, really important.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And again, building a team that cares for you is really important and having a human connection to the team and not just having a person that works for you, but with you. That's number one. Same goes for your friends. Friends are an influence and they can sway you either direction.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I think surrounding yourself with people that keep you in check, that give you sometimes is good, no matter who you are. Now, if you're one of these artists or if you're an actor, if you're in the public eye and you struggle with suicidal thoughts, I've been surrounded by people. I'm lucky enough to have never had those thoughts. but some of my friends in the industry have.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I think it's really important to check in on people. And I know people check in on me, and I really appreciate it. And I never take that as like, why are you checking in on me? I don't need it. No, it's always a good thing. Just that you don't have to do much beyond, hey, what's been going on? Like, how are you feeling?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I've had friends who've had suicidal thoughts during the pandemic who are in the industry. I have had friends of friends that told me, man, this guy, he drinks way too much and he cannot control it. And I reached out to them. And we briefly spoke about the fact that I've recently cut down on alcohol consumption a lot.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I mean, I will drink occasionally when my parents are in town, I'll have a glass of wine with them, that's fine. I'm not a, you know, not black or white. But my default used to be to drink on stage. Really? Always, for over 10 years, every show. Was it like a nerves thing or was it more just?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It was a mixture of, I think there are advantages to having alcohol in you because you feel like you're connecting more with the people that have alcohol in them. It loosens you up a little bit. It makes you less nervous because I still get nervous. Still? And I know this because I wear a boot tracker. Right, right.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And every single show, and I don't put in when I start my show, it knows exactly when my show starts. Wow. So that tells me that- It might also just be excitement.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I mean, it's partially excitement, right? They're kind of linked in a sense, but I do know that I still get some sort of body reaction when I go on stage. And I thought for the longest time, first of all, probably 10 years ago, I told my touring team,
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It feels really awesome. It feels healing to me to hear that because it's never been my intention to make something, to achieve something or
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
if i ever drink too much like if i become an alcoholic you have to tell me because i'll be the last person to know wow if you're the alcoholic and we've probably most of us have been around people like that you don't know and you're gonna argue you're not so i told them right away because i drink a lot this is years ago like you have to tell me if it gets too much because i won't know um
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
They didn't. And I still, like, I would consider myself a functioning alcoholic before they would. And I think I trust them enough to know that they would tell me if something was really wrong. So what made you want to stop drinking as much? What made me want to, stupid answer, but I started writing down my calories. Every single thing I eat or drink, everything.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I made a spreadsheet that is as easy to use as possible. And I had other DJs ask me for that because I'm not alone. There's other people going through whatever you're going through always. Anytime you want to Google something, somebody's Googled it before you, right? That's the general gist. So I started writing down my calories because I wanted to lose fat and gain muscle.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I started going down the rabbit hole of like, how do you do that? What's it all about? You know, the very shortest is calorie in, calorie out. I started writing down all my calories in little things you wouldn't even think, like AG1, 50 calories. You know, you have 10 of those things throughout the day, that's a full meal.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So I started writing them down and there was this one show where I was pretty hungry and I had the show at 1.30 a.m. starting and I look at my sheet and I'm like, well, I can either drink or eat, because a shot of alcohol, just for the ones who are interested, is just about 100 calories, right? One shot? Yeah, I guess you don't drink. 100 calories for one shot?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
anything other than kind of make music as a as therapy for myself i set myself goals sometimes really hard to reach once um especially with this album that i just released tell us and my goal is just to fulfill whatever you know i want to achieve with this project then to hear that it's really healing to people or that they were able to dance or meet somebody is really awesome it's it's a bonus it's definitely not why i do it
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Yeah, and you can go through 10 shots a night, no problem. Holy cow, that's like two meals. Yeah, you can have your entire day's worth of nutrients.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So I looked at it and I was like, okay, well, I can't afford to drink today because I don't have the calories. And if you mix it with other things, it's even more. Sugar and Sprite or drinks, it's like more calories. Even more calories.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So I looked at my sheet and I was like, okay, well today, because I want to stay on track, you can undo a whole weeks of starving and doing well and working out by one silly night out. And I will even argue that it's worth it to do that occasionally. Sure. If the right circumstances are met. But in that sense, it was my default, right?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It wasn't even, it got to the point where I would show up and I want to thank everybody who does this because it just shows how much they care. But I would show up to places and people would know my favorite drink, which was Jack and Coke Zero for a long time. And it was pre-mixed the moment I walked in. So I didn't even have to ask for it. Like that's really good hospitality, but it became a norm.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It became like Anton's drinking and he's drinking Jack and Coke. I would have two before I go on. throughout the two hour set, probably two to three on and like one or two after, right? We're talking about- 700, 800 calories at least. More because it's mixed.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
There's probably a shot or two in between and you feel it the next morning. Oh yeah. So two things happened. I started realizing through wearing a whoop that when I drink alcohol, my recovery was awful. Even if I didn't feel that way, but I don't always trust how, I don't trust how I feel, I don't trust my memory because I think it's really, just in general, human beings' memories are pretty bad.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I trust something that has no, no personality. It's just there to tell me. So if my heart is working overtime just to keep my body clean or cleansed from the alcohol, something's going on that's probably not ideal. So I looked at it and I was like, I don't like that I'm not doing something good to my body, number one. Number two,
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
was i just didn't have room for calories so there was this one show that i previously mentioned where i realized i'm not going to have any room for calories so i'm going to have to play it sober and that was going to be my first sober vegas show and vegas is a much tougher audience than virtually any other place that you can play because not everybody bought a ticket to see because people go to vegas to go to vegas as well you're one element of the night
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I was really concerned because for the longest time I thought I wouldn't be able to play shows live. And one of the DJs that I was kind of tipped off on drinking way too much said that exact thing. I could never do this sober, right? And that's a really, really dangerous thing to say when you play a lot of shows. And I remember going on stage playing sober, 45-ish minutes passed.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
into my set and I had this like moment of waking up where I realized, wait, I'm sober. I felt drunk. I felt exactly the same drunk as I felt before. And that made me realize that what I thought the alcohol was giving me, it wasn't the alcohol ever. It was the adrenaline. It was the excitement. It was the connection to the people.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And that moment I was like, oh my God, I can of course do this sober because I was scared to lose this feeling. And I was scared that if I lose this feeling, I'm going to suck on stage. Wow. And if I suck on stage, I will just retire. Because why would I even do that, right? I don't have to do it if I don't want to.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I had this fear that it's the end of my career if I stop drinking, essentially. Because me sucking on stage, people come to last shows. I make no money. I can't afford my team. I'm retiring. It's a full nightmare.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I'm dead. I'm irrelevant, right? But the moment I played a sober show, I was like, wow, it's not the alcohol. I just thought it's the alcohol. It's really just that I love what I do. Dude, that's amazing. And that was such a big realization. And I immediately reached out to that other DJ and was like, you should try playing sober. And tried playing sober for a week and then went back to drinking.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Now, I can't convince somebody. If somebody doesn't want to have help, I don't think you can change them. But I think it's important to at least check in, have a conversation because for me, the realization that this excitement is the carrying point and not the alcohol was so, so big. Because I had the fears of end of my career if I stopped drinking. That's pretty crazy to think about.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
But it was in me. It was a fear I genuinely had because the moment I go on stage, and I don't like what I'm doing, I'm gonna retire the next morning and cancel everything that's upcoming because I don't have to do anything I don't want to do and I'm unbelievably lucky to be able to say that. And there's another DJ that will take my spot gladly.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I don't wanna take anybody's time away if what I'm doing isn't fulfilling me with happiness. And I really believe part of the reason why people love coming to my shows and coming back to my shows is because I love what I do and I think it translates. I think people can tell that I love and it gets them hype too. And then I see them hype and it gets me hype.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's this ecosystem of like excitement sharing, right? 100%, yeah. If I'm the one who's not having a good time and I see people do this and I can tell they're not having a good time, I just think it's like for the better to just maybe not do it at all. Wow, yeah.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I can have a shot. It's going to be okay. But just the realization that, wait, I'm better at my craft? I can deliver a better result for people who have spent their hard-earned money coming to my show. It's a duty of yours. Sure, I can have a shot if there's something to celebrate. Nobody will take that personally. They will probably be stoked that I did that because they're doing the same.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
100%.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
That's a really amazing thing for you to say because I will also admit my own shortcomings in being in the audience perspective. Because I have a friend who hadn't had any alcohol until I believe age 31-ish. And he was the hardest partier out of all of us. Going crazy, right? Like, ah, you know. Must have been high on life because there was nothing else to be high on. He also never done any drugs.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
What's the purpose? The purpose for me to make music is just like the purpose of any hobby that anybody has. I've made music since I was a little kid, and it's been my way of communicating emotion. So... You know, I'm not the one singing the words, so I'm not the one expressing something in words.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I will say I still am very inexperienced in going out and partying sober. Yeah. First of all, I don't really go out. Sure, you don't go out at all.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Yeah. And when I do, I still feel so much anxiety to do it. But I love hearing you say that because it kind of teaches me that the same perspective of you can probably be better at what I do on stage. I can probably have a better time and I wake up the next day not feeling that because that's- 100%. I mean, you've never been hung over. Never. I mean, it's not the worst thing, food poisonings.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
But being hung over is so terrible. It ruins- And that was the other thing. Being hungover directly translates to you not being able to work out as well. And I was in the state of... I had a perfect equilibrium between work, health, and working out. And every time I drank, it was like... And everything was off. I couldn't work out. I would cancel my workout. I would skip one.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And then everything... It had such a ripple effect on me that I think just cutting down on alcohol was huge.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
100%.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Yeah. I mean, it's a really good question to ask. You know, everybody's answer may be different. And I will admit that in my early 20s, I didn't get hungover at all. So if you had asked me this question when I was 23, I would probably say, yeah, it does because I'm no longer nervous. It's like, you know, socially, I'm much easier to like meet people. 100%.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
The way I express my feelings is through notes and chords and melodies and song structures and sound design. So it's a little bit of a more subtle way to express feelings, but a lot of the times it just comes out of natural... I will sit behind a piano and I will just play without a plan. There's no, I'm going to write a song like this or I'm going to write a song that does that.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
serves me, serves me, and the next morning I wake up not feeling like I'm good. But there comes an age where you pay.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
You pay the price. You pay the price, and the price gets higher by the day. And at some point, it's too much to pay. And that's when you have to start. So when people ask me for advice, it depends. Like, hey, should I cut alcohol?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
it depends everything depends everything is in the nuance if you're 21 years old and you go on a date with a girl and you want to not be so nervous and you guys want to have a glass of wine there's nothing wrong with it in my opinion sure sure yeah if you're asking me that question at 41 and you know you're gonna miss your entire week of working out and it's got all these side effects well maybe the answer is no right everybody has to decide for themselves i think
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
everybody's case is different 100 but what's really really important is to kind of learn about yourself like why do you do it do you trust people around you to tell you when you do it too much because i see it all the time yeah i know of people who in my opinion drink way too much and i see patterns where i think they can't control it and they're playing it off as like it's funny or like it it
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So the easiest way to see my whole touring schedule is Zed.net. Zed.net. And it will always show my Vegas shows, I would typically say I'm in Vegas every two weekends, I believe, if we just realized. So I'm there all the time. So, you know, on all the bigger weekends, I will be there.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And then my Telos tour is a little bit of a different thing that we just wrapped up, but we might announce a couple more shows. Nice. Stay tuned. You can follow me on socials, but I'm not sure you're going to see what I post.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
But yeah, I mean, I'm usually, I rarely take time off. I'm kind of always on tour and when I'm not, I'm in the studio. So there's a good chance that I'll be in your city.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
That's awesome.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's just mindless. You know when you look at something and you zone off and you kind of see everything blurry? That's how my brain functions when I write music. I don't think at all. My hands just move themselves and all of a sudden you kind of like wake up from having played something really awesome. Now, you don't know what you played necessarily, because your fingers just move along.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I will take it.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
100%.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Let me think about this. Three lessons that I would leave. Okay, so one core principle of my life is good people, good times. That is lesson number one. It doesn't matter what you do or go through, as long as you go through it or do it with people you love, you will always have a good time. Probably the most important lesson I have to give at all.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Second lesson is that I believe humans can achieve anything as long as you devote enough time and dedication to it. And I was having a conversation about perfect pitch, something that we're born with or not born with. And then I heard that in China, like an exceedingly large number of people have perfect pitch. And I was like, well, why are they born with perfect pitch?
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I believe it has to do with the fact that their language is way more complex and has intonations built into the meaning of words. So it's not just the word, but at what pitch you say it. So that I'm just throwing out a theory is that if you practice anything long enough, you can get really good at it. So people tell me, well, I'm 23. I wish I started piano earlier. Well, you start at 23.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
and you devote as much as you can to it. And I really think you can become a writer, a performer, anything you want. So the human capacity is unbelievable. And I think my lesson is that at any age you want, you can start anything as long as you really devote yourself to it, you can become great at it. Lesson number three. Oh, what could be lesson number three? Sleep.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Silly one, but sleep matters so much. I've underestimated the effects of sleep and the need of sleep. Everything I do in my 24 hours, minus the sleep, suffers drastically when I don't get good sleep. So invest in a good pillow, invest in a good mattress and in a good chair for working throughout the day. I think if you look at the amount of money you spend on coffee and
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
and other things throughout your life, overall throughout your life, a good mattress and a good pillow is a good investment. So really take sleep seriously.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's kind of like, think about it mathematically, it's kind of like motions. Movements, and your fingers move, and all of a sudden you're like, whoa, that was cool. And then you kind of go back and try to find what you just played, because you don't really know what you just played. Because you're not recording it at this time. You're not recording the sound.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
That's an incredible answer. I think anything I say will be in that same realm, and it really follows my life philosophy of surrounding yourself with people that you love, that inspire you, that you can inspire back. I wish I had a better definition that I can just say like that, but just to explain it, I think.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's going to be almost a copy of yours, but really following your dreams and following your guide and not letting me or anyone else tell you what to do or how to do it, but really do it the way you want to do it because you're one of a kind and nobody's you and you have your own unique talents and energy and completely follow the guide that that is. Don't listen to me. My man.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Sometimes I do hit record and I just zone out and play and then it's easy to go back. But most of the times if I'm in my room and I have a piano in my room, I kind of zone out and just play and then you kind of wake up from having played something that catches your attention.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So something that was good enough or different enough to catch your attention, then you go back and try to figure out what was this that I just played. And then if it's interesting, I will record it and I'll send it to my manager and he stores everything. Wow. Because one day I might want to go back and revisit it. And I just send them, you know, little video clips of me playing the piano.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
So that's how most songs start. And then they can go into very many different directions. They could become just a song on my album. Like a lot of the songs on my album currently have started in 20, one started in 2015. Wow. And it took nearly a decade to finish. One could become something for a TV show. One could... become a single one could become a song for somebody else.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Like we briefly spoke, I made a song with Max Martin or a couple. They started that way. They just started as I'll do something and then I feel like this doesn't fit the direction I'm going. Max, do you like this song? Maybe somebody else can use it. But the purpose of creating music is just to create for the sake of creating.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's a really difficult question to answer because I understand everybody's perspectives. I think it's easy for me to say that I make music for myself because I've achieved most things that I wanted to achieve. And I get the benefit of having a dedicated fan base that is open enough to listen to something new or different. And a good example is my album Telos because
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Like I mentioned to you, I make music for myself, so the features might be bizarre for people who know me from the middle. Some of the artists are dead. Some of them are unknown. Like most people will not have heard of the Olin, which is an Irish... whistle pipe band that I love and I was obsessed with throughout the pandemic. Honestly, my most listened to artists over the last two years.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And they make very different music, but they inspired me and they kind of pulled me through the pandemic and really kind of showed me, wow,
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
music can be so much deeper than i thought it was at the time and the pandemic was kind of a dark time and i was not inspired to make music whatsoever and then i heard diolam and it kind of sparked all these things so it was important for me to make a song with the old because they kind of pulled me through a dark time so
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I didn't go to the artists that are the biggest that would give me the most exposure. I went to the artists that mean something to me personally. That gave you the most heart. That gave me the most heart or like I've always wanted to make a song with Muse, for example. A band that I grew up with, my very first concert with my band when I was younger was a cover of Muse.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
That was the very first song we performed on stage.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
Plugin Baby. Okay. So for me to make a song with Muse is kind of like a full circle moment of being able to work with the artists that brought me here. Like I wouldn't be sitting in that studio writing that song if it wasn't for Muse. Wow. So that whole album for me, it's easy to make music for yourself when, and I'm speaking from my point of view, when you've had success in the past.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
when i started making music the algorithm didn't exist right the way it does today so when somebody and i know a lot of amazing musicians that spend their day recording tick tocks really and personally it feels depressing to see because i feel like they're so much better than chasing an algorithm and i know that because they're talented musicians but
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
But I also understand that that's what you need to do in order to make money, to be able to continue. Stay relevant or something. Or become relevant even. It's a really difficult... We're living in a really difficult... social media controlled world where art becomes the backseat to something else. Interesting.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And to me that's really a difficult pill to swallow because I don't want music to more and more go to the direction of it is the background to a video, but how much attention does the average listener even have to listen to a whole album. Very few people can do that, right? Most people don't even know the full song of the clip that they know inside out. It's like 10 seconds. That's pretty sad.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I know a lot of songs from clips, And I've never heard the whole song. And I don't even know who the artist is. It's just I know the clip that I've seen, right? So I kind of know the video. You know the sound of the 10 seconds or whatever. And then there's something behind that. But you don't know the beginning, the middle, the end. That could be the beginning. That could be the end.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
That could be the middle. I wouldn't even know. And the reason is that platforms, you know, I also understand the platforms. They're there to make money and make the shareholders happy. but it is inherently doing something to the world of music that I don't like.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It makes, it forces artists to really spend their day creating TikToks and not spend their day trying to be creative and make music because that's what's gonna make their music, that's what's gonna get their music heard. So if the artist can't afford living from just making the art, can you really blame them for filming TikToks? It's tricky.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
It's a really tricky situation and I really don't like that we live in this world and I'm really, really lucky that I can make art for the sake of art because I've built my platform at a time when the algorithms didn't really fully control it yet. A lot more things were editorial, a lot more things were, you know, you follow a person so you see what they post.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
And I feel like what is even the purpose of following anybody? That's interesting. Or subscribing because you see what the algorithm shows you anyway. Exactly. It's a tricky thing. So I definitely understand artists who feel the need to sort of Yeah, I don't know the right words to say it, but they feel the need to play the game. Yeah, tricky.
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Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy
I'll be honest. I I remember sort of seeing your go-to social media numbers, right? For the listener or viewer who doesn't know how social media was 10 years ago, let's just say a post, anything you post gets 100,000 likes, for an example, on XYZ platform. I remember specifically, it was like the same ish number. If it's a new song, it's a little bit more.