PLUS: How collabs with John Mayer, Muse and more felt "full circle" on his new album Telos
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00:00Now it's the sit down with Zedd.
00:02Hi, Zedd.
00:03Congrats on your new album.
00:04It's out now, but you haven't released a studio album
00:06in almost 10 years.
00:08Why was now the perfect time?
00:09Well, I don't think it's as much
00:11that it was the right time, so to speak, to release it,
00:14but it's more so that I haven't been in the right headspace.
00:17And it just took a pandemic
00:19for me to sort of hit rock bottom creatively
00:22and discover a lot of new music
00:24and a lot of new artists that I fell in love with
00:26and then come out of the pandemic
00:28with a deep pool of inspiration to really sit down
00:32and create something that I'm unbelievably proud of.
00:35There's definitely something for everyone on here,
00:37collabs with Remy Wolf, John Mayer, the late Jeff Buckley.
00:41How do you decide who to collab with and how does it work?
00:43So I think this album in particular
00:46is I see it sort of as a autobiography.
00:49So every song, every artist has a meaning to me.
00:52Personally, B is one of my favorite singers
00:55and humans alive.
00:56I've tried to work with her for quite some time.
00:59It's just that we never found the right song.
01:00I actually have tried to work with Matthew from Muse.
01:03We've tried to work on two songs in the past
01:06and they also didn't feel right.
01:08And John Mayer and I have been trying
01:09to work together since 2015.
01:12And it's just that none of us wanted
01:14to just make a song to make a song together.
01:16We wanted it to feel right.
01:17And I think I've sort of started these songs
01:20throughout the years that felt a little bit more musical
01:23than most of the songs that I had been releasing at the time.
01:26I didn't like the message it would send
01:27if I had released really any of Telos individually.
01:31So I think when I sat down
01:32and kind of started creating the canvas for Telos,
01:37I was like, well, this is a perfect opportunity
01:38to finally be able to collaborate
01:40with all these artists that have inspired me so deeply.
01:42Like my first concert,
01:44I used to be in a band before I was Zedd
01:45and my first concert ever was a cover of Muse.
01:48And like, that was our biggest inspiration.
01:50And we grew up listening to Jeff Buckley when we were young.
01:53And the last song that I did with Muse
01:56is based on a classical piece,
01:58which was the first classical piece
01:59I ever learned to play on piano.
02:02So a lot of these things are just things throughout my life.
02:05So it was less that I made a list,
02:07like I need to work with you, I need to work with you.
02:08It's just, it turned out to just be my whole life.
02:11And I think the artists fell into place really naturally.
02:15So it was a real full circle moment for me.
02:17Your last album came out in 2015.
02:19How do you think the music landscape has changed since then?
02:22Do you think we're in a better or worse place
02:24with social media and the role of the internet
02:25in promoting music?
02:27Oof, that's a really hard question to answer.
02:30I think, if you ask me personally,
02:33if there was a parallel universe I could live in,
02:36I would live in a parallel universe with no social media.
02:40In a universe where I would be able to create music
02:43and release it without really knowing
02:45how people feel about it until I put up a show
02:47and it's like, well, people showed up.
02:48Oh, people didn't show up.
02:49I guess it's not like here.
02:51I think social media plays just so much
02:54of a significant role these days.
02:56I think the two biggest players are algorithms
02:59that a few humans decide on
03:01and like sort of trends and videos and TikToks.
03:06And I honestly, I'm just not good at it.
03:08I'm good at a few things.
03:10One of them is making music.
03:11I'm not great at like being in front of a camera
03:14and like dancing and making videos about my music
03:16and promoting it.
03:18That's just not my strong suit.
03:19So it depends on who you ask.
03:21Like I prefer pure art.
03:23I prefer to just make music, release it
03:25and not have to think about TikTok videos to make.
03:29But some people will give you the opposite answer.
03:322024 has been such a busy year for you.
03:34We're curious to know,
03:35what does a day off look like for you?
03:37So I wake up, I make myself a coffee
03:40and I lay on the couch and play Hearthstone on my iPad
03:44for hours with my friends and I just sort of do nothing.
03:47And then the sun goes, I'm like,
03:48oh wow, I really didn't do much.
03:50That mental state of not even thinking
03:53of what you have to do in your next hour is vacation.
03:56So perfect day off is when I can just lay on the couch
03:59and like just not have to do anything all day.
04:01That's perfect already, perfect day.
04:04Okay, we're gonna put 10 seconds on the clock
04:06to promote any one of your projects.
04:07Ready? Go.
04:08I'm Zedd and I just released a new album.
04:10It's called Telos and I'm going on tour,
04:12the Telos tour, everywhere.
04:16Zedd, thank you so much for stopping by.
04:18Thank you, that was very sweet.