When I played in a band, people just stand there and look at you and criticize what they didn't like. But if you watch a D.J. show, people go crazy from beginning to end. Say what you want against D.J.'s, but you can't deny that the energy level in the audience is for the most part far above what rock bands have.
— Zedd
I used to be a drummer in a band, and I really loved playing the drums, so I look forward to the right opportunity to do that at some point. Maybe even on TV. Every single live performance I'm doing on TV, I want it to be different and unique.
What I look for in a voice is for it to be unique. I don't really care if a singer sings well. Really, it's about emotion, or being able to sing the lyrics and actually mean it. A lot of singers sing good notes but forget about what words they use.
I definitely don't sit down every day and make a new song.
I don't want to put 12 singles on an album. I want to make a story, a little movie.
I never feel like I need to make a song that sells 5 million copies; that's not the point of why I make music. It's great if that happens, like it did with 'Clarity,' but my goal is to always make a better track than the last one.
For the longest time, I wanted to become a pianist. That was kinda my thing.
I'm my own artist, and I see artists as movies. No one should try to change them for anything. If you don't like it, you just don't follow it. And if you don't like a movie you don't watch it. Watch another movie.
I always take care to have interesting chord progressions, because you can have the best sound design in the club, and you'll kill it in the club, but in five years, kids will have better sound design. But if your music is good, you'll always be able to listen to it, even in 20 or 50 years.
What I don't like to hear in music is something has not been thought through: that a sound is just there randomly. I want to make sure that every single little noise that's in my song is there because it's supposed to be there.
I usually write my music on a piano, and I really enjoy performing that way, because that actually shows how the music was in my mind before it actually became an electronic song.
When you catch other people with a sound like yours, that's when you know you did something.
Being yourself is what will make you survive through anything. If you make music to please someone, it's the first step in the wrong direction. Always do what you believe in, no matter what people say. Only way to go!
I've been making music for a long time, since I was very young, but at the same time, I'm still exploring what works for me. I feel like I'm just starting out.
Although my music is electronic, it has a lot of influences from my past, which is all sorts of genres; I've been in a rock-metal band for a long time, and I still feel like, personally, I have a lot of influence from that. My classical influence, you can find spots here and there.
If you're convinced as an artist of what you're doing, the only move is to, no matter what people say or what management says or your best friends say or people on Facebook, do what you do, and people will find their way to it.
I will not promote other people's songs big time. I will just mention that I produced the song to get the credit I think I deserve.
Whenever I'm in the U.K., people say I have an American accent. Which is, obviously, funny.
I personally see myself as a musician in the first place. You know, I don't want to say I will be a producer and DJ for the rest of my life. I can totally see myself being in another band in five years, if that's what my heart and soul wants to do, if that's what will make me happy. I'm totally happy to just not DJ anymore.
A DJ can't just play one song. It's about playing a set, or how you connect songs in those two hours, and where you place them.
I can't just sit down and make a song in a day. It's only possible if you focus on the music and not the sound.
A lot of EDM is not bad at all when it's simple, but a lot of it is not really musical. That's just what I really like to do: taking what I had at the beginning, which is classical and jazz influences, and putting it into electro.
I really like working with unique and unknown artists, as they usually bring something fresh to a song.
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.
I would never say I will stay in electronic music for the rest of my life. I will always do whatever I feel like at that moment.
I love silence. But I usually only listen to that when I'm sleeping.
Music is its own language - if you don't speak it, it's hard to say what you're trying to do.
