Anton Zaslavski, known to millions as Zedd, is on the brink of releasing his second studio album, True Colors. The album’s promotional campaign has been making waves amongst Zedd’s biggest fans, allowing them to take part in an exclusive listening party with the man himself. During his latest track screening in Philadelphia, PA, Complex interviewed Zedd about his forthcoming album, collaborations, and his understanding of electronic music’s current state.
In the interview, Zedd reveals his goals to push EDM and incorporate higher musicality, explaining his own creative process and techniques for writing music.
When you write the chords [of a song] in a computer, you can either let a synth play it or a piano play it. That’s how it’s typically done, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The way I use it, I use the piano as an actual instrument. I write on it, and then I turn it into a synth. I don’t do it the other way around. The result is that the chord progressions are more unique and the music feels more musical. I hate hearing a drum fill that’s impossible to actually play. It feels wrong. It’s the same when I hear chords that a human being can’t play. I’ll hear something that’s 11-tonal and that’s something you can’t do with 10 fingers. By writing music on an instrument, you’ll make the music feel much more organic.
– ICYMI – PRE-SALE TIX FOR THE TRUE COLORS TOUR ARE UP !!!!! Code: truecolors2015 TIX HERE: http://t.co/LTQZCDYUeDpic.twitter.com/oyXDMVsqlg
— Zedd (@Zedd) May 14, 2015
When asked about what he’d like to achieve, Zedd re-stated what many greats have already been keen on expressing.
Well, I’ve always had the approach to push electronic music to be more musical. Coming from a musical background, you will find that a lot of [electronic music] isn’t [musical]. The more people that make music not-so musical, the more people accept that and think that’s how it should be. That’s going to make it really tough to turn it back. Looking back to Queen, the Beatles, King Crimson, Genesis, and all of those great bands, they were able to speak to huge masses of people with fairly complex music. The amount of depth you can put into music and still make people understand it is getting very low and you can overload people’s minds very quickly with very little. So, I’m trying to push that back and bring back musicians that can speak in wider terms. I think people can understand it without having to make some kind of crazy “math rock electro.” You have to speak [the fans’] language, and there’s ways to push that musically.
Catch the full interview here, and don’t forget to scope pre-sale tickets for Zedd’s True Colors Tour. True Colors is currently available for pre-order on iTunes.
H/T Complex | Photo by Rukes
