deadmau5

deadmau5
deadmau5 in costume performing at Coachella 2008
Background information
Birth name	Joel Thomas Zimmerman
Also known as	Halcyon441
Born	January 5, 1981 (1981-01-05) (age 30)
Origin	Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Progressive House, Electro House, Neo-trance, House
Occupations	DJ, Producer, Remixer
Years active	2005 - present
Labels	Mau5trap Recordings, Ultra Records, Ministry of Sound Australia, SongBird, Play Records. Play Digital, WeWillDoo, EMI Records, Ministry of Sound, Virgin Records
Associated acts	Chris Lake Kaskade Melleefresh Billy Newton-Davis BSOD (w/ Steve Duda) WTF? (w/ Tommy Lee, Steve Duda, DJ Aero)
Website	deadmau5.com myspace.com/deadmau5
Notable instruments
Nord Lead 2x, Moog Little Phatty, Voyager RME, Ableton, Allen & Heath Xone 3D, Allen & Heath Xone 4D, Lemur Input Device, FL Studio, Monome 256, Reaktor, Cubase, Kaossilator, Nuendo, Native Instruments Maschine

Joel Thomas Zimmerman (born January 5, 1981), better known by his stage name Deadmau5 (stylized as deadmau5; pronounced "dead mouse"), is a Canadian progressive house and electro house producer based in Toronto, Ontario. His extensive discography includes tracks such as "Arguru" and "Not Exactly", which have been included in compilation albums such as In Search of Sunrise 6: Ibiza, MixMag's Tech-Trance-Electro-Madness (mixed by deadmau5 himself), and on Armin van Buuren's A State of Trance radio show. His debut album, Get Scraped, was released in 2006, followed by others in the next few years. On October 28, 2009, DJ Magazine announced the results of their annual Top 100 DJ Poll, placing Ultra Records artist deadmau5 at number six, a jump from number eleven the previous year.^[1]

As well as his own extensive solo back catalogue, deadmau5 is recognised for his work alongside numerous other DJs and producers, such as Kaskade, MC Flipside, Rob Swire of Pendulum, and Steve Duda under the BSOD alias.

He was nominated for a Grammy in 2009 for his remix of the track "The Longest Road" by Morgan Page featuring Lissie in the category of "Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical"

deadmau5 won a Juno Award in 2010 in the category of Dance Recording of the Year for the album For Lack of a Better Name.

He is known for often performing in a costume head depicting a comical "dead mouse".^[2]

Contents 1 History 2 Name origin 3 Controversies 3.1 Rivalry with Marcus Schossow 3.2 Comment about DJs 3.3 DirtyCircuit 4 Discography 4.1 Albums 5 Recognitions 5.1 Awards 5.2 Nominations 6 References 7 External links

History

Deadmau5 received two nominations for the Juno Award for Dance Recording of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2008 for a track with Billy Newton-Davis and Melleefresh. He did not win an award for Melleefresh's "After Hours" song, but he won the award for Newton-Davis' "All U Ever Want".^[3] He was also named "Producer of 2007" by DJ magazine's 2007 Top 100 winner Armin van Buuren,^[4] and by runner up Tiësto.^[5] In 2008, he placed number 11 in the DJ Mag Top 100 poll, tying Infected Mushroom (2006) for the highest new entry in the poll's history, showing Zimmerman's fast rise to prominence. On May 1, 2008, deadmau5 became the most awarded DJ/producer of the Beatport Music Awards. He was named "Best Progressive House Artist" by Beatport.^[6] (In 2009, Beatport also awarded deadmau5 the most awards that year, winning first place in both of his nominations, as well as being given the "Greatest House DJ Ever" award, two years in a row). He also had a radio station dedicated to him in Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) portable gaming consoles, as well as the iPhone.

His album, Random Album Title, was released electronically in September 2008 via Ultra Records in the United States and Ministry of Sound in the United Kingdom and Europe. Physical copies of the album were released in November 2008.^[7]

In the United States, deadmau5's collaboration with Kaskade, "Move for Me", reached number one on Billboard magazine's Hot Dance Airplay chart in its September 6, 2008 issue.^[8] In 2009, he was nominated for Grammy Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical ("The Longest Road" [deadmau5 Remix] by Morgan Page featuring Lissie). Since then, Deadmau5 has seen three of his tracks, all collaborations ("Move for Me" and I Remember with Kaskade; "Ghosts N Stuff" with Rob Swire) reach number-one on Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay chart, making him the only Canadian on that chart to achieve that status (he is also the third Canadian to top that chart, following Deborah Cox and Nelly Furtado, both with one a piece).

In 2009, he was the best-selling artist on Beatport with more than 30,000 digital downloads with his singles "Not Exactly," "Faxing Berlin," and "Ghosts N Stuff".^[9]

Deadmau5 headlined the Dance Arena on July 10, 2009 at the Oxegen Festival in Ireland. He also headlined LovEvolution in San Francisco, California on October 3. He played at Belsonic in Belfast, Northern Ireland on August 28, at the Leeds, Reading, and Creamfields Festivals on August 29 and 30 in the Lock Up/Dance Tent/Mixmag stage, drawing a large crowd at each of the events. He has performed on BBC Radio 1 multiple times, which include an Essential Mix set on August 19, 2008 and a shared set with Pete Tong live at the Warehouse Project in Manchester on October 11, 2008. He played back to back shows that were broadcast via BBC Radio1 live from Ibiza on August 31 and September 1, 2009. deadmau5 was offered and accepted to play another set live on New Year's 2010 along with Justice, Eric Clapton, and Plump DJs.^[10]

Information on his album For Lack of a Better Name was posted on his official MySpace page.^[11]

“On September 22, 2009 (U.S only, rest-of-world release October 5) deadmau5 launches his brand new mix album, the Grammy-nominated, Juno Award-winning electronic music sensation who has racked up more than 5,000,000 hits on MySpace will unleash his second album for ULTRA Records — titled 'For Lack of a Better Name' — and then set off on a massive fall tour throughout North America.

In the fall of 2009, Deadmau5's performances were recorded and made available for sale immediately following the concert on USB wristband flash drives. ^[12]

On 'For Lack of a Better Name', the follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2008 debut 'Random Album Title', Deadmau5 takes a different turn by incorporating various styles of music into multi-blocks of songs. The album will include "Ghosts N' Stuff", featuring Pendulum's Rob Swire”.

Deadmau5 performed at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia on February 19, 2010 during the live medal presentations in men’s luge doubles and biathlon (women’s 15-km individual and men’s 20-km individual). His track "Moar Ghosts N' Stuff" was aired on national TV throughout the United States when it was played over loudspeakers during Hannah Kearney's gold-medal run in women's moguls.^[13]

In March 2010, Deadmau5 was nominated for four International Dance Music Awards, and won a further three, including Best Artist (Solo) and Best American DJ (see complete list below).^[14]

The next studio album by deadmau5, announced as his first "artist album", is scheduled for release in May. A song from the album titled "Some Chords" has been released via his YouTube account.

In June 2010, Beatport announced the winners of their annual Beatport Music Awards, awarding deadmau5 Best Electro House Artist, Best Progressive House Artist, and "most influential, relevant and forward-thinking person in electronic music over the past 12 months." ^[15] deadmau5 also performed live at the Electric Daisy Carnival's Kinetic Fields section in Exposition Park, Los Angeles on June 25, 2010.

Deadmau5 will be a playable avatar within the forthcoming DJ Hero 2 video game being released in the last quarter of 2010.^[16][17] Additionally, one of the initially revealed tracks is a mashup between deadmau5's "Ghosts n' Stuff" with Lady Gaga "Just Dance".^[18]

Name origin

The name Deadmau5 started when Zimmerman found a dead mouse in his computer while he was replacing his video card. He talked with people in chat rooms and he became known as "that dead mouse guy" and since his username was too long, he shortened "Dead Mouse" to Deadmau5.^[19]

Controversies

Rivalry with Marcus Schossow

In December 2007, Marcus Schossow, Maor Levi and Dj Eco^[20] created a project named Deadrat6 as a joke on deadmau5, claiming his tracks sound alike.^[20] A similar faux project was also created under the name of Sinterklaa5.^[21]

Comment about DJs

In an October 2008 interview with the Irish Daily Star Deadmau5 was quoted as follows:

“It puts me to fucking sleep, to be quite honest; I don’t really see the technical merit in playing two songs at the same speed together and it bores me to fucking tears and hopefully, with all due respect to the DJ type that will fucking go the way of the dinosaur, I'd like them to dis-a-fucking-pear! It's so middle man, they’re like fucking lawyers! You need them, but they’re fucking cunts. God bless them, they’re my number one customer right, so I’m not gonna go dis every fucking DJ. But to say you become this massive, "up on a podium" performer by playing other peoples productions, at the same speed as someone else's productions and fading between the two of them, I don’t get it...”^[22]

Zimmerman apologized for this comment on November 4, 2008. He explained that the interview was bad, and that it did not express his opinion about DJs correctly:

" me start by admitting…. I did not grow up in the EDM scene. I don't consider my career to be about “being a DJ”. I don't have “DJ roots”. I never had any intention of becoming a DJ, and my conception of “DJ’s” in general from this standpoint has always been being forced into some nightclub when I would have rather stayed home, and watch some dude mash the “play / stop” button and occasionally move a pitch slider. Love it or hate it... that’s just been my conception of the traditional “DJ”. Mind you, I'm not a total fucking idiot, and I recognize talent when I see it... and there are many talented DJ’s out there for sure. In my eyes, those would be the individuals who utilize technology to deliver the music in ways that are both skillful and innovate, more-so than my vision of the “play/stop/pitch” DJ. To me, the club is about “the party”; the people make the night; the DJ obviously needs to use that to his advantage, it’s give and take."^[23]

DirtyCircuit

In 2008, an artist called DirtyCircuit claimed to have been threatened with legal action after using a sample called "LP_Faxing Berlin C_128bpm"^[24] that came bundled with FL Studio, and to which deadmau5 claimed copyright.^[25] The sample was a direct clip of a full bar of the song. Deadmau5 provided a "Demo Track" which came bundled with FL Studio, along with several loop samples. The case caused a slight discomfort among the users of FL Studio,^[26] and some have pointed out potential inconsistencies in the EULA of the software.^[24]

Discography

Albums

• 2005 - Project 56
• 2006 - Get Scraped
• 2006 - Vexillology
• 2007 - Full Circle
• 2008 - Random Album Title
• 2008 - At Play
• 2009 - It Sounds Like
• 2009 - For Lack of a Better Name
• 2009 - At Play 2
• 2010 - At Play 3

Recognitions

Awards

Juno Awards

• 2008 Dance Recording of the Year for "All U Ever Want" with Billy Newton-Davis.
• 2009 Dance Recording of the Year for "Random Album Title".
• 2010 Dance Recording of the Year, "For Lack of a Better Name".

Beatport Music Awards

• 2008 Best Electro House Artist.
• 2008 Best Progressive House Artist.
• 2008 Best single for "Not Exactly".
• 2008 Best remix, 3rd place for Burufunk vs. Carbon Community - "Community Funk" (Deadmau5 Remix).
• 2009 Best Electro House Artist.
• 2009 Best Progressive House Artist.

DJmag.com Top 100 DJs Poll

• 2008 Highest new entry, voted 11th best DJ.
• 2009 Voted 6th best DJ.

International Dance Music Awards (IDMA)

• 2010 Best Artist (Solo)
• 2010 Best American DJ
• 2010 Best Electro Track for "Ghosts 'N' Stuff"

Nominations

• 2008 Juno Dance Recording of the Year for "After Hours" with Melleefresh
• 2008 Beatport Music Awards Best Remix of 2007, won as Third Best Remixs 2007 for Burufunk and Carbon Community's "Community Funk" (Deadmau5 Remix).
• 2009 Grammy Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical ("The Longest Road" (Deadmau5 Remix) by Morgan Page featuring Lissie)
• 2009 Juno Dance Recording of the Year for "Move For Me" with Kaskade
• 2009 Juno Dance Recording of the Year for Random Album Title
• 2010 International Dance Music Award for Best Progressive/Tech Track for "Strobe"
• 2010 International Dance Music Award for Best Global DJ
• 2010 International Dance Music Award for Best Producer
• 2010 International Dance Music Award for Best Video for "Ghosts 'N' Stuff" (Directed by Colin O'Toole)

References

External links

• Official website
• Artist Site at Ultra Records
• Deadmau5 on Discogs

deadmau5 Studio albums Project 56 · Get Scraped · Vexillology · Full Circle · Random Album Title · At Play · It Sounds Like · For Lack of a Better Name · At Play 2 · At Play 3 · 4x4=12 Singles "Move for Me" · "I Remember" · "Ghosts 'N Stuff" · "Some Chords" · "Animal Rights" · "Sofi Needs a Ladder" Related Discography · Awards

Persondata
Name	Zimmerman, Joel
Alternative names	deadmau5
Short description	Canadian DJ and record producer
Date of birth	January 5, 1981
Place of birth	Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
Date of death
Place of death