When Lady Gaga set out to create her album “ARTPOP,” out Monday, it only took 90 seconds for her to choose Zedd as her producer.
Not bad for a 24-year-old Russian whom no one had even heard of two years ago.
Even if you don’t know his name, you no doubt know his beats. “Clarity,” his surprise summer hit, came on the radio virtually every 15 minutes and peaked at No. 8 on the Hot 100. He’s also whipped up magic on original tracks with Justin Bieber and Paramore’s Hayley Williams (see below) and remixes for the Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga.
So when Lady Gaga was on the hunt for an intriguing direction for her next album, she wound up at one of the DJ’s concerts in London.
“She came to that one show and she said, ‘Let’s work together,’ ” recalls Zedd. “So I made a 90-second demo, and she just called and said she wants me to produce the album.”
A lot has been quick for Zedd, the electronic dance music master né Anton Zaslavski. Born in Russia and raised in Germany, he got his start in music at age 4 when his parents, classical music performers and teachers, taught him the piano. He then went on to teach himself the guitar, and by age 12, had started a hard-core rock band, Dioramic, with his brother. After hearing an album by the dance duo Justice in 2009, his tastes changed.
“There was something in [the Justice record] that I really, really liked,” he says. “It was a good balance between phenomenal production and incredible sounds with still very musical elements.”
After graduating high school, he planned to attend university and become a school teacher. That’s when, in 2010, Skrillex came into his life. After Zedd sent the Grammy-winning DJ and producer one of his tracks via MySpace, Skrillex brought the youngster on tour. Zedd was all of 22 years old.
“Going from just making music in my bedroom, I was suddenly playing in front of 2,000 or 3,000 people every night,” he recalls.
Interscope then signed him, which led to his 2012 debut album “Clarity,” which spawned the eponymous hit song.
“I was very convinced that the song was very good, and I told the label I think this is a hit,” he says. “But I said that at a point where I’d never sold more than a couple thousand records.”
Zedd produced Bieber’s track “Beauty and a Beat,” and his own single with Paramore’s Williams, “Stay the Night.” No doubt, Lady Gaga is hoping for one of those hits on her new album.
One track, “Aura,” released as a promotional single last month, proved especially meaningful to both Zedd and Gaga.
“This was more of the example of a crazy song, and I did not really expect her to like it,” recalls Zedd. “Aura” is an uncategorizable explosion of a tune, featuring a campy Western intro, electro synths and a soaring chorus.
Says Zedd: “It showed me that she really does not care about pleasing the world.”