Deadmau5

Deadmau5 biography

Joel Thomas Zimmerman (born January 5, 1981), better known by his stage name deadmau5 (pronounced "dead mouse"), is a Canadian progressive house and electro house producer based in Toronto. His tracks 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 2005, followed by others in the next few years.

As well as his own solo releases, deadmau5 has worked alongside other DJs and producers, such as Kaskade, MC Flipside, Rob Swire of Pendulum, Skrillex, Bighorse and Steve Duda under the BSOD alias. He is known for often performing in a titular costume head, which resembles a mouse head that he originally created while learning to use a 3D program. The costume mouse head Zimmerman wears at concerts, called the "Mau5head" appears in many different colors and designs, and has been shown on the cover of most of Zimmerman's albums, with the exceptions of At Play and Vexillology.

Career

right Zimmerman was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario. His career began in the late 1990s, with a chiptune and demoscene movements-influenced sound. Three self-released compilations Project 56, deadmau5 Circa 1998-2002 and A Little Oblique were finished in 2006, with Project 56 seeing an official release in February 2008. "Just Before 8bit", "Bored of Canada" and "Nice Try, Kiddo" from Project 56 were expanded upon in Zimmerman's 2005 debut album Get Scraped. It features tracks of a variety of genres, including IDM, ambient/downtempo, noise pop and trip hop. Soon after, Zimmerman began his own record label mau5trap, which, along with Ultra Records and Ministry of Sound, released the 2008 album Random Album Title, which saw the collaboration of Deadmau5 and San-Francisco producer Kaskade with I Remember. Random Album Title, saw a digital release 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.

In the United States, deadmau5's collaboration with Kaskade, "Move for Me", reached No. 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot Dance Airplay chart in its September 6, 2008 issue.

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 fourth Canadian to top that chart, following Deborah Cox, Nelly Furtado, and Dragonette, with one apiece).

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".

Biography from , the free encyclopedia.
It may not have been reviewed by a professional editor, and recent changes may not show up straight away. See the latest version of this article. Used under licence. Subject to disclaimers.