Anton Zaslavski (Russian: Антон Игоревич Заславский; born 2 September 1989), better known by his stage name Zedd,
is a Russian-German musician, music producer and DJ. He primarily
produces in the electro house genre, but has branched out, drawing
influences from progressive house, dubstep, and classical music. Zedd
grew up and began his career in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Zedd's
best-known productions to date are the songs "Clarity" featuring Foxes
which charted at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number one of
the US Hot Dance Club Songs; and "Break Free", a song which has peaked
at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the Hot
Dance/Electronic Songs, becoming his first song to do so. He also won a
Grammy award for Best Dance Recording at the 56th Grammy Awards for
"Clarity".
Anton Zaslavski was born in Russia. He is a classically trained
musician, born to two musicians, and began playing the piano at the age
of four and drums at twelve.
In 2002 Zaslavski began playing for the German band Dioramic, signed by
Lifeforce Records. Zaslavski's interest in producing electronic music
was piqued after hearing † by French electronic duo Justice. He began
producing electronic music in 2009.
Under the name 'Zedd', Zaslavski has produced a wide variety of remixes
and originals. He won two Beatport remix contests in 2010; his first
original release, "The Anthem", entered the Beatport Electro house chart
in the top 20. His remix of Skrillex's "Scary Monsters and Nice
Sprites" also entered the Beatport Electro House chart, peaking at
number 2. He has since produced remixes of well-known artists, including
Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, and others. Zaslavski
creates his music using the Cubase suite of music production
applications, and uses plug-ins such as the Sylenth1, Nexus, SynthMaster
2.6, and Omnisphere synthesizers, and the Kontakt sampler.
In 2011, Zedd's remix of Lady Gaga's track "Born This Way" appeared on
the special edition of her third studio album, Born This Way (2011). In
September, Zedd's single "Shave It Up" premiered as a thirty-second
teaser on Skrillex's YouTube page, this being Zedd's first release on
OWSLA records.
In 2012, Zedd signed with Interscope Records and released his debut
single from the label, "Spectrum", with vocals by Matthew Koma. He then
produced the Eva Simons song, "I Don't Like You", which was also
released on Interscope. He also produced and co-wrote the third single
"Beauty and a Beat" with Max Martin for Justin Bieber's third studio
album, Believe.
In 2013, Zedd produced "Aura", "G.U.Y.", and "Donatella" on Lady Gaga's
2013 album, Artpop. He also produced "Heaven" from Namie Amuro's album
Feel.
On 26 January 2014, Zedd released the single "Find You" featuring
Matthew Koma and Miriam Bryant, which is included on the soundtrack for
the film Divergent. On 3 July 2014, Ariana Grande released a song with
Zedd entitled "Break Free", which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot
100 and peaked at No. 1 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs. The song was
nominated at the Teen Choice Awards in the category of "Break-Up Song".
On February 23, 2015, Zedd released his collaboration with Selena Gomez,
titled "I Want You to Know". The song is cowritten by Zedd, Ryan Tedder
of OneRepublic, and KDrew.
It was announced on April 8, 2015 that Japanese singer Namie Amuro would
release an album entitled Genic. It was then also revealed that Zedd
would produce music on the album for the singer, making it the second
time Zedd has worked with Amuro on music since 2013 when he produced
"Heaven" from her album Feel.
Zedd released his second studio album, True Colors, on May 18, 2015.