- Techno/EDM producer/DJ born Joel Zimmerman in 1981, from Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada.
- His music career started after high school. He worked with an online music licensing company, and as a programmer. He began using computers to generate music.
- He adopted the name deadmau5 after using his computer in his early teens, only to have it shut down, with a smell of burnt electronics. Zimmerman found a dead mouse inside the computer, and his friends started calling him “the dead mouse guy.” The ‘mau5’ came from his shortened name in an online chat room – the chat room did not allow names more than 8 characters long. Professionally, he has used the moniker since 2002.
- Deadmau5 has released 8 studio albums. His first, Get Scraped, was released in 2005. His 3 most recent studio albums – Album Title Goes Here (2012), while(1<2) (2014), and W:/2016ALBUM/ (2016), all reached #1 on the US Dance/Electronic Albums chart, and Album Title Goes Here made it to #6 on the Billboard 200 chart. In 2023, he released a collaboration album with Kaskade titled Kx5.
- He also has released numerous compilations, EPs, and remixes. His biggest selling single is Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff (featuring Rob Swire) from 2008 – over 1 million copies were sold in the U.S., and the song reached #1 on the US Dance/Electronic Songs chart. In 2018, he released Where’s the Drop?, which featured orchestral arrangements of his previous work. It charted on the US Classical Albums chart – and it is one of my faves.
- Public appearances by deadmau5 include him wearing a giant cartoonish mouse mask. There is a similarity with Disney’s iconic Mickey Mouse, and in 2014, there were some legal wranglings between Disney and deadmau5 over the trademark. Apparently, all has been resolved.
- My interest in EDM music started with his 2 collaborations with fellow DJ Kaskade from 2008 – Move For Me and I Remember. I found them listening to music on a flight from Europe to home, randomly checking out the music channels on the airplane’s entertainment package for the flight. The earliest forms of electronic music always appealed to me – progressive stuff with synthesizers from the 70s like Emerson Lake & Palmer, Yes, and Rush, as well as purely synthesized music from artists like Walter Carlos and Synergy. After many years of neglecting this genre, I was ready to listen again – and deadmau5 was the re-entry for me.
- Check out this video of Strobe from an EDM festival in 2019. It will give you a perspective of the energy and the over-the-top visuals that occur at these shows.