Electronic spinner and production mastermind deadmau5 lords more than a quarter of a million party disciples at shows. Yet when the mau5 head comes off, Joel Zimmerman wants to save EDM (except never call it that in front of him) from becoming a mainstream monster with no soul. As he prepares for his headlining gig at Ultra in March, the antihero reveals why he’s palatable dance music’s harsh protector.

deadmau5 IS VANISHING in a fog of cigarette smoke on a sunny day in Los Angeles. He’s just wrapped a cover shoot for this magazine, and has removed his signature mau5head helmet—which resembles a bloated, bug-eyed Mickey Mouse—to take a few solitary pulls beneath palm trees. Over the next hour he’ll puff no less than 10 bones. Colorful splashes of body ink, which plaster him from head to toe, occasionally peek from the cloudy haze ensuring the notorious potty mouth is still there.

deadmau5 (pronounced “dead mouse”), born Joel Zimmerman, stumbled on his moniker the day he pried open his computer to swap out a video card and found a rodent resting in peace within. But he’s made his name by crafting high-BPM melodies and spinning massive concerts and festivals. Today, he’s boasting about his yet-to-be-revealed new live setup. “It will be a game changer,” the pale skin 32-year-old insists from within the plumes, one day before announcing that in March he’ll be headlining two sets during the 15-year anniversary of Miami’s acclaimed electronic dance fiesta Ultra Music Festival.For now he only grumbles. “I’m tired of talking about Ultra. It’s the same thing every fucking year. And so is Lollapalooza.” Festival gigs have become auxiliary to Zimmerman’s list of triumphs. The five-time Grammy nominee—including one for 2012’s >album title goes here<—is also performing at ’palooza’s inaugural Chilean and Brazilian installments. His aforementioned latest LP packs well-oiled tunes crossing the spectrum of sound, complete with cameos by genre-varied artists ranging from Gerard Way (of My Chemical Romance) to Cypress Hill.deadmau5’s rise to fame began over a decade ago in Toronto, when the Canadian producer released an electronic dance music ditty for the first time. It was meant to be a joke, a parody proving the genre so simplistic that anyone can make a hit record. Ever since that first trick-track, Zimmerman has been chuckling all the way to the bank teller. One thing is clear: No amount of smoke or smack-talk will be fading out this mau5 anytime soon.

Here’s a few questions that caught our eyes, Read on:

You’ve got photos all over the Web with people like Skrillex. Are you friends with any producers or DJs?
More than everyone would think. I’m perceived to be this massive fucking loner in the world of electronic music, but I have a lot of guys to just hang and do shit with. The problem with the genre is that for the longest time it couldn’t survive without people fucking being friends, and collaborating because it was the only way to keep the thing sustained. But now it’s more commercial than fuck. We can all do our own thing now, but there’s still a lot of hangers-on to the whole fucking EDM community. Oh God, I hate that fucking word.

Any chance you’ll get over hating the term “EDM”?Yeah, I just renamed it. I called it “Event Driven Marketing.”

How do you feel about all the new emerging DJs that are having a moment right now?
It’s easy to show up with that one hit, but the problem is not stagnating in a pile of your own fucking shit. That’s something I’m always aware of when starting a new project. If you’re not being diverse, people will get bored. I like Avicii, he’s a real nice kid, but Avicii has got this “Le7els” thing, and I almost feel bad for him. It’s probably not even his fault. He did the track, and it was all right—it was catchy—but I, dead-fucking-mau5, cannot name another Avicii track. I shit you not. I can’t.

He’s also had “Fade Into Darkness” and “Silhouettes.”
I don’t know if it’s him, because from barely knowing the guy on a “hey bro, what’s up?” level, I really didn’t take away that he was running the show. It was more his management, and it was like, “We’re going to release this track with 40 different remixes and 20 different languages.” Man, I just feel bad. Dude, you just got the wrong fucking management.

Did you tell him that?
No, I should have. Something funny happened at Coachella with his manager and a guy on my label, Feed Me (a producer named Jon Gooch), who is such a cool dude. It was really funny ’cause I’ve never seen Jon riled up; he’s such a nice guy. Jon’s fucking awesome, but he got really gnarly. There were some comments going back and forth on the stage. I can’t remember what started it, but remember what ended it. Man, if my manager ever got involved like that with another artist, I wouldn’t have a fucking manager. Dude, I would break his fucking leg. I’d do five years, and then not have a manager over something like that. So it just kind of says this kid’s got the shittiest management right now.

Are you friends with Tiësto?
Sure. I’ve never been a dick to him, he’s never been a dick to me. I’ve heard about how he was a dick to this other guy, and I hear all these stories about how I’m a dick to everyone else. When we get together it’s just like, “How’s life?” We talk about music and shit.

In an MTV interview, you thanked David Guetta for paving the way…
Yeah, well he did.

But in Rolling Stone, you said all Guetta needs is two iPods and the wave.
Well it’s true. I can do that, too—and I have [laughs]. The Grammy show, what? We all did that live? Fuck no, man. Look at the way that it’s done. All those shots, the timing, when the thing starts and exactly when it ends has been produced fucking eight months ago. The whole structure, the whole show is produced.

If you were to produce a new stage show with deadmau5 and a rapper right now, who would it be?
Anyone other than fucking Kanye. I fucking hate him. He’s just trying too hard. But the problem is he’s succeeding at it. It’s like, “Oh, I’m so hate-able.” And everyone is like, “Yeah, I hate him.” Ah fuck, he wins!

So, you don’t make dance music?
I make music that you can dance to, but when someone says the word dance music I think of Aqua. “Barbie Girl.” Dance music to me is just like that, but you can say my dance music is shit, too, because people need to classify things for whatever.

Can you classify yourself?
I could—palatable fucking dance music.

via Vibe.

To read the full 7-page interview, Click here.

deadmau5 Slams the term EDM; “Yeah, I just renamed it. I called it ‘Event-Driven Marketing”

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