Anton Zaslavski, also known as DJ Zedd is a Dj that produces songs and originally comes from Germany but was born in Russia. He became known as Lady Gaga’s and Ariana Grande’s producer.
Early life:
Anton was born on September 2, 1989 in a town of Saratov in The Soviet Union.
Although he has lived there for only a few years, he says that he feels like he knows Russia better, by the stories his parents and grandparents told him. The whole family relocated to Germany due to their problems in Russia caused by the fact that they were Jewish. He spent his childhood in the town called Kaiserslautern in Bundesland.
Both of his parents were musicians and learned him to love music since he was a kid. His father Igor is a guitarist and his mother Marina is a piano instructor.
Anton learned to play the piano first and afterwards he learned how to play drumms by himself. He also plays keyboards.
He has two brothers: Daniel and Arkadi. He has an excellent relationship with them and he was blessed to have the support of his entire family in pursuing his dreams.
Dioramic was a German metal band which first gave Anton the opportunity to join them as a drummer and a producer. That eventually led to him signing a contract with “Lifeforce Records”.
He got involved with electronic music and found out that it fits him the best. He decided to try himself in producing electronic music. That brought his name change into Zedd.
Zedd was his nickname from school: he had a friend with the same first name as he has so they called each other by the first letter of their surnames. So Zedd is just a pronounced letter Z.
Career development:
In 2010 he wasn’t making songs for himself but for others. He produced many songs for The Black Eyed Peas, for Justin Bieber and even for Lady Gaga.
He published his first original single called “The Anthem” in 2010, after he made a reputation by winning at various remix contests.
The song became very popular and made it to the top of electronic charts. That was surprising even for Zedd because it was his first original song.
Skrillex got his fame back after he gave Zedd his songs to remix.
Zedd’s main aid in making songs was Cubase, a software made for making electronic music. He includes real instruments and plug-ins in it too.
Lady Gaga was very impressed by his producing skills so she has put one of his remixes on her album. With this act she opened up the door to fame for him.
He published a song “Shave It Up” the same year, but this time it was made under OWSLA records.
2012 brought a huge change in his career in the sense of signing a contract with one of the biggest record labels called “Interscope Records”.
His next single was “Spectrum” made in collaboration with Matthew Bair who shared the same contract label. The song was told to be one of the best dance club songs that year.
He is the person behind Justin Bieber’s hit song “Beauty And a Beat” which was released on Justin’s album but Zedd kept the credit for the hit.
Due to all the hard work he has done, there wasn’t much time for him to work on his album but he finally released “Clarity” which became a hit album with a hit single by the same name.
The album reached platinum and Zedd got a Grammy award for Best Dance Recording for the song “Clarity”.
He collaborated with the music group “Paramore” and the result was a hit “Stay The Night” in 2013.
He later produced hits for many known artists such as Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and Matthew Bair.
He took some time off, rejecting offers because he was going to work on his 2nd album “True Colors”.
His special guest on this album was Selena Gomez with whom he made a single “I Want You to Know”.
Zedd was asked to preform at Country Music Television Music Awards.
He toured the last few months of 2015 where he visited most of capital cities of the biggest world states.
He was invited to perform at Coachella festival which was a big thing because it ment that his fan base reached a big and serious number.
The League of Legends hired him to make a song for their game, and so he produced “Ignize” which is one of his most dearest songs.
One of Zedd’s songs was featured on the soundtrack for the film “Divergent”.
His single “Codec” was used on the soundtrack for an American thriller “Now You See Me”.
He is on his tour this year, it’s called ” Echo Tour”,
Personal life:
Zedd isn’t big on sharing his personal life with media and he likes to keep it private.
He has been taught that his love shouldn’t be a topic other people speak about and that he should keep his intimate interests to himself. This resulted in him staying out of every possible controversy on the scene.
He gets along with his parents and often finds time to hang out with Daniel and Arkadi. He is the middle brother and he can always count on his brother’s help.
It is known that he dated Selena Gomez during their work on “I Want You to Know”. There have been a lot of rumours related to the fact that Selena was probably still into Justin Bieber during this period, so beliebers (Justin’s fans) made it hard for Zedd.
After that he was in a relationship with an actress Nina Dobrev. She is a very known young and beautiful actress. She starred in the series “Degrassi: The Next Generation” and on “The Vampire Diaries”.
People find Zedd a high quality producer and the media loves him. Although he is still a bit unfamiliar with showing his face on camera, he is very loveable and he likes to do interviews.
Other DJs in the industry respect him for the image he made of himself in such a short period of time. It’s something not a lot of people can brag about, especially people that are as young as Anton is.
He respects his parents a lot and that’s why he keeps coming back to his origins.
He is a big fan of Playstation games and he often calls his friends to his place for a game night.
Radiohead was his favorite group because they were unique artists.
Quick summary
Full name: Anton Igorevich Zaslavski
Date of birth: September 2, 1989
Birthplace: Saratov, Russia
Age: 28
Profession: DJ, musician
Height: 174 cm
Weight: 67 kgs
Net Worth: $ 40
