By: Ben Patek and Karolina Clarey
On September 18, we had the privilege of interviewing the artist Zedd, real name Anton Zaslavski, preceding the launch of his latest studio album ‘Telos’. With his last album ‘True Colors’ being released all the way back in 2015, the anticipation for this album was massive, and Zedd delivered. This album has changed the way many people think of electronic and dance music. From chord selection to the artist featured on the album, it all has a very unique and distinctively different sound when compared to his previous work. In this interview, Zedd took us behind the scenes of creating this album and brought to light the process and thought put into the album itself, along with the struggles and toll an album can take on both an artist’s physical and mental health.
When listening to his album, you will notice the songs mix smoothly into each other, sounding like a live DJ set. We specifically got to ask Zedd about this concept when creating this album. He responded, letting us know that he isn’t a fan of how more and more albums are starting to sound like playlists. “It felt like they were put together somewhere between the executive producer of an album in the label, to figure out what would get the most streams.” He also mentioned how most albums released today don’t have the aspiration to be listened to in one swing. “Personally, I love albums that are journeys. And one way to get someone to listen to the whole album front to back is by making it better than a playlist. What a playlist can’t do is intelligently morph into the next song.” To do this he and his team spent time mapping out the songs and planning out how to connect one song to another, while not forgetting that breaks are incredibly important, and using breaks to give context to the non-breaks. He concluded his answer by saying that building the key, tempo, and energy structures is how he got his album to flow from the first phase to the last.
Putting this much work into an album can also have its downsides, when speaking to Zedd about the creation of his latest album it became clear that the mental and physical toll the workload of an album puts on your body is one of the hardest parts of the project. Zedd talked about how he lost a lot of weight throughout making the album, along with enduring an immense amount of metal strain, spending all day and all-night thinking about the songs he was creating. While he was very proud of his work, he stated that if he knew how hard this album would be to make, he wouldn’t have done it.
We are so grateful we got the opportunity to learn more about Zedd’s new album, Telos. This interview not only informed us about the album but let us catch a glimpse into the countless hours of work and preparation that it takes to create an album like this.
Telos is available on Apple Music, Spotify, and all other major streaming platforms.