Anton Zaslavski (born 2 September 1989), better known by his stage name Zedd, is a Russian-German 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".
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Life and career beginning
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 he 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.
Music production
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.[citation needed] His remix ofSkrillex'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).[12] 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 three songs on Lady Gaga's 2013 album, Artpop.He also produced "Heaven" from Namie Amuro's albumFeel.
On 26 January 2014, Zedd released the single "Find You" featuring Matthew Koma and Miriam Bryant, which is included on thesoundtrack 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.This song is nominated at the Teen Choice Awards in the category of "Break-Up Song".
