Zedd Opens Up: Why He's A Better DJ Sober & How Music Became His Therapy

29:04And then the next person benefits of your wrong. It's basically a circle of wrong. I mean, I don't have a solution. Maybe we could use AI to help us figure this out. But it does feel like a strange loop we're finding ourselves in because, and you know, part of the AI conversation, I mean, AI is scary, right? It is. For you as an artist and a musician, what is the benefit of AI versus the scary part of AI for you? The benefit of AI is that there's a lot of tasks that go into producing a song that are incredibly time intensive. And you sit there and go through 400 snare drums until you find the one that you like.

29:43Wow. And you could just say, find me four snare drums like X, and you don't have to spend the time. There's a lot of these tasks that you have to do, clean up, remove all the silence. I mean, you name it, right? There's a lot of things that AI can be super helpful with. It's been beneficial for you already on your music? I just hate calling it AI, but we've used AI. Software, tools. Yeah, right? It's always been there. I've always used AI, for example, an equalizer that shows me the frequencies that I need to cut. It's essentially AI. Sure, you can name it that or not. So I've used AI my whole career.

30:17And the more AI tools there are, as an example, you give me a random sound, a cowbell, your mug, right? And I want to be able to synthesize that sound. I would have to have extensive knowledge of how to create that sound digitally from nothing. There's no software that lets you throw in any sound you want. It will re-synthesize it to the point where you can change and alter anything about it. That's something that was completely impossible my entire life. And now I can actually play and not sample it. I'm saying like resynthesize it. There's a little bit of a nerd talk, but essentially it's really amazing.

30:54It lets us be so creative with something. That's a perfect example of AI being super helpful to me. One way AI is scary is that anybody can now write, make me a song that sounds like Zed, but make it better. Oh no. And it will do it. That's crazy. Right? So that's, of course, scary. And every single time somebody clicks generate, it gets better because it learns of itself. Oh, my gosh. But it's also fascinating. I mean, I have no idea how this will shape things. I also think that the human element and anything in civilization is something that will never want to get lost. Yeah. It also goes back to, like, you built a brand, right?

31:38Zed. people think of a feeling and an emotion when they see or hear Zed. They know there's going to be, for most people, I think, a spiritual, whether they're thinking consciously or not, there's a spiritual experience inside of them when they see Zed. Or they hear the sound. They're like, they remember the feeling. I get chills thinking, but they remember the feeling the first time they hear it. Or that night in Vegas, or when you came to their city, and they had their girlfriend and their boyfriend and they had this incredible emotional euphoric experience for two hours. Right. And they maybe never felt that ever in their life again.

32:20And so when you build a brand, Zed, with the feeling of awe, it's hard to create something more powerful than the combination of a brand and the feeling together than just chat GPT saying, make me a better song than Zed. Right, because there's probably, there's definitely better songs than the ones I make. But what you started our conversation with is that a lot of people have met their partners or danced or relieved stress or, you know, got over something during a show of mine or while a song of mine was playing. That connection to a human, I think, is so much stronger than knowing that a randomly generated song has you know is technically better sounds better it's mixed cleaner which i'm sure all of these things are true and throughout my whole career with the exception of one song that was out of my hands i have mixed every single song i've ever released wow and i'm not the best mixer you know i i have a lot of things to do i write music i produce music i mix music i perform a lot of shows i have a vegas residency i program my own lighting like i with my team of course but I do a lot of things.

33:32I don't spend all day mixing. So there's mixing engineers who are way better than I am and ever will be. But my choices, every single choice throughout the mix process of my songs has personality. It's because I like things this way. It's because I like snare to be too loud if I feel like it. There's this Dream Brother song on my album where the clap is unbelievably wide. Again, a little bit of nerd talk, but it's essentially very strange. And I like the idea of having something so bizarre and weird. And if you gave that to a mixing engineer, he would immediately pan it to the center because that's not normal.

34:07But I like it. It has character and has this moment of like, I was in the car listening to it and it felt like the claps were coming from like the side of the doors. And I was like, that's cool. That's a unique experience. I've never felt that. I've never heard it. I like it. It's different. So I think the connection to a human and a human making a decision is much more powerful than the connection to something that's technically on paper better by whichever metric you want to go by. So is handmade furniture obsolete because we have IKEA? No. People still care for an Etsy as well in her life. I hope.

34:42I love Etsy. Yeah, yeah. Because there's people creating things by hand, and I think there's a lot of appreciation for humans doing amazing things. Yeah, I don't think it'll ever fully replace it because I think you need a story and personality behind the art. maybe there'll be some one-offs or some anomaly of like oh ai generated whatever and like people really appreciate it because it's a unique one-off thing but i think when you have a personality and you're able to build a brand around emotion yeah and something that people love it's hard to beat that i think you're right and i think this will hopefully never get old and people still want to come to shows even though they can put vr solutions on and and technically experience it anywhere any time they still want to be at a show and i've actually witnessed this on my last tour while one of my openers was playing and i loved watching this so my openers sometimes have to play pretty early because we only have so many hours we're allowed to make sound so people are still trickling in and it's really fun not you opening but someone else coming to open the show yeah before i i go on and it is something that i've noticed that i really loved seeing it was an empty hall i think it was about 7 ,000 people in total, and people slowly trickle in, and you can tell nobody knows each other.

35:56And then slowly, one person likes a song, turns to the left, you can tell they don't know each other. And I was kind of watching from side stage, and two songs later, there's a group of like 10 people that are clearly like now jumping together. And like when one person jumps, everybody jumps. And you see these little like circles built throughout a venue. And slowly but literally they all become one. It's like almost when you look at ants and you see them do something super coordinated, like how the hell do you guys know how to do this? That's how it feels when humans in a room slowly start spreading, let's just call it energy, for lack of a better word.

36:31And eventually, I feel like a good show is when you capture all of the audience. Oh man, that's gotta be like a spiritual experience for you. It is. You see the whole audience move in unison or sing in unison or wave or dance. And they don't know each other, but they're all on the same wavelength and slowly throughout the course of a night you can see how it spreads and how the circles become bigger it's pretty amazing i mean humans are amazing you know we're incredible we're one of a kind i had um i had the singer uh hosier on i don't know yeah yeah yeah he he's awesome extremely talented great music and i asked him like if he ever has any, I asked him what's his most spiritual experience he's had on stage.

37:17Cause he's got the song, like take me to church and all these different things. And I go, it's a spiritual experience for the audience, but it also for him. And he gave me a really honest answer. He was kind of like, you know, I've kind of, I do it so often now, like I'm on the road all the time. I'm always performing. And it's like, I don't necessarily take it for granted, but it's like, it's hard to feel that feeling for him is kind of what he was saying. He's like, I recently did in Mexico city. The audience was incredible. And it was just like so loud. And everyone was singing my songs and it was like, that kind of felt spiritual, but you kind of go through the motions sometimes and you just forget about it.

37:53Do you feel like every show, sometimes you go through the motions or do you have a spiritual experience certain nights and when you do is there something that you're creating energetically inside of you are you in a good zone with your habits and rituals and routine are you in a good state emotionally when that happens like does that happen and what are you creating to make that happen i still feel surprised slash really um moved by an audience singing along to my music like even though I know they will, I still go on stage and I'm still unsure if people know the songs. And that's why I said I never see myself as a celebrity, I never see myself as somebody whose music is widely known.

38:37Maybe because I've made music for so much longer since I was a kid without anyone knowing anything I do that I'm more used to it. I'm not sure, but I still, when I go on stage, I mean a festival's probably the best example because festivals have multiple stages. There's lots of amazing artists playing at the same time. I still am always wondering whether somebody's going to show up at my stage. Come on. Yeah, every time. But you're freaking Zed, man. I don't know. You've got billions of streams. You've got massive hits, Grammy Award winning. I know, but it's not really internalized in that way.

39:09I still see myself as Anton. And I meet my friends in video games just randomly. I love that. I don't see myself as the person that people see myself as. Really? No. And I don't think I ever will at this point. I think that's actually beautiful. Maybe it's a good thing. I think it's actually a really good thing. It probably makes you a healthy human being. Yeah. And you don't believe all the hype of yourself. I think that's the worst thing that people can do is believe their own hype. I think you can appreciate what you've created and how hard you've worked. And man, you've dedicated your life to your craft.

39:43And you can not diminish that. You can appreciate and have self-respect and self-worth and know your value. but not believe the crazy hype of someone who's just like, oh my God, you're incredible. Yeah, that happens a lot. I mean, I don't experience that very much again because I don't see myself this way, but I do see other people go through that and I don't love seeing that. Maybe that's why I shy away from it too. I think the whole nature of like extreme fandoms and like - Celebrity and stuff, yeah. Yeah, people basically excusing any behavior of a person because they love that person. It's like anything that person does is amazing.

40:23I just don't think that's healthy to any industry, to any CEO, to any artist, to any actor, whatever that may be. I think always being sort of double checking, making sure you're not doing anything stupid is a good thing. I don't think having an army behind you, supporting you through any move you do is a good thing. I don't think it's a good influence on you. Is that a European kind of way you were raised? Because it seems like it might be, or is that, you know. It's definitely possible. I mean, I'm very much a son of parents that have raised me one way and I'm that way still. I'm really thankful for how my parents raised me.

41:04How did they raise you? It may shock you, but they let me do anything I want. Really? Yeah, like if I didn't want to go to school, I would tell my mom, mom, I'm not going to go to school tomorrow. Once because I didn't study for my exam and if I fail this exam, it's going to be bad for me. Okay, I'll call in and say you're sick. Or, hey mom, I'm wasted with my friends. We're going to go out tonight. I'm not going to make it to school tomorrow. Are you sure? Okay, I'll call in and say. Whenever. But I wouldn't really abuse it as much as you think I would. Having that power, I learned to appreciate it and I used it, I don't want to sound bad saying this, but I used it strategically to get through school because I sucked at school.

41:44Wow, me too. I was not good. I was good at music, and I would help my whole class. But I was not good at school. It's just not how my brain is wired. And maybe I'm using that as an excuse. But I've always been very pushed into creativity, not by my parents. But I always wanted to do something creative. And I've always loved video games. I've always loved music, any sort of art. I just wasn't good with numbers. I loved ethics and psychology and that kind of stuff. but I really didn't like most of school. But I didn't abuse it. I would strategically, occasionally call in sick. But I learned to juggle power, right?

42:24Because as a kid, deciding when you want to go to school or not is like the most powerful thing you can have as a kid. It's not really money. You have to go to school, but you don't. That's pretty powerful as a kid. So I think it kind of maybe taught me to be careful with the power that I'm given and respected. But yeah, to go back to the question you asked originally, it's like I still am so overwhelmed by people singing along to my music, especially going from city to city or country to country or continent to continent. And it's pretty fascinating because every almost state is a different variation of human beings.

43:07Really? and you can feel it and see it and i sometimes claimed i could hear a clip of an audience and i could tell you which country we're in by come on the pitch of them singing no way philippines best singing crowd in the world like they're all amazing japan is like a close second you know when you hear sing-alongs you're like what's going to be either there or there um you know europe is maybe more a little bit of the soccer chant like off pitch but sounds bigger louder um so each country has things that it has to do with weather the weather affects their mood and attitude the language the language affects how direct or distant or you know how you express yourself like german is very distant in my opinion english i remember when i came to america and i met jimmy iveen who who signed me initially at the beginning of my career and i want to say you I wanted to say something to you.

44:02And I realized there's no other way to say you in the English language than you. While in French or Russian or German, there's multiple yous. There's a formal and an informal you. So you always use the formal you because you show respect to the person. But I was sitting in front of Jimmy Iovine, this legend, who was signing me. And I was saying you. That felt so weird to me. So every country has something that makes them some sort of ball of energy. And you perform there and it just this energy feels different everywhere you go. But anytime I hear people sing along or jump, it's not something that gets old to me.

44:43And I'm used to it, but it still doesn't make it any less amazing. What's the most spiritual experience you've had at a live show you've performed at? Oh, man, there's going to be a bad answer because I'm unprepared for this. but there's been so many moments in my life on stage. Like I remember playing Madison Square Garden. That was a really special moment because it was my first arena tour and I was on stage and I don't know Madison Square Garden well. I know it from hearing and seeing it, but up top in the center of the room, they have the ring and it says Madison Square Garden. I was just on stage and I kind of looked up and I saw that Madison Square Garden.

45:20I was like, wow, this is crazy. I'm actually here on stage and like playing in front of all these people. So that was an amazing moment. Playing Red Rocks, have you heard of in Denver? I've never been there, but I've always wanted to go. I remember I was, or still am, a huge fan of Incubus, and they had a DVD. I don't know if it was like a bootleg I got somewhere, or if it was a real DVD or VHS or whatever it was, but they were playing live at Red Rocks, and it just looked so incredible. And I was a kid, and I set myself the dream one day, I'm gonna be on that stage playing Red Rocks myself. So then when I finally was playing Red Rocks sort of the first time, it was another one of these moments of like, I can't believe these dreams I set myself so high that I would never reach them.

46:02I end up actually reaching, and it feels bizarre because I tried to set myself goals I will never reach. And throughout my life, I've kind of surpassed my goals, and I always have to keep reaching higher because I like having dreams, and I like having goals. And I think it's important to have something you work towards or for, whatever that is in anybody's life. But I like having the drive to achieve something, whatever that may be. Wow. When you're playing, I mean, now that you have this information that when you go to a different city, different state, different country, different continent, and you know there's different energy of an audience, like now you know you've been everywhere, you've played everywhere.

46:40Do you approach every show the same in terms of like setup, the lighting, the loudness of the sound, whatever it might be? Or are you thinking, oh, the Philippines rocks this way. so I'm going to change the lights to create a mood and an environment to let them shine and I know in England they're kind of like a rowdier bunch and they're kind of off tune or whatever and they're just more screaming rather than like on pitch and so I'm going to make it like louder for them and like you know deeper deeper bass just let them rumble and it doesn't need to sound the way I like it but it's going to sound the way it makes them feel most alive have you ever thought about that um i haven't thought about what you just said specifically to kind of put the audience on stage in a sense um that's really really good approach really good thought um what i definitely do is i change my show depending on where i play um i played a show in mexico a couple weeks ago and it was and i i didn't know this until i got there but i was the only electronic artist that day and it was a gigantic festival to make it just the easiest is like their Coachella uh-huh um huge artists I was playing at the same time as Toto which I would have loved to myself um Toto the band Toto the band like Africa yeah yeah oh man I saw them play once they're really yeah I would have loved that I missed them because I play I had to be I stayed with the opener for um oh my gosh Journey oh cool and so they're oh awesome yeah it was fun but it was this it was this huge festival first of all my doubts came in who's gonna watch me when Toto's playing really as always yeah it will never change it's just how I I think think about myself but um I made my set that day like in the green room right before I went on stage because I had no idea what to expect I was talking to the drummer of the Mars Volta they were playing like an hour before it's like what kind of audience did you have and it's like oh they really like rock I'm like okay I have I had some more rock versions or remixes of rock songs, so I added a bunch more rock-leaming songs.

48:42So I will adjust accordingly. When I'm on my tour, the Telos tour was a work of art, a movie, in a sense. I'm not going to change the movie because of the theater it's playing in. I made a movie, and I'm there to present the movie as close as possible. And I've been adjusting the set a little bit on tour, but I see it as a work of art that I've created that I want people to see. while in Vegas if another artist shows up I will always play a couple songs of that artist I mean there's a bunch of things that have happened where I saw people making out in the front row like an opening artist jumped in the crowd to make out with somebody I know this is a Vegas thing and I immediately switched to Careless Whisper by George Michael because I was like that's a funny moment I know most won't get it because they didn't see it but in Vegas it's much more spontaneous there's no set list there's no like it's whatever you feel in the moment whatever you feel in the moment and I think I told you off camera but in Vegas I feel like I'm more of I'm there to make sure everybody has the best night of their lives I'm not there to promote my album I'm not there to show the news drops that I've got I'm there to sometimes test out new music because I want to get information about how a song I'm working on sounds and I feel like Vegas will sounds weird but they will film less because people are in their own, you know, they're drinking, they're partying, they're dancing.

50:07They're not necessarily there to film and upload it. And I don't want those things out. I just want to get information. So I sometimes will drop a song really quickly, get the information I need and mix out. So every concert has a different purpose. Wow. My tour, my Telos tour is a work of art that I spent with my, like a month with my team working on the finest details and lighting. And I still think it's one of the most incredible shows visually possible. And I'm really, really proud of it. And I'm not really looking into adding a new hit that just went viral because that's not the purpose of it.

50:42Now, a viral hit in Vegas, that makes much more sense. A festival in Japan, I will maybe play. And you know, you've got to think about things like a relatively unknown song of mine has been in a car commercial in Japan. So that song is significantly more popular in Japan than it is in other countries. You'll play it there. I will play it there. So you have to consider all these things when you go to the Instagram. You don't have to. You do. That's smart because I speak a lot. As a speaker, I'll go on stage. I like to go early. It kind of sounds similar to what you're doing. And I'll either ask other speakers, how is the audience?

51:17But I like to go even earlier and ask people in the hallway, hours before. And I like to ask just people attending, whether they know who I am or not, I like to just say, hey, what are you going through in your life right now? That's amazing. What's your biggest challenge you're going through? What are you facing? What's like something? And based on what they say, I'll try to use that as information as like, this is a general collective of what a lot of people might be feeling and try to speak into that. And I'll leave a reference. You know, I talked to Susie in the audience like a few hours ago.

51:46And she mentioned that she was really struggling with this in her life. How many other people are feeling like they're struggling in this part of the area of their life? And then I can kind of speak in and try to relate to that audience more. That's amazing. It sounds like you do that as well. with, hey, tell the other artists who opened up, how was the vibe? Are they low energy? Do I need to bring it up? They like more rock music. So it's really smart you do that. Always do that. And I always do that at festivals with artists who play after me. I was like, hey, just letting you know, they really love, because some audiences love to sing, which, you know, tend to be the shows I do the best.

52:16And some audiences just want to rage. Like every festival is different. So it's really good information if somebody shares that. I always do with whoever's playing after me. It's like, hey, by the way, they really like XYZ type of music. they don't seem to know xyz and and it really helps the dj after me to to be able to cater a little bit better and i really appreciate when people tell me that most of the times people when i'm like how's the crowd they're like they're amazing you're gonna love it and they're not i wish they were just honest like i'm not gonna be like just tell me you know it only helps everybody yeah like hey it's really rough they they only know the sing-alongs like maybe this wasn't on the radio maybe they're on word like there's many reasons it's not a personal thing but I think honesty is just really good.

52:58But to what you said, where you would go into the audience and ask Susie about something that's going on in her life and reference it, which sounded crazy to me, but I realized I actually have done this. I've done four nights in San Francisco on my tour. And after, I think, the first night I did an album signing, a meet and greet in a record store, and people came up to me and told me their personal stories, which was a lengthy period of time where I got to hear people's connection to my music, which was really, really awesome, which is how we started the conversation. And one person said, I've been supporting you since Zelda came out, which was like, I want to say 2010, like before I was signed.

53:40It was the very early days. I'm like, wow, you've been there. I mean, I probably had a couple thousand fans maybe in the world. Like you were there since day one. So it's like, I'm going to play Zelda for you tomorrow. And I played it just for that one person. It was 8 ,500 people in the room, but it was just for that one person. That's cool. But there might have been more who were like, I was there since day one. But it was this human sort of connection that, you know, maybe an AI on stage wouldn't necessarily appreciate or do. 100%. This is fascinating. I've got a few more questions for you, but this has been really cool, Anton.

54:13I appreciate you opening up. Likewise, yeah. Thank you. You know, there's either a stereotype or stigma or just a feeling that you see some artists die young or just get burnt out or stressed out or overwhelmed or they can't take the fame or money or just don't know how to manage it all. It seems like it can be daunting. Yeah. You know, you've seen a lot of younger artists struggle, things like that. But how have you been able to navigate that yourself with either burnout, the success, the fame? And also, how do you manage and navigate it when other artists that you know are struggling? Whether they're mental health, suicidal thoughts, the overwhelm of needing to be relevant and they're not as relevant.

54:58Whatever is going on, how do you manage it personally? And then how do you navigate it? Because I know you've had friends who've taken their life. How do you navigate that as well? I think the most important thing in a life where you're always out there, lack of sleep, you're surrounded by alcohol and drugs, girls, whatever that may be, is the people you surround yourself with, the team you build. It's the single most important thing. Building a good team that's there for you and not there for you to make money for them to make money. People who care about you as a human being first and foremost.

55:35those are the building blocks of a long and successful career starting at the very beginning everybody I work with I've worked with since 2010 before I had any success really having trust in people is really really important and again building a team that cares for you is really important and having human you know connection to the team and and not just having a person that works for you but with you that's number one same goes for your friends friends are an influence and they can sway you either direction i think surrounding yourself with people that keep you in check that give you it sometimes is good no matter who you are um now if you're one of these artists or if you're an actor if you're in the public eye and you struggle with with suicidal thoughts i've been surrounded by people i'm lucky enough to have never had those thoughts but some of my friends in the industry have and I think it's really important to check in on people and I know people check in on me and I really appreciate it and I never take that as like why are you checking in on me I don't need it now it's always a good thing just that you don't have to do much beyond hey what's been going on like how are you feeling um I've had friends who've had suicidal thoughts in during the pandemic who are in in the industry um I have had friends of friends that told me, man, this guy, he drinks way too much and he cannot control it.

57:04And I reached out to them. And we briefly spoke about the fact that I've recently cut down on alcohol consumption a lot. I mean, I will drink occasionally when my parents are in town, I'll have a glass of wine with them. That's fine. I'm not, you know, not black or white. But my default used to be to drink on stage. Really? Always for over 10 years, every show. Was it like a nerves thing or was it more just it was a mixture of I think there are advantages to having alcohol in you because you feel like you're connecting more with the people that have alcohol in them it loosens you up a little bit it makes you less nervous because I still get nervous still and I know this because I wear a boot track right and it's every single show and I don't put in when I start my show it knows exactly when my show starts so that tells me that it might also just be excitement it is I mean it's partially exciting right they're kind of linked in a sense but i do know that i still get some sort of body reaction when i go on stage um and i thought for the longest time first of all probably 10 years ago i told my touring team if i ever drink too much like if i become an alcoholic you have to tell me because i'll be the last person to know wow if you're the alcoholic and and probably most of us have been around people like that, you don't know, and you're going to argue you're not.

58:24So I told them right away, because I drink a lot, this is years ago, like, you have to tell me if it gets too much, because I won't know. Did they tell you? They didn't, and I still, like, I would consider myself a functioning alcoholic before they would, and I think I trust them enough to know that they would tell me if something was really wrong. So what made you want to stop drinking as much? What made me want to, stupid answer, but I started writing down my calories. Every single thing I eat or drink, everything. I made a spreadsheet that is as easy to use as possible. And I had other DJs ask me for that because I'm not alone.

59:01There's other people going through whatever you're going through always. Anytime you want to Google something, somebody's Googled it before you, right? That's the general gist. So I started writing down my calories because I wanted to lose fat and gain muscle. And I started going down the rabbit hole of like, how do you do that? It's all about, you know, it's the very shortest is calorie in, calorie out. Yes. I started writing down all my calories and little things you wouldn't even think like AG1, 50 calories. You know, you have 10 of those things throughout the day. That's a full meal. So I started writing them down and there was this one show where I was pretty hungry and I had the show at 1.30 a.m.

59:36starting and I look at my sheet and I'm like, well, I can either drink or eat because a shot of alcohol just for the ones who are interested is just about 100 calories, right? One shot? Yeah, I guess you don't drink. 100 calories for one shot? Yeah, and you can go through 10 shots a night. Holy cow, that's like two meals. Yeah, it's, you know, you can have your entire day's worth of nutrients. Yeah, that's crazy. So I looked at it and I was like, okay, well, I can't afford to drink today because I don't have the calories. And if you mix it with other things, it's even more. Sugar and Sprite or drinks, it's like more calories.

1:00:10Even more calories. So I looked at my sheet and I was like, okay, well, today, because I want to stay on track. You can undo a whole weeks of starving and doing well and working out by one silly night out. And I will even argue that it's worth it to do that occasionally if the right circumstances are met. But in that sense - Every night and every weekend. It was my default, right? It wasn't even, it got to the point where I would show up and I want to thank everybody who does this because it just shows how much they care. But I would show up to places and people would know my favorite drink, which was Jack and Coke Zero for a long time.

1:00:40There's all of it. And it was pre-mixed the moment I walked in. So I didn't even have to ask for it. That's really good hospitality, but it became a norm. It became like Anton's drinking and he's drinking Jack and Coke. I would have two before I go on. Throughout the two-hour set, probably two to three on. And like one or two after. We're talking about - 700, 800 calories at least. More because it's mixed. There's probably a shot or two in between. And you feel like it the next morning. Oh, yeah. So two things happened. I started realizing through wearing a whoop that when I drink alcohol, my recovery was awful, even if I didn't feel that way.

1:01:14But I don't always trust how I feel. I don't trust my memory because I think it's really just in general human beings' memories are pretty bad. I trust something that has no personality. It's just there to tell me. So if my heart is working overtime just to keep my body clean or cleansed from the alcohol, something's going on that's probably not ideal. So I looked at it and I was like, I don't like that I'm not doing something good to my body. Number one. Number two was I just didn't have room for calories. So there was this one show that I previously mentioned where I realized I'm not going to have any room for calories.

1:01:54So I'm going to have to play it sober. And that was going to be my first sober Vegas show. and Vegas is a much tougher audience than virtually any other place that you can play because not everybody bought a ticket to see you because people go to Vegas to go to Vegas as well you're one element of the night and I was really concerned because for the longest time I thought I wouldn't be able to play shows live and one of the DJs that I was kind of tipped off on drinking way too much said that exact thing I could never do this sober right and that's a really really dangerous thing to say when you play a lot of shows.

1:02:29And I remember going on stage, playing sober, 45-ish minutes passed into my set, and I had this moment of waking up where I realized, wait, I'm sober. I felt drunk. I felt exactly the same drunk as I felt before. And that made me realize that what I thought the alcohol was giving me, it wasn't the alcohol ever. It was the adrenaline. It was the excitement. It was the connection to the people. and that moment I was like oh my god I can of course do this sober because I was scared to lose this feeling and I was scared that if I lose this feeling I'm gonna suck on stage wow if I suck on stage I will just retire because why would I even do that right I don't have to do it if I don't want to and I had this fear that it's it's the end of my career if I stop drinking essentially because me sucking on stage people come to last shows I make no money I can't afford my team I'm retiring.

1:03:23It's a full nightmare. I'm dead. I'm irrelevant, right? But the moment I played a sober show, I was like, wow, it's not the alcohol. I just thought it's the alcohol. It's really just that I love what I do. Dude, that's amazing. That was such a big realization. And I immediately reached out to that other DJ and I was like, you should try playing sober. And try playing sober for a week and then went back to drinking. I can't convince somebody. If somebody doesn't want to have help, I don't think you can change them. But I think it's important to at least check in, have a conversation. Because for me, the realization that this excitement is the carrying point and not the alcohol was so, so big.

1:04:03Because I had the fears of end of my career if I stopped drinking. That's pretty crazy to think about. But it was in me. It was a fear I genuinely had because the moment I go on stage and I don't like what I'm doing, I'm going to retire the next morning and cancel everything that's upcoming because I don't have to do anything I don't want to do and I'm unbelievably lucky to be able to say that and there's another DJ that will take my spot you know gladly I don't want to take anybody's time away if what I'm doing isn't fulfilling me with happiness and I really believe part of the reason why people love coming to my shows and coming back to my shows is because I love what I do and I think it translates I think people can tell that I love and it gets them hyped too and then I see them hyped and it gets me It's this ecosystem of like excitement sharing.

1:04:49Right? 100%. Yeah. If I'm the one who's not having a good time and I see people do this and I can tell they're not having a good time, I just think it's like for the better to just maybe not do it at all. Wow. Yeah. If you don't enjoy what you're doing. Dude, I'm so glad you're saying this. And it's beautiful that you can be a model for other DJs and artists to be able to, hey, you've done it with alcohol and without it. Just as effective, if not more effective because you're more present, you're more aware, all these different things probably. I'm a significantly better DJ sober. That's interesting.

1:05:18I can have a shot. It's going to be okay. But just the realization that, wait, I'm better at my craft. I can deliver a better result for people who have spent their hard-earned money coming to my show. It's a duty of yours. I kind of, sure, I can have a shot if there's something to celebrate. Nobody will take that personally. They will probably be stoked that I did that because they're doing the same. But it's almost my duty to do anything I can to deliver the best show possible. 100%. I've got a couple of final questions for you, Anton. I know you got to jump out of here soon. But to finish with that, 20, I don't know, 22, 23 years ago, I was going out to the clubs to Paul Oakenfold and Tiesto and Ferry Corston and like kind of those guys back in the day.

1:06:01And I remember I would go, and I think I was probably the only one that was sober at every club I'd go to, right? And my like 21, 22 year old self, right? and um i would go and i'd maybe have sprite or have like a red bull or water or something but i would just i didn't need alcohol to feel alive and everyone had asked me like are you drunk because i was just like jumping the whole night at my dance and in it and i was like no man just get high on life yeah and the energy can bring you alive i think yeah and if you bring the energy you're also going to feel that as well so that's a really amazing thing for you to say because I will also admit my own shortcomings in being in the audience perspective.

1:06:44Because I have a friend who hadn't had any alcohol until I believe age 31-ish, and he was the hardest partier out of all of us. Going crazy, right? Like, ah, you know. He must have been high on life because there was nothing else to be high on. He also never done any drugs. And I will say I still am very inexperienced in going out and partying sober. yeah first of all i don't really go out sure you don't go out at all ever yeah but and when i do i still feel so much anxiety to do it but i love hearing you say that because it kind of teaches me that the same perspective of you can probably be better at what i do on stage i can probably have a better time and i wake up the next day not feeling like because that's i mean you've never been hung over never it's the i mean it's not the worst thing food poisonings but being hung over is so terrible it ruins and that was the other thing being hung over directly translates to you not being able to work out as well and i was in the state of i had a perfect equilibrium between work health and working out and every time i drank it was like yeah and everything was off you know i couldn't work out i would cancel my workout i would skip one and then like everything it had such a ripple effect on on me that i think just cutting down on alcohol was was was huge i I don't know if there's any benefit strong enough for the case of drinking a lot of alcohol.

1:08:10Like if you wanna have a glass of wine or a shot once in a while, cool, whatever. But I don't know if there's a benefit of like, hey, I'm getting hammered tonight. Beyond that moment, there's no other benefit. And what it does to your brain and your health of like the consistency of that, there cannot be any good in that. Do you think people will still be drinking alcohol 50 or 100 years from today? 100%. Really? Because people, people, um, none of their own fault. I mean, I'm, and I'm not here to judge cause I wouldn't, I've like had sugar highs, right? Like my whole life, like that's been my advice is like, okay, I'm going to eat like a bucket of ice cream, which is equally as bad in certain ways, right?

1:08:48It's got its own thing. I just think that, um, whenever there's ability to do the easier way, if you're feeling anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, let me, for me, it's like, let me go to sugar. Let me go to comfort food. Whatever it is, whatever the easy way is, humans are going to go that way. If it's alcohol because it doesn't seem like the big issue and it makes you feel more relaxed, whatever is the easier way of smoking cigarettes or e-cigs, the easy way to numb something is what human beings are going to do. Unless they're really trained on how to regulate their emotions. And if you don't know how to regulate emotions, then you don't know how to get through life.

1:09:31And you need something to stimulate and calm or soothe you and comfort you. It doesn't mean you're bad or wrong. It's not about good or bad. It's about does it serve you? Yeah. Does it serve you? Does it serve the people around you with you being drunk or high or on drugs and then the next day not able to deliver or perform or you're forgetful? is that serve your life? Yeah. I mean, it's a really good question to ask. You know, everybody's answer may be different. And I will admit that in my early 20s, I didn't get hungover at all. So if you had asked me this question when I was 23, I would probably say, yeah, it does, because I'm no longer nervous.

1:10:14It's like, you know, socially, I'm much easier to like meet people. 100%. Serves me, serves me. And the next morning I wake up not feeling like shit. Interesting. I'm good. But, you know, there comes an age where you pay. Long-term effects. Yeah, you pay the price. You pay the price and the price gets higher by the day. Man. And at some point, it's too much to pay. And that's when you have to start. So, like, when people ask me for advice, it depends. Like, hey, should I cut alcohol? It depends. Everything depends. Everything is in the nuance. If you're 21 years old and you go on a date with a girl and you want to not be so nervous and you guys want to have a glass of wine, there's nothing wrong with it, in my opinion.

1:10:50Sure, sure, yeah. if you were asking me that question at 41 and you know you're gonna miss your entire week of working out and it's got all these side effects well maybe the answer is no right everybody has to decide for themselves i think everybody's case is different 100 but what's really really important is to kind of learn about yourself like why do you do it do you trust people around you to tell you when you do it too much because i see it all the time yeah i know of people who in my opinion drink way too much and I see patterns where I think they can't control it and they're playing it off as like it's funny or like it it's it's really not funny it is a it is just a form of them being an an alcoholic you know so it's it's a difficult thing to joke about but I think it's it's good to have people around you that you trust to tell you when you're doing it anything too much.

1:11:45100%. I'm getting from your team. We got to get you out of here. So I've got two final questions for you quickly. I could go for hours with you here, but I want people to, number one, I want to go into your shows. So I want to go to Vegas or where, you know, if you're on tour, people got to go to your show. We'll bring you. Okay, cool. But I want people to go see you live. So where can they go to see you live? So the easiest way to see my whole touring schedules z.net. Z.net. And it will always show my Vegas shows. I would typically say I'm in Vegas every two weekends, I believe, if we just realized.

1:12:20So I'm there all the time. So on all the bigger weekends, I will be there. And then my Telos tour is a little bit of a different thing that we just wrapped up, but we might announce a couple more shows. Nice. Stay tuned. You can follow me on socials, but I'm not sure you're going to see what I post. So, you know, you might have to just check the website. But yeah, I mean, I'm usually, I rarely take time off. I'm kind of always on tour and when I'm not, I'm in the studio. So there's a good chance that I'll be in your city. Awesome. Very cool. So check it out, zed.met at Zed over on social media everywhere.

1:12:53These are the two final questions for you. Before I ask them, Anton, I want to acknowledge you for being an example for so many people in your industry to continue to transform yourself. You know, you've got the whoop on, you're talking about eating healthier. I think that could be one of the biggest things that holds artists back who will continue to make it at your level, where they let go of their health. And so to see you take back control of your health and say, how can I continue to improve and not let the anxiety, the overwhelm, the stress get to me and feel like I need to do more, but how can I actually take a step back, reflect, work on my health a little bit better?

1:13:29I want to acknowledge you for that, man. Thank you so much. It's beautiful to see because I hate to see talented people and good people burn themselves out. Yeah. So I appreciate and acknowledge you for that. Thank you. And I want to acknowledge you again for being a light to so many people and bringing healing energy to the world. Whether you're conscious of it or not, whether you're planning to do it or not, you're doing it. And hopefully you'll think a little bit more about that in the future when you step out on stage and you say, how can I bring healing energy? I think you're going to notice something extremely powerful shift over time when you bring that intention to the audience and what you'll receive in return with just the intention that I'm here to heal.

1:14:07That's awesome. I'm curious to see whether you take it or not. I will take it. I will report back. I see it. It's just that I never think about it, but it doesn't mean it's not there. 100%. 100%. Healing energy. Two final questions. I got to be quick with you. One is, if you could imagine, you get to live as long as you want to live, but it's the last day on earth for you. It's far out in the future, but it's the last day. You get to accomplish every dream that you have from this moment until the last day you're here on earth. But for whatever reason, on the last day, you have to take all of your work with you.

1:14:42This conversation, gone. All your music, gone. Anything you've ever said, gone. But you get to leave behind three lessons with the world that we would have to keep from you. What would be those three lessons that you would leave behind with the world? Well, that's such a deep question. Let me think about this. Three lessons that I would leave. Okay, so one core principle of my life is good people, good times. That is lesson number one. It doesn't matter what you do or go through. As long as you go through it or do it with people you love, you will always have a good time. probably the most important lesson I have to give at all.

1:15:22Second lesson is that I believe humans can achieve anything as long as you devote enough time and dedication to it. And I was having a conversation about perfect pitch, something that we're born with or not born with. And then I heard that in China, like an exceedingly large number of people have perfect pitch. and it's like well what why are they born with perfect pitch and i believe it has to do with the fact that their language is way more complex and has intonations built into the meaning of words so it's not just the word but at what pitch you say it so that i'm just throwing out a theory is that if you practice anything long enough you can get really good at it so people tell me well i'm 23 i wish i started piano earlier well you start at 23 and you devote as much as you can to it and I really think you can become a writer, a performer, anything you want.

1:16:15So the human capacity is unbelievable and I think my lesson is that at any age you want, you can start anything as long as you really devote yourself to it, you can become great at it. Lesson number three, oh what could be lesson number three? Sleep. Silly one but sleep matters so much. I've underestimated the effects of sleep and the need of sleep. Everything I do in my 24 hours, minus the sleep, suffers drastically when I don't get good sleep. So invest in a good pillow, invest in a good mattress and in a good chair for working throughout the day. I think if you look at the amount of money you spend on coffee and other things throughout your life, overall all throughout your life, a good mattress and a good pillow is a good investment.

1:17:06So really take sleep seriously. Awesome. Three good lessons. Final question, Anton, what's your definition of greatness?

1:17:15My definition of greatness. Can you give me an example? My definition is to pursue your unique talents and gifts, or excuse me, to maximize your unique talents and gifts in pursuit of your dreams and in that pursuit make the maximum impact on the people around you in a positive way. For me that's greatness. But I've been practicing this for you know 12 years. That's an incredible answer. I think anything I say will be in that same realm and it really follows my life philosophy of surrounding yourself with people that you love that inspire you that you can inspire back. I wish I had a better definition that I can just say like that, but just to explain it, I think, it's gonna be almost a copy of yours, but really following your dreams and following your guide and not letting me or anyone else tell you what to do or how to do, but really do it the way you want to do it because you're one of a kind and nobody's you and you have your own unique talents and energy and completely follow the guide that that is.

1:18:23Don't listen to me. My man. Appreciate you, man. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this and if you found value, make sure to share this with one friend. Just copy and paste the link and text a friend where you feel would be truly inspired by this episode as well. And also make sure to click the follow button on Apple or Spotify, wherever you're listening to this episode, because we have a massive episode coming up next that I do not want you to miss. So make sure to follow this and be on the lookout for the next episode coming with some massive content and guests.

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1:20:20And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.