Anton “Zedd” Zaslavski, 28
Musician 30 Under 30 debut: 2014
Before regularly scoring six-figure nightly fees spinning thumpy electronic tunes, Zedd got his start playing classical music at age 4. He learned how to plan performances with meticulous detail, an ability that’s obvious in his carefully choreographed shows today, which feature less of the freewheeling song selection used by most popular DJS. “I see myself as an artist who presents a show,” says Zedd, who earned $19 million this year and $85 million over the past five. “It’s almost like when you go to the movies. You’re not going to buy your ticket and see a movie and, if you don’t like it, expect the movie to change in real time.”
Zedd has produced hits for Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga and released solo smashes like last year’s multiplatinum “Stay”—while becoming the anti-dj of the DJ universe. To distinguish himself from competitors, he created a graphics-heavy live show that feels like watching a videogame projected onto a movie screen with a custom visual for each song. A cable runs from his computer to the front of the house, where a team of technicians makes sure everything synchs up, including the program’s lasers and pyrotechnics. “It used to be really cheap to make a show—i used to be able to keep all the money,” Zedd recalls.
“Now the shows cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
As costs continue to escalate in a musical arms race, Zedd is flirting with the idea of reinventing the DJ model again by turning to something with which he’s very familiar: live instrumentation. “I think I will one day go unplugged.”
—Zack O’malley Greenburg