- 6/24/2025
Before his interview, Zedd shows off his barista skills, demonstrating the art and science of crafting the perfect latte. He opens up about his experience performing for the massive Coachella crowd, his collaboration on ‘Dragon Ball DAIMA,’ the years-long journey behind his album ‘Telos,’ the enduring success of ‘Clarity,’ a potential collab with BLACKPINK, teases an upcoming project and more!
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MusicTranscript
00:00Your job now is to drink it and just see it tastes amazing even if it doesn't.
00:03All right.
00:09I just kept thinking I was on stage, how all the things I read, maybe they just didn't like the music.
00:14I don't know. Maybe they were at the wrong stage. I don't know what it was, but the energy was amazing.
00:19But it was a dream come true. Like, a few years ago, I think we were making a list of things I
00:24would love to do in my life one day. Okay. Like, I would love to score something for Dragon Ball.
00:29That was one of the things. And so, you know, as the simulation works, of course, briefly after,
00:35I was asked if I would be interested in doing that. So definitely a life goal.
00:43So we're here with Zed, a noted latte expert, and he's going to make us a latte. I think first,
00:49before we do any of this, tell us what it is that you love about latte and how much time have you
00:53invested into making the perfect latte? I started loving coffee maybe like three years ago. And my
01:01main reasoning was, one, I love the coziness and the warmth and the ritual. And the other thing is,
01:08I read that it makes you less hungry. And I'm always hungry. Okay. So I was like, hey, if it makes me
01:13eat less food and I can lose some weight, I'll try coffee. That's how it started. Appetite suppressant.
01:18Yep. Got it. And then, as with many things in my life, if I like something, I need to know everything
01:24about it. So that's how we got to this obnoxious amount of equipment and beans. Case in point. So
01:30we started a spreadsheet and started ranking every bean. What? Our own like system to figure out like
01:36what's acidic, what's sweet, what's bitter, to understand beans. Okay. You know, fast forward,
01:42I have my own roaster and I can roast my own beans. But long story short, I have been getting better
01:47at making good lattes. Okay. I'm not anywhere near where I want to be. Hmm. But you can tell me how
01:54it is when I make you one. Well, let's take us through it. Okay. What's step one? Step one is,
01:59well, we need to grind the beans. First of all, we pick our beans. Okay. Can we do a little bean tour?
02:03Can you give us like a few of your favorites? Give me the options and then I'll pick one. The options are all.
02:07Blue Bottle. I generally love Blue Bottle. I'm subscribed to their like weekly new bean situation.
02:13Okay. And then you can kind of read the the notes, which is the most marketing part of any bean. Plum,
02:18toffee, golden raisin. Like no coffee tastes like that. But if you imagine well enough, it will maybe.
02:25It smells like coffee to me, but it smells good. It smells good. Yeah. Okay. These are really good.
02:28Um, these I brought from New York. I actually haven't tried these yet. Um, this was a really cool looking
02:34coffee shop. Um, watch house. Um, I mean, we have a lot of choices. The, the, the world's your oyster.
02:42I think let's do your favorite. What do you, what's your go-to? This is actually a really,
02:46really good bean. Um, Sterling Coffee Roasters. Um, they had like my favorite bean ever. Okay. And I,
02:54I buy a bunch of beans. I try them out and then I kind of rate them at least internally. Okay. They had
02:59the perfect bean and it's not available anymore. So I have, I have a photo. So if you guys see this,
03:05please DM me. I'll send you a photo of the perfect bean and maybe we can create it together and have
03:10it all year round. All right. This is the second best. This is the one. It's not the one. Well, oh,
03:15I see. But this is like the closest I could get from them. Let's do it. That tastes like it. Milk,
03:19chocolate and melon. Interesting combo. Not too shabby. Okay. Let's get into it. Okay. Okay.
03:25So first thing we do is we weigh the beans so that we can replicate the shot if we like it. Okay.
03:31This is a really cool handy cup, um, for anyone who wants to get into coffee, but it's a cup
03:36and a scale. So you can kind of see the grams on the back, which just eliminates one extra
03:44contraption. Um, I personally do 20 grams in and then a good shot is all about the ratio between how much you
03:51put in and how much you get out. So in our case, we're aiming for 20 grams, which we're 20. The
03:57precision is incredible. Very important. Then we want to spritz them a little. What do you spritz them
04:04for? Just water. Uh, to have less static. So if I didn't do this, once it goes in the grinder, it will
04:10kind of just spray all over the place. I see. And this will just make it do less of that. This is the
04:16grind setting. This is what's going to control how the bean comes out. Okay. Probably the most
04:21stage of the entire process is right here. Why? Because if I do a little bit too fine,
04:26the fines are a little too tight. Yeah. There's barely any water that's going to come through.
04:30Oh my gosh. And it's going to take forever and it's going to probably taste really bitter. So if I
04:34make it too coarse, it's going to shoot out way too quick and you're not going to enjoy it. So finding
04:42the right setting for the right bean is the most important part. Sometimes we write it down
04:47on the actual bean. Okay. But at this point I'm getting better at it. So I can kind of look at
04:51the bean and gauge roughly where it belongs. So nine and a half is optimal. Here. For, for this
04:57specific bean, this is, this is probably going to be good. This is real science. We're in a chemistry
05:01lab right here. I might be really bad at it. So you, you'll tell me how you like it. I'm sure you're not.
05:05So then we want to give it a nice little shake. Okay. We put a little bit of a filter in here,
05:11which hopefully will make it extract a little more evenly. Okay. What you want to avoid,
05:16this is real for, for coffee nerds, but you want to avoid channeling, which means that in your puck
05:20of coffee, there's like a little hole and the water finds its way into the hole and it starts like
05:26unevenly flowing through that hole. You want it to be perfectly even and the water to come through.
05:31Kind of all seep in at the same level and same speed. So you can get all the beautiful notes.
05:35Wow. Okay. I should be selling, while I'm, I should be selling something.
05:40You're selling it to me. I'm in. I don't even know why I'm doing any of this. I have nothing to sell.
05:44I'm buying. Listen to my music.
05:48Okay. So we got, we got your beautiful beans. Okay. Right. So now we're gonna make sure that
05:56they're all distributed. So this is where this tool comes in.
06:00Do you want to, you want to do the honors and you can like do a little more of it.
06:05A few. Yeah. I feel like five.
06:09Okay. Okay. Now you have distributed them.
06:15And now we have to tamp. Okay. Tamping is where we.
06:19Sure. You know, what does the tamping do for us?
06:21So if I didn't do, if we just put it in like this, it would shoot out incredibly quick.
06:25I see. You want to compress it. Okay.
06:28And this is what, this is probably the most important part after the bean is grinded.
06:33I see. Okay. So it looks a little better. Yep.
06:36At least what you would expect it to look like. And now it's time to pull the shot and hopefully
06:40not embarrass myself. So we put it in. Okay. Another scale. What are we weighing now?
06:45Well, we need to know how much we're actually getting out. We said we had 20 in.
06:49We'll shoot for about 30 out. So this is the ratio depending on the bean. Sometimes you will want
06:55a one to one. Sometimes we'll want one to three, which means 20 in, 60 out. Got it. 20 out.
07:01We'll shoot for about 30 and in a perfect world, this is the second counter, how long it takes us.
07:06It'll take us somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 seconds. Okay.
07:10I personally don't think you need to be that precise. I know this doesn't look like it, but
07:14you know, it doesn't have to be crazy precise in my experience. I don't have the palette to really
07:19taste that much of a difference. So now it's looking pretty good. I'm not embarrassing myself
07:26too much as yet. How can you tell? If it doesn't like spray all over the place, it's a good start.
07:31If it doesn't come out too soon or too slow. So we'll aim for 30 and it took us 27 seconds,
07:38which is just about there. Okay. That looks pretty good. It looks nice. It looks creamy.
07:45Uh, you don't want it to be too thick. You don't want it to be too thin. Yep. You know,
07:48this could be a good shot. This could be a good shot, guys. Now, I always use this milk personally,
07:54lactose-free, but as we spoke about it, I don't even know if I need it to be lactose-free. It's just
07:58incredibly delicious and it has a ton of protein. So when I drink coffee, it makes me feel like I
08:04actually have a protein shake, which mentally helps me feel better about my coffee. But you're
08:08lifestyle. You know, a little bit. How much of it for you is the caffeine? None. Okay. If I found
08:15a bean that is the same taste that is without caffeine, I'm perfectly fine with it. Oh, so it's
08:19all about taste for you. It's taste ritual. I really look forward to like making an espresso or a latte
08:26or whatever. I also can have a coffee and go to bed, so I don't feel like it affects me as much
08:34in that regard. Sure. Some of my friends have a coffee and they're like tweaking out for six hours.
08:38I get it. Not really the case with me. So you're one of the blessed humans that doesn't need caffeine
08:42to function. I don't. Wow. Yeah, I've never never had it to function. Now we want to froth your milk
08:49to not be too thick like a cappuccino. Sure. And not too watery. So let's see how we do. It's kind
08:56of about the positioning and you want to have the tip just a little out for about one to two seconds.
09:01Okay. You'll hear that weird noise. One, two, and then you want to put it deeper and create a
09:07circulation. That vortex. A little whirlpool effect. A whirlpool. It's happening in there.
09:13And now we just feel it until it's too hot and then we stop. Kind of a very ancient for all the tech
09:22that we have. It's when it's too hot you stop. When your hand starts to burn. You know that's
09:28still how we do it. Right. Okay. So then we want to make sure that we don't give you any bubbles.
09:34Oh and then latte art is not something that I'm an expert yet. I've had my good moments.
09:40You know the beautiful art? Yes. Do you know how to do it? I certainly don't. Oh. You would laugh at
09:44my coffee setup. I'd be embarrassed to show you. I need somebody here to like in person teach me how
09:50to do it. Because I know you can do it with like water and cinnamon and soap. And then you can just
09:56try and then put it back in the cup and try and try and try. I see what you're saying. I only try
10:01when I actually do it. It makes me feel like every single time it matters. There's more at stake. But
10:06when the stakes are high you're going to give it your all. I give it my all every single time. There you go.
10:10No pressure. No pressure. It's going to be beautiful no matter what happens. But let's
10:14see what you got. What's your signature design? I'm not even good enough to have a design. So
10:19I'm just kind of swirling it around. Okay. Hoping for the best. Okay. Here we go. Swirl the coffee.
10:24I saw people do it. I have no idea why. Okay. Swirl, swirl. And then closer.
10:34All right. Well I would say it's close to a heart. What do we think? I think that's gorgeous.
10:49I think that's your next album cover. And that one's for you. Thank you very much. So your job
10:53now is to drink it and just see it tastes amazing even if it doesn't. All right. So we're looking for
10:58chocolate and melon? This is what they claim. Okay. I just like my lattes to taste gentle. That's usually
11:04the word I described. Not too coffee. Not too milky. Just somewhere in between. All right. Moment of truth.
11:14It's delicious. Thank you. It is. It's perfect. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's really good guys.
11:20It's a perfect latte. I think you actually mean it maybe. I actually really do. I wasn't sure if
11:26this is part of the plan. If you actually like it. I would tell you but this is delicious. I see what
11:32you mean by the gentleness. Yeah. Yeah. It's not bitter. It's not too strong. I'm not fearful that
11:38I'm going to be up until three in the morning because of the caffeine. Is that how it usually
11:42affects you? Yes. Oh really? Yeah. So this one's gentle. So that's exactly right. And then obviously
11:48always cleaning. I am the least like I'm never inclined to clean. Sure. Ever. Just my personality.
11:56But with coffee for some reason I need it all to be clean every time. Only then. This is a science lab.
12:02So you got to keep it. It sort of is. Yeah. A little bit of a science lab. But yeah. This is my uh
12:07this is where I'm at with my coffee making. Okay. So I have a few questions. Please. Um so do you want to
12:15is it just the making of it that is the delightful part of it to you? And is it mostly lattes?
12:22I'll answer the second one first. It is mostly lattes. Yes. Occasionally it'll be something else.
12:27But usually lattes is my preferred way of drinking coffee. And I think one is I love getting good at
12:33things. That's like my overarching hobby. I can pick up whatever and I will really want to be good at it.
12:40Yes. So this is something I suck at or at least sucked at. And I was like great. It's something
12:44new to learn to be good at in life. Do you think it's fair to say that the same technical
12:50precision and dedication you bring to your music you brought to this hobby? Certainly dedication. Yes.
12:57I would say musically I'm probably a little bit more just genetically gifted thanks to my parents.
13:02Sure. I have no coffee gift. Sure. This is pure work. But I enjoy getting better at it. I also just
13:09think there's so much there is a lot of precision. Like I learned when I think it matters to me and when
13:15it doesn't. I think people get crazy with like graphs of like this border filter extracts a little
13:22more than this. I don't think it matters that much. You put milk in it. It's delicious. Just get a good
13:26bean a good grinder and it'll be fine. But I do enjoy knowing everything about it and being good at it.
13:32Like we've had I've met some coffee experts and they brought me super rare beans. Okay. And there's
13:39only very little of them in the world. And it's like in a little pouch vacuum sealed. Whoa. And there's
13:4420 grams. There's one shot. And like at that point you look at it and you kind of look at the color
13:49and you look at the density and the size and you do your best to put the right setting in there.
13:53Because if it's not right you're never going to get a second chance. Right. I love the idea of like
13:58being at least good enough to when I ever get my hands on an exotic bean I can not up. Do it justice.
14:04Sorry. Okay. So okay. Last question. What do you do when you're on the road? Because I can't
14:11imagine taking all the stuff with you. Not yet. Not yet. But good idea. Yeah. When I'm on the road we
14:19this is like an activity that we do where we just try to find nice coffee shops. And there's amazing
14:24coffee everywhere. So honestly what really got me into this I should maybe mention is when I went to
14:28Australia I had a super automatic which is a machine where you just like in an office you say
14:33latte and it just does it. And it was great. I liked it. And then I went to Australia and literally
14:39everywhere at the airport at the hotel lobby their coffees were so good. And I realized I won't get there
14:48with my machine. Like something in the machine between the grinding and the extracting something isn't
14:53there. So I started getting into the manual world of coffee making which is basically what we just did.
14:58Sure. And that's where the hobby started.
15:09To start. True Colors peaked at number four in the Billboard 200. Break Free with Ariana Grande
15:28peaked at number four in the Hot 100. And over on Hot Dance electronic songs you've had four number one hits.
15:34Is there a favorite Billboard moment amid all of these successes?
15:38Oh this is always a really hard question to answer. It's like picking your favorite child.
15:44Yeah. I think to me each song is like a memory to me. Obviously I still play them all or at least the
15:54very most of them. It reminds me of a time period in my life. Sure. Like I remember for example Ren,
16:01but when I released Stay the Night I was on tour.
16:10So it wasn't like that I was at home. We were preparing some sort of marketing plan and released
16:15and then we rolled it out. It was that I was just touring and the song came out in the middle of my
16:19tour. And so I started playing it to an audience that had never heard the song obviously. And every
16:25single night I could tell how more and more of the audience knew it. And that was a really special
16:30feeling. That was the first time in my life that I've experienced the popularity of a song growing
16:35while I was sort of playing it to people. Right. So every time I play Stay the Night I remember sort of
16:40that birth of Stay the Night. Do I have a favorite Billboard moment? I would not be able to choose.
16:48Every single moment is special to me. Sure. It's like picking a favorite bean. They're all good in there.
16:51Or a favorite duckling. I could never do that. They're all good in their own ways. All right.
16:55So let's talk about Coachella because we were just saying the size of the crowd at the outdoor stage
17:01for your performances, especially Weekend One, I saw that show, was bananas. So tell me about being
17:07on stage and having that massive humanity in front of you. What was that like energetically?
17:11Energetically that entire show was crazy. I think it was even crazier to me personally
17:18because I saw a bunch of tweets online about how people thought the crowds were really lame
17:22and nobody was moving. And I saw videos of artists performing and everybody's on their phones and
17:26like nobody is doing anything. So I came in prepared with that kind of audience. Sure. And I had my friend
17:35Matthew Bellamy from Muse was on stage right before I went on. We were chatting a little bit. He was kind
17:40of telling me about his memory of playing that stage. And he's like, oh, you have a really nice
17:44crowd there. And for some reason from that angle of the side stage, it didn't look that full to me.
17:49I thought he was being polite and nice and like supportive. And I was like, yeah,
17:53I'm sure it'll be really good. And it wasn't until I ran up and I got in my booth on the sketchiest
17:58ladder of all time. And I ran up there and I'm really high up. So I really got a beautiful view.
18:04And it was the very start of my set and it was completely like I couldn't see the end of it.
18:08Yeah. And I had just started playing. It was it was crazy. And the energy was so good. Yeah.
18:13So I just kept thinking I was on stage how all the things I read, maybe they just didn't like the
18:19music. I don't know. Maybe they were at the wrong stage. I don't know what it was. But the energy was
18:23amazing. This crowd was like nothing I've ever seen before at Coachella. It was amazing. I'm wondering,
18:29because I watched the documentary that you made about it, and it seemed just like an especially chaotic
18:33time, let's say, very busy time. When you're moving through the world at that speed, how do you stay
18:39centered and sane so you can do the thing that you're there to do?
18:43I think, first of all, the show was so good because I have an amazing team. And it's not just me
18:48working on it. And if there's one person on the team that has to stay level-headed and cool throughout
18:55the process of chaos, it has to be me. Because I'm obviously working on the music, and I'm there having
19:01to perform it, but I also have to make sure that everybody else does the best that they can do.
19:06So in my experience, chaos is part of my job, but you know, freaking out is not. And so I think it's
19:15just incredibly important to remain cool, calm, and spread that energy throughout your entire team so
19:20that they can do the best they can. Because if everybody starts freaking out, the chaos is going to
19:26turn around really quickly. Absolutely. I don't have like a magical answer other than that I'm
19:32working with an incredible team, and we support each other really well, and everybody looks out for
19:37each other. And that's how we are capable of doing things like we did. And like, to give you an example,
19:43the idea of playing Severance at Coachella Weekend 2 happened the night before the rehearsal, which is
19:52like two nights before Coachella. And I was just playing piano, trying to figure out what to play,
19:59because I didn't know how long it's going to take to wheel out an orchestra. Right. Physically. Right.
20:03So I was like, I'm going to have to allow myself maybe a minute of improvisation. I'm looking at the
20:07keys I can play. And the suggestion was brought up. It would be funny to play Severance as a joke.
20:14And I was like, wait, but this could actually be genius. This could be incredible. Yeah. And then we had to
20:18orchestrate it overnight. And then I showed up to the rehearsal with the orchestra. They had no idea
20:25we were even going to play Severance. And then they get the charts and they open and they're like,
20:31are we playing it? Like they were super excited. But that's the amount of chaos that goes into a show
20:35like this. And then the next day we perform it in front of 50,000 people. Flying by the seat of your
20:40pants. A lot of things are happening really quickly. Yeah. At a show like Coachella. Yeah. And you just gotta
20:46stay cool. Well, like you said, if you stay cool, everything stays cool. Yeah. I think it's critical.
20:50And you did. It seems like it all went perfectly. Thank you. Obviously you played a lot of music
20:55from Telos during the set. So that album came out last August. I'm wondering if you've listened to it
21:02a lot since then outside of the live performances and if and how your relationship to that music has
21:06changed. I have not listened to it a lot since it came out because I have listened to it so much for
21:12the last like six years of making it. I occasionally will obviously, besides when I play it out live,
21:19play people's songs and then I hear it. And I'm really, really proud of this record. Yeah.
21:25I think it's the most personal record and it might not be the easiest one to connect to
21:29if you're not me, because it's so deeply rooted in an artist that I grew up with, music that has
21:35inspired me, things musically that have inspired me, right? So it's just something that I will probably
21:42be the most proud of in my career. From composition to the flow to the mixing, every bit of it to me is
21:51something I'm super proud of. And I think everything I have done in my career has led to me being able to
21:59do an album like this, in particular True Colors, was critical in my life to be able to have the
22:05courage and fan base to make an album that is such a departure from where I started. That's interesting.
22:12How do you see the link between True Colors and then Telos? Eight years later, nine years later?
22:16I think nine or more years later. Nine years later, yeah. It's a long time. So to me, right,
22:21Clarity is my first album. I can't disappoint anyone because I don't have hands to disappoint.
22:26Sure. So I can just be myself. So you release an album, it becomes incredibly successful and people,
22:31of course, automatically put you in some sort of box or shape because it's easier for humans to
22:37identify things that are in familiar variations. So I'm the EDM guy. But I'm not. I just happened to be
22:46successful at the time with songs that were EDM. Deep in me is what Telos really is. Right. So True Colors,
22:54the purpose of this album was to sort of teach my fans and let the world know, like, here are 11
23:00colors or 10 or however many colors, that these are all me. This is still Zed. It's not all 128 BPM,
23:07EDM, four on the floor bangers. There's a lot more depth to me that I would love everyone to know
23:13is still me. I don't want anyone to be alienated by it. So I think if I hadn't released an album like
23:19True Colors, I don't know if I hadn't felt the comfort to make a song like Stay Over the Middle,
23:23that is such a departure from Clarity. And I feel like the courage to make a song with Muse and John
23:29Mayer and artists that are definitely not in my lane. Right. Traditionally, I think that courage
23:35stemmed from, you know, having a supportive fan base that that loved True Colors and that showed me,
23:41okay, I can express myself in whichever fashion that is. Like, I'm not a genre. I'm a artist and the
23:48artist evolves. I listened to this album for the first time and I was like, damn, wow. You know,
23:54like, I mean this in the best way. You could tell that it had taken you that long to make it because
23:59it was so perfect and so grandiose in its ambitions and it just felt like you like hit everything exactly
24:06as you were wanting to. Does that feel correct? Thank you very much. Yeah. That's the nicest
24:10thing anyone's ever said about my music. So thank you very much. I mean it. And I'm wondering,
24:14I mean, so obviously it took a long time to make and you can hear that it took a long time to make.
24:19What were the conversations like with your label when you were saying, hey, I need a little bit more
24:23time, I need a little bit more time? I have to say that for all the terrible stories you hear about
24:28labels. I have none of those to tell and my process with the label was that on paper my contract said
24:37that I had to deliver an album within 12 months of delivering True Colors, which I was like eight
24:42and a half years late and no one ever like pressured me to do anything because I think I've just had a
24:49lot of trust and love from the label and everyone knew me very well because I worked in the label
24:55building for quite a few years. I took over their studio and I was in the building making music.
25:02Everybody got to know me really well. I walked past everybody's faces every day and people knew how
25:06hard I worked and that good things for me take time. So nobody rushed me to do anything. I at least
25:13never got any, where's the album? You know, and the album was done when it was done or at that stage
25:20it was nearly done anything. I was so happy to see so much excitement from the label to work on
25:27something that isn't as much of the same. It's not trying to be a pop hit. It's not trying to push
25:35through a lot of noise. It's just trying to be what it is and I think everybody from the label is really
25:40excited to give their all to that kind of record. Right and to hear you grow. I'm sure no one wants you
25:46to do the same exact thing. They want to hear your revolution and this is very much that and coming
25:51off of True Colors, you know, is it departure but it's, you know, you can still tell it's you
25:58and so obviously this is the 10-year anniversary of that album. It came out in May of 2015.
26:03When you think about the person that you were then, who was that guy? What were his priorities? What
26:07was your life like? Well, the guy 10 years ago was definitely not good at making coffee.
26:11I can definitely say that much. And here we are today. So I think when I think of myself as Zed,
26:18I'm not like a artist that has a persona. I don't wear like clothes to be in a sort of like,
26:28I don't know, I'm just myself. So I haven't changed that much. I feel like as a person my priorities are
26:36still the same. I've always had my principles. I was a little bit German. And I think my upbringing
26:43has shaped me to be who I am. And I'm still the same I was 10 years ago. However, musically, I do
26:49feel like I've evolved. I've matured a lot. Like 10 years ago, I really cared about my songs being
26:54really loud. This is a really random like nerdy fact, but I cared about my songs being really loud
26:59and competitive and I wanted DJs to play them. While today, I really appreciate DJs playing my music,
27:05but that's not why I make it. And I'm not going to make a song any VB louder than it has to be,
27:09unless there's any advantage for the music and it sounds better. I used to compare my music to
27:14others all the time. I have not done this in quite a few years. It's just I see myself as an artist
27:21who's just there to express themselves and anybody who wants to join the ride is welcome to join. But
27:25I'm certainly not forcing anyone to, you know, love my music because there's so much amazing stuff out
27:31there. Right. I feel like the whole if you think about how much negativity there is online about
27:37artists as human beings, their music that they release, the producers they work with, it's so
27:43silly. If you think about the real problems we have in the world and that we're arguing online with
27:48strangers we've never met behind a keyboard, feeling super cool, writing something edgy and mean about
27:53people for what reason. It's just it's so silly to me. To me music is about love and sharing passion
28:01and people who want to join that can and nobody has ever been forced to listen to stuff they don't
28:07want to hear. Sure. What a healthy perspective. Maybe I wouldn't have said that 10 years ago so
28:12that may have changed. That's great. Okay we'd love to hear it. I feel bad asking you this given how much
28:19work you just put into this new album but are you working on anything now? I am. I'm not quite ready
28:27to reveal what it is but I am working on a project that I'm super excited to share that is still in
28:35the world of Telos. Okay. And you know I can't I don't really want to say much more just yet. That's
28:42fair. I'm also working on and to be completely transparent we've had a meeting with my management
28:49just a few days ago but what do you want to do musically next? And and my main answer is I
28:54actually don't know. I don't really know besides that one project that I have planned along the way
29:00that I'm going to do. I actually don't know what's what's inspiring me the most after I'm done with
29:05that project. Sure. I need to feel some sort of inspiration. I'm not going to just make things.
29:10I for sure want to make some music for other people again. It's something that I every few years feel
29:16the need to do not the need but like the the itch to do. Sure. There's something really nice about
29:21not being the one that's constantly judged and you just make somebody a piece of song you deliver it
29:28and it's theirs and you never have to most people don't even know you ever made it. So I definitely
29:33want to do a little bit of that to enjoy the the hobby of making music but not feel like it's part of
29:40my career. And then I want to be able to just do I think the last years have been so consumed by this
29:49large project that Telos was that it didn't allow me to do many fun projects that were like one song
29:55two song based. Yes. For movies, for games. Yes. I would love to do more in that realm. I would love to score
30:03anything from movies to shows to games. So I mean I have to ask this because I've been seeing a lot of
30:07chatter about it online but there was you mentioned a potential Blackpink collaboration that didn't
30:13happen. Is it something that's still potentially on your radar? Yeah very much so. I still would love to
30:20collaborate with Blackpink and I don't have anything specific right now. Sure. But I do have a song that
30:28I made that I think would be incredible with Blackpink. Ladies. I can't tell you how they like it but
30:34there is something that I made that I think would be a really good fit. Okay. Exciting. Okay. And then
30:40let's talk about the Dragon Ball single Daima. Tell me about that. Tell me about why anime is important,
30:55influential and what made you decide to make this song? Well I grew up with Dragon Ball. I've watched it
31:02multiple times as a kid and I think just anything you grow up with as a kid shapes you drastically for
31:08the rest of your life. I think that goes just throughout the development of any child. Yes. And
31:13I just think that music, the theme song to Dragon Ball just really stuck with me. And then I was working
31:20on Out of Time which is the first song on Telos and I was approached by Dragon Ball to write the theme song
31:26and I was incredibly honest which I'm proud of and I said I already wrote the perfect theme song
31:32that is so deeply inspired by Dragon Ball to begin with without there having ever been any connection
31:37and I wrote it like nine years ago. I just never finished it and I was like it is going to be Out of
31:43Time which is a song on my album but I would be intrigued to sort of make it something else as well.
31:48Sure. So Out of Time turned into two separate songs which I tried as good as I could. Yeah. To
31:54like not let the one set influence the other but I just had two parallel paths. One was going to be
32:01perfect for Telos, one was going to be perfect for for Dragon Ball. So they sort of evolved into their
32:06own two different versions but of course there's a lot of correlations because they're built on the
32:10same musical DNA. Sure. But it was a dream come true like a few years ago I think we were making a list of
32:17things I would love to do in my life one day. Okay. Like I would love to score something for Dragon Ball.
32:22That was one of the things and so you know as the simulation works of course briefly after I was
32:28asked if I would be interested in doing that so definitely a life goal. Nice one. Okay and obviously
32:34AI is changing the way that music is made is released all these different things. What's your take on
32:39incorporating AI into music? Would you do it? Have you done it? What's your thoughts? I've used AI for
32:45for over a decade. I think all music producers have. It's just that nobody ever called it AI because
32:50there wasn't much to sell. Sure. But like the simplest example is an equalizer where you have a sound
32:57and you want to take something out. Yeah. Is a regular equalizer you can have a physical outboard
33:03hardware gear for that. And then there's the AI version where it listens and automatically finds where it
33:10needs to deduct something and will do it for you. Those tools have sort of been around and they've
33:15been getting progressively better. Right. I've always used them. It's just that nobody like set their AI.
33:20Sure. Now of course there's the spin it way further forwards like have a song. I don't have a vocal.
33:26Make me a vocal. Like I haven't done that. What I have been using AI for religiously and it's been
33:33incredible is when I was touring South America and Asia actually I had this drum moment and I was
33:41playing a new song every night that is specific to each country. Something that is special about Brazil.
33:47Yeah. You know. Cool. Like for example I was playing the Brazilian or Portuguese sorry version of the
33:53Dragon Ball theme song. Right. So I was able to just with AI take the drums out. Sure. So that I can play
34:00them live and get the vocal and make the vocal sound a little better. Boom. I play that song. And so
34:05the next day I have an idea. I want to play this Colombian song. And I get the stems through AI. Because
34:13I would have no time to reach out to a label. Ask does anybody even have the the the stamps or do we
34:18need to get the tapes and print them and do all that. With AI I have all my stems. Sure. I mute what I
34:24don't need. I play it live. I tweak and make everything sound better. I pitch into another key. So that's
34:28something I use all the time. Excuse me. All the time when I when I play live and without AI that
34:34would not be possible. That's fascinating. I think we're out of time. Is there anything else you want
34:39to say? No. I just honestly I would like to thank billboard for the support throughout the years
34:44because I think there's there's few magazines or you know corporations that have supported me from
34:51the very beginning so positively. So you know maybe that's a good moment to say thank you. Well thank you.
34:57It's it's our pleasure. Truly. Thank you for saying that. Thank you. Yeah I mean it. Cool.
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