Early footage of Deadmau5 highlights impressive career

Since his debut album in 2005 titled ‘Get Scraped‘, Deadmau5, or more formally known as Joel Zimmerman, has carved out a notoriously consistent reputation over the past 12 years. Actively making music since 1998, his extensive discography reflects an intangible magical essence to his work.

Starting his own label ten years ago, mau5trap, his alliance’s with Ultra Records and Ministry of Sound helped establish a firm stance within the electronic dance music scene. Closely working with Kaskade throughout 2008, their collaborative tracks “I Remember” and “Move for Me” have seen notable popularity and success. Going on to curate iconic albums, with consistently satire titles, the likes of ‘Random Title Here‘, ‘For Lack of a Better Name‘, ‘4×4=12‘, ‘Album Title Goes Here‘, ‘while(1<2)‘ and most recently ‘W:/2016ALBUM/‘ has helped come to define the possibilities and depth’s of dance music as a whole.

Now a reputed creative expert in Progressive House, Deadmau5′ skill set and knowledge is constantly demanded by fans and aspiring DJ/Producers alike. Most poignantly demonstrated by Masterclass’ recruitment of him, his numerous compilation albums and unforgiving pursuit of musical creativity, and love of video games, has led to his employment on brands such as Dota, Fifa, Grand Theft Auto, and Need for Speed to name a few.

Able to claim six Grammy Award nominations, his joint efforts with Rob Swire, MC Flipside and Wolfgang Gartner, have been notable points of his career, which now deservedly has Zimmerman as one of the highest paid in the genre. With mixes on the likes of Apple‘s Beats 1 and BBC Radio 1 Residency, he also regularly helps facilitate and nurture artist’s such as ATTLAS through his imprint. And while controversies, open opinions and personal difficulties that have followed him over his near two-decade career, they’ve seemingly never explicitly interrupt his creative output’s quality.

Enduring trademark disputes with Disney, battles with depression, conflicts with peers in the industry and even mocking from peers such as Marcus Schössow, Maor Levi and DJ Eco in 2007 for allegedly having too many tracks sound alike, the clip below reminds us of just how far he has come as an artist and person. And with another album primed to be released next month, ‘Stuff I Used To Do‘ promises to be happily nostalgic in impact.

Taken from an audio test at a humble performance back in 2008, it was also the scene for the debut of Deadmau5’s synonymous helmet. And while we recommend watching it all, to see the Canadian’s raw talent from his earlier days, our favorite moment is the audio engineer’s reaction at 5 minutes 16 seconds!

Check out the video below and let us know your favorite memories from his incredible career.

whoa, thats some random found footage there… that was my first gig with the head… i remember someone yelling at us for soundcheck. https://t.co/f5A5qZc9rS

— dead mow cinco (@deadmau5) 31 December 2016