Zedd waited nine years to release a new album. He says the kaleidoscopic ‘Telos’ is ‘timeless’

LOS ANGELES – It’s been almost a decade since Grammy-winning producer and DJ Zedd released his sophomore album, “True Colors.” A lot can happen in that time. The German dance-pop maverick had to work hard to make an album that would shake things up, an album that would tell a story beyond the success of his debut, “Clarity,” or “True Colors,” which he created to prove that he couldn’t be pigeonholed into “that EDM box of making 128-BPM club hits, because I have a lot more to say.”

Enter “Telos,” his long-awaited third album.

“This is an album that I doubted I could make for a long time,” he told The Associated Press. “I wanted something timeless, something that I would be proud of forever, something that was very detailed and where it wasn’t just songs thrown together on a record, but where each song led to the next.”

The project is also highly collaborative, including features from Muse and John Mayer as well as new pop voices like Remi Wolf and Bea Miller.

In the interview, ZEDD talks about “Telos,” being inspired by Jeff Buckley and the current state of EDM. It has been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: It’s been nine years since you released an album. Why?

ZEDD: I liked not putting pressure on myself and just putting out singles. And of course, I always thought, deep down, that I would make another album. But what am I trying to do and what am I trying to say? And I came up with these concepts before I even started working on an album. I wanted it to make sense and have some kind of concept behind it, not just, “Hey, I have a contract, I have to make an album.”

Then the pandemic happened and I was like, “This is the perfect time. Now everyone’s free. I can finally sit down and make an album.” And I just kind of tried aimlessly to make this album that didn’t feel authentic to me, and I scrapped everything except for one song, “Dream Brother,” which kind of became a pillar of my album.

AP: “Dream Brother” is a surprise.

ZEDD: The inspiration behind “Dream Brother” came from this artist, Jeff Buckley, who’s been a huge inspiration to me in my life, and this song that really meant something to me and felt like, “Well, this is a concept: creating things that really mean something to me, that have some sort of connection to my musical upbringing or my life.” And I started remaking my album around “Dream Brother,” and all of a sudden I was like, “Oh, there’s a concept in this.” And there was this moment where I kind of cracked the code and said, “This is going to be an album that’s just for me, regardless of what it means musically.”

So it clicked and I realized, “Okay, whatever comes from the heart is going to be put on this album.” And any emotion that I could capture, of what inspired me at the time, I wanted to try to recreate it in some way, to allow other people to feel what I felt at the time when I was deeply inspired by the albums.

AP: You always wanted to work with Matt Bellamy, and Muse appears on the last track, “1685,” which references Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier.”

ZEDD: They’re some of the people who’ve influenced me the most. So, for me, working with Matt Bellamy was a dream – and with the whole band, really. And we’ve tried a few times in the past… we’ve both tried twice with two different songs. And they were great, but not perfect and not eternal. So luckily, he’s a lot like me, musically, in the sense that we’re not going to force anything.

I had this vision (of “1685”) and I said to my manager, “It’s either the instrumental track or with Muse, but with no one else.” I wouldn’t consider anyone else, because Muse is an artist who works with music that way. They often take classical pieces and reinterpret them to make them their own. And for me, it was like, “Well, if I’m going to reinterpret my favorite classical piece of all time, I’m only going to do it with someone who does that too – and who inspired me to do it in the first place.”

AP: “Telos” with

“es” comes from ancient Greek; it can mean “end” or “goal.” What does this mean to you?

ZEDD: “Telos” has many meanings. One of them is the accomplishment and the achievement of one’s goal, the celebration of human art. And that’s what I felt during most of the creation of the album. I felt like I had accomplished something I didn’t know I could accomplish, creating an album at a level I wasn’t sure I could reach yet.

And then towards the end of writing “Telos,” I started to feel another emotion, which was that I exhausted myself so much that I lost like 20 pounds. I couldn’t sleep at night. I would wake up at four in the morning with the song stuck in my head that I was working on. It was really traumatic for me, in a way, and I really felt a resonance with the meaning—the ending—of “Telos.”

AP: What do you think about the current state of EDM? It’s a roller coaster ride, with ups and downs, in terms of popularity.

ZEDD: I have to admit that I’m not really aware of the state of EDM, and I think – I don’t know if it’s subconsciously – but since I started working on my album, for me, I started working on a body of work that, for me, was completely separate from what the trend of EDM is. I don’t even know how much of my album is really EDM. It’s half organic, half orchestral, half electronic. And I’m also not really interested in following trends, and I’m not a big fan of a lot of trends that are kind of picked up. And I feel like trends are shorter than ever, so chasing that tail, I think is never going to fulfill you. Because by the time you get there, there’s already something else that’s trending.

I made this decision very early in my career: I’m going to create my own path, I’m going to follow it the way I want to follow it, and whoever wants to join me is welcome. But I’m not for everyone. And my goal has never been to satisfy everyone’s opinions. And that’s an unachievable goal. And I think if you’re sincere in what you do, if you love the music you create, then there will be people who feel the same way.

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Music journalist Maria Sherman contributed to this report from New York.