The Washington Post spoke with the 32-year-old about how he got into gaming, his collaboration with Riot Games on “Valorant” skins, and the ways he says music is like language.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Launcher: can you tell us about how you started gaming?
Anton “Zedd” Zaslavski: I’ve always been gaming since I was a little kid, I was probably about five years old with the Sega consoles, Sonic the Hedgehog, that kind of thing was where I started. And then I think when I was, I don’t even know, 13, I started playing “Counter-Strike.” And then I really got into the competitive side of gaming.
When my career started, I kind of stopped gaming just because everything was getting insanely busy. And things got a little off balance. And at some point I brought balance back into my life. I got a PC and started gaming, and it became my after-work routine.
I try to live a balanced life. And for me, a balanced life is not working 24/7, but having your time when you are in the studio or on the road. And when you have the free time, that’s gaming for me.
When you started gaming again, which game brought you back into the fold?
Zedd: It was ‘Overwatch’. I played “Overwatch” on PS4. And I’m not good with a controller. I’ve always played mouse and keyboard. And I wanted to be better than I could be with a controller. So then I got a PC and started playing and the itch came back. And then “Valorant” came out, and I sank even deeper into the game world. And I’m still playing “Valorant” today.
There was a collaboration you did with Riot Games to make skins and music for ‘Valorant’. How did you like that experience? Was it different from your normal day job to make music?
Zedd: Yes, it was super fun working with Riot on those skins. Mainly because I felt like I was burned out. I was working on my album. We had a whole pandemic. There were just a lot of things that didn’t inspire me to do what I normally do, mainly because I couldn’t go to clubs and things like that very often.
Working on the skin line and the sound design and the whole psychology that goes into how you feel when you use a certain skin and why you like one better than the other, I dug deep into that. And it was super fun. I learned so much by doing that. And now I still play the game and have my own skin in the game. And like I know what it sounds like. It’s just great. It was definitely a unique experience for me.
What were some particularly interesting things you learned while researching those skins?
Zedd: I had a very specific idea of what I wanted to do with my skin in terms of sound design. Because I’ve been playing the game since the alpha and I like certain skins better than others. And I know that all my friends prefer certain skins over others. And I was like, well, it’s probably not the look because they’re somewhat similar. But I had the feeling that one of the biggest influences on how you think about a skin is the sound. And so I really wanted my skin to be sound-activated, rather than based on a particular look. I think all our first ideas came from sound and not from what we’re going to make it look like.
I had a very specific idea of how I wanted the sound to feel. And then the big question was, how can I push my skin to feel different without being technically better? What can you do? How can you get creative with – these are random things, but – a gunshot? I used a snare drum and a kick drum together as a base layer – something I use a lot in my world, and it gives you a similar punch, like a shot would. But that was the base layer, and I built on that and just experimented. I’ve never had to do that. I’ve never had to rethink how a futuristic sci-fi laser version of a gun I’ve been using in this game for so long would feel or sound. I learned a lot by experimenting there.
Do you go through a similar process when creating new songs?
Zedd: I think it depends on the kind of song I’m working on. Some songs tend to be more sound design driven, where that slight difference is in the sound. And sometimes that difference, which is probably more the case with my music, is within a chord.
I like to make music accessible. I see music as language, where you can make it too complicated. And then it becomes language for people who speak the language very well. Or it could be a language that more people can understand. And you can build in little things, like a specific chord that’s unusual that, you know, musicians, or people like that will say, Oh, I know what he was doing there. But it doesn’t shock other people to the point where they don’t understand. That’s kind of how I approach my music.
But for each song at a certain stage during production, you have to think about what will set your song apart from the other billions of songs. And that something can be a specific sound design.
You just became a brand ambassador for HyperX, the gaming peripheral brand. What drove you to this?
Zedd: When I started PC gaming again, there was a moment of, well, I’m going to need everything. And I just did some research and I tried some headsets. And I just thought the HyperX headsets were by far the most comfortable, especially for extended periods of time. So I’ve been using them since I started gaming again.
Is there a difference when it comes to audio optimized for gaming versus audio optimized for creating or listening to music?
Zedd: I think those are generally two different worlds. If you’re producing music, and this includes headphones and speakers, they need to be technically flat so you know exactly what’s going on when you’re producing music. While when you’re listening or gaming you want to sweeten things up a bit because you don’t need to know the truth. It just has to sound good.
I think those two are slightly different worlds, but they’re definitely merging more and more. And I think gaming headsets have come this far since I was 13. I think we are in a completely different world now in terms of quality and what you get for your money.
When you play games, do you pay attention to the sound design of the games and think, ‘Hey, if I did this, maybe I’d make this sound different’? Can you break free, or is it always in the back of your mind?
Zedd: I think once you’re a producer in your head, you’ll always be thinking about sound. And that’s partly why I wanted to create my own sound design for my skin line, because I play “Valorant” every day when I’m at home, and I know what I want to hear and feel. And especially if you lose a round because you heard something wrong, you know, you think, ‘Okay, let’s find out what’s wrong here.’
So yeah, it’s hard to break free once you’re that deep in it. I would say that now that I know how the game works, at the audio level, it’s even harder for me to forget all the knowledge.
As for new gaming-related initiatives, do you have any plans here? To buy an esports organization maybe? Or something else?
Zedd: No esports teams for me yet. I should get better. For now, HyperX and I are working together on a product, some exclusive drops. That’s all that lies ahead of me right now.
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