Deadmau5

Joel Thomas Zimmerman, born January 5, 1981, is a Canadian electronic music producer and DJ known professionally as Deadmau5. His musical style primarily features progressive house and electro house genres, though he also produces and performs other forms of electronic music, including techno under the alias Testpilot. Zimmerman frequently performs wearing a custom helmet called the "mau5head." Over his career, he has received seven Grammy Award nominations and won four Juno Awards.

Zimmerman was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, to Nancy, a visual artist, and Rodney Thomas "Rod" Zimmerman, a General Motors plant worker. He has an older sister, Jennifer, and a younger brother, Chris, with ancestry including German, Swiss, and English heritage. He attended Westlane Secondary School in Niagara Falls. Zimmerman developed an early interest in technology, disassembling household electronics before receiving his first computer and making chiptune music inspired by video games. As a teenager, he also attended raves. The name "Deadmau5" originated after he found a dead mouse inside his computer. Friends began calling him the "dead mouse guy," and when he attempted to adopt the username "Deadmouse" in a chat room, he shortened it to "Deadmau5" using leetspeak because the original name was too long.

Zimmerman began his music career in the late 1990s, using Impulse Tracker to produce early work. In 1999, he created the "mau5head" logo while learning 3D modeling software. He released vinyl singles as part of Dred and Karma in 2000, began uploading tracks as "Deadmau5" in 2002, and released his debut album, Get Scraped, in 2005. He collaborated with Steve Duda to form the duo BSOD and founded his record label, Mau5trap, in 2007. Zimmerman achieved widespread recognition with his breakthrough album, Random Album Title (2008), which was certified gold in Canada and earned a Juno Award. The album featured "Faxing Berlin" and the popular Kaskade collaboration "I Remember."

In 2009, Zimmerman released For Lack of a Better Name, which featured the single "Ghosts 'n' Stuff" with Rob Swire and the acclaimed track "Strobe," winning another Juno Award in 2010. His fifth studio album, 4×4=12 (2010), included singles such as "Some Chords," "Animal Rights" with Wolfgang Gartner, and "Sofi Needs a Ladder." His sixth studio album, Album Title Goes Here (2012), was a commercial success featuring tracks like "The Veldt" and "Professional Griefers" with Gerard Way. During this era, Zimmerman unveiled his "Cube" stage at Coachella in 2010 and served as the house DJ for the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.

In 2014, Zimmerman launched his techno alias Testpilot and released his seventh studio album, While(1