Dylan Mamid and Zachary Rapp-Rovan are the Canadian lads that make up electro, hip hop duo Zeds Dead.
With their first, full-length album, 'Northern Lights', released last month, the relief and excitement the boys have is clear. "It feels pretty good, finally after a few years we are ready to release an album," Dylan says.
A statement that is echoed by Zachary. "We are really happy, it's our best work yet."
Their sound pushes the boundaries of EDM and hip hop, transcending into different genres. “We don't think about it,” Dylan explains. “We have completed songs that we listen to and we will be like 'what is this?' We have no reference; we want to break new ground. We don't go into it thinking this is going to be whatever or different. We focus on making good music that we like."
The boys string of EPs have gained them major success. But that success is not something that has made them apprehensive. “We aren’t really worried about it, we have a great, passionate fan base that we think will have the attention span for a full-length album," Zachery says. "It felt like the right time for us. It has been a personal goal for a while so it feels really nice to do something large and finally fulfil that goal of releasing an album."
'Northern Lights' is packed with collaborations including Diplo. “Each collaboration on the album was a positive experience, it was great,” explains Dylan. “We had so much music and we wanted to work with people that fit our style. We had a wishlist of people we wanted to work with, a lot of that came true which is pretty amazing.”
The process for the album was organic and fuelled by an idea that was developed. “We started with an initial idea that can change and then we look at each song and took the whole process song by song. We had a lot of songs that were all good. At the end of day we had to narrow it done to the songs that we thought were great."
The boys will bring their genre-breaking style to Australia later this year at HARD festival. Zachary explains what they love about Australian audiences. "We love playing in Australia, love the crowds. Last time we played there was last year, we are really excited to go back," he says.
“You guys have a strong, good music scene. There is a lot of good talent and people are open to a lot of music and I think that really resonates with us and the audiences."
The future for Zeds Dead is bright. Along with their own music careers, Zachary also explains how they want to foster other creatives. "We are really going to focus on the label Deadbeats, we want to get that off the ground and really sink our teeth into that. We want to release not only our own music but other artist’s music as well."
'Northern Lights' is available now.
Written by Ellen Cook
2016 Hard Festival Dates
Thu 1 Dec - Metro City (Perth)Fri 2 Dec - Adelaide Showgrounds
Sat 3 Dec - Royal Randwick Racecourse (Sydney)
Sun 4 Dec - Brisbane Showgrounds
