Joel Thomas Zimmerman, known professionally as Deadmau5 (pronounced "dead-mouse", and stylized in all lowercase), is a Canadian electronic music producer and DJ. His musical style mostly includes progressive house and electro house genres, though he also produces and DJs other genres of electronic music, including techno under the alias Testpilot. Zimmerman mostly appears and performs with a custom helmet called the "mau5head". He has received seven Grammy Award nominations and won four Juno Awards for his songs.
Zimmerman has collaborated with other artists, such as Wolfgang Gartner, Rob Swire, and Chris Lake. He collaborated with Steve Duda to form the duo BSOD and later joined Tommy Lee, DJ Aero, and Duda in the electronic band WTF?. In 2007, he founded his own record label, Mau5trap. Zimmerman later formed electronic music supergroups such as Kx5 with Kaskade and Rezzmau5 with Rezz.
Zimmerman first gained recognition for his breakthrough album Random Album Title (2008), which was certified gold in Canada and silver in the United Kingdom. The album included the single "Faxing Berlin", and the moderate chart hit "I Remember", a collaboration with Kaskade. He won a Juno Award for both this album and the song "All U Ever Want" with Billy Newton-Davis. His fourth studio album, For Lack of a Better Name (2009), was released to critical acclaim, featuring "Ghosts 'n' Stuff" with Rob Swire of Pendulum, "Hi Friend" featuring MC Flipside, and the critically acclaimed "Strobe". The album earned Zimmerman another Juno award. He released his fifth studio album, 4×4=12 (2010), which was supported by singles "Some Chords", "Animal Rights" with Wolfgang Gartner, "Sofi Needs a Ladder" with the singer Sofi, and "Raise Your Weapon" featuring Greta Svabo Bech.
Zimmerman's sixth studio album, Album Title Goes Here (2012), featured the singles "The Veldt" featuring Chris James, and "Professional Griefers" with Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance. The album released to commercial success. Following his departure from long-time label Ultra Records, Zimmerman released his seventh studio album, While(1<2) (2014), supported by its singles "Avaritia", and "Seeya" featuring Colleen D'Agostino of The Material. After a brief hiatus, Zimmerman released his eighth studio album, W:/2016Album/ (2016) with singles "Snowcone", and "Let Go" featuring Grabbitz. He subsequently composed the score for the action film Polar (2019), and In 2020, "Pomegranate" with the Neptunes and "Bridged by a Lightwave" featuring Kiesza were released. Zimmerman's next album is slated to release in 2026, the second single of which is "Science" with Stevie Appleton.
