O
N THE EVE OF THE FIRST
show of his current tour, which
started Sept. 12, Joel Zimmerman
was holed up in a Dallas hotel
room — writing code. Using a
custom version of the visual development
platform Derivative TouchDesigner, the man
known as the massively successful electronic
music producer deadmau5 was putting the
final flourishes on an audiovisual spectacle
eight months and thousands of hours in the
making.
Called Cube v3, the production is Zim-
merman’s most technologically advanced
to date. Zimmerman talks in coder-speak
— IDE tools, GPU systems, data-handling
digitalization suites — while discussing
his show, for which he and his team used
TouchDesigner (a Canadian company
partially chosen due to its proximity to the
artist’s house outside Toronto) to write the
millions of lines of code that together form
the Cube. Now complete, the Cube — a
massive, rotating structure from which he
performs — flashes images such as Bosch’s
“The Garden of Earthly Delights” and dead-
mau5’s signature “mau5head” logo to the
tune of hits like “Faxing Berlin,” “Raise Your
Weapon” and “Ghosts N Stuff.”
The majority of electronic artists use
playback technology for their visuals,
displaying premade imagery in tandem
with a locked set list. With the Cube v3,
Zimmerman can cue up visuals in real time,
leaving space for spontaneity during sets
and ensuring that no two shows on the tour,
which runs across North America through
February 2020, are the same.
“The show has developed in such a way
that we literally start the server up with
all the TouchDesigner applications, hit F1,
minimize it and then we never look at it
again,” says Zimmerman, who partnered
with Chris Schroeder Productions and
technical designer Collyns Stenzel (who has
worked on festivals like Life in Color and
Spring Awakening). The applications read
the information sent through sonic cues
(like track names and notes) and respond
commensurately. “I wouldn’t call it AI,”
he continues, “but there’s definitely some
intelligence in the system that says, ‘Joel is
doing this, so I’m going to fade to black and
go ahead and do that.’ ”
And while he’s excited to share his new
live show with fans, Zimmerman says that
the most gratifying part of the process thus
far has been blowing the minds of the devel-
opers whose tech he used to make the show.
“Guys who’ve invented a lot of the IDE tools
I’m using are coming up and saying, ‘Holy
shit, I’ve never seen anyone use what I made
for something like this.’ ”
INSIDE LOOK
Tech
’N’ Stuff
Deadmau5 just unveiled his most
impressive live show ever —
and he coded it all himself
BY KATIE BAIN
Zimmerman on opening
night of his Cube v3
tour at the South Side
Ballroom at Gilley’s in
Dallas on Sept. 12.
DEADMAU5 :LEAH^SEMS.BLACKKEYS:MIKE^COPPOLA/GETTYIMAGES.^ E
VERLY^BROTHERS:MICHAELLEVIN/CORBIS^VIA^GETTY^IMAGES.T.REX:PICTORIAL^PRESS/ALAMY^IMAGES.^ D
ANGERMOUSE:^ RICHARDSAKER/SHUTTERSTOCK.PHO,^ WONTON,^ LEAF:ISTOCK/GETTYIMAGESPLUS.Not-So-Lonely Boys
DAN AUERBACH AND PATRICK CARNEY HAVE BEEN
making music as The Black Keys for nearly two decades.
But after the release of their 2014 album, Turn Blue,
they did something they had never done before: take a
prolonged break. This June, the rockers returned with
their fuzzed-out, self-produced ninth LP, “Let’s Rock”
(Danger Mouse produced their last four albums), released
on Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound and Warner Music’s
Nonesuch. Auerbach, 40, and Carney, 39, have grown up
together — and are closer than ever following the band’s
hiatus. Now, as they hit the road with Modest Mouse,
they reveal just how well they know each other, from their
eating to bathroom habits. —LYNDSEY HAVENS
DAN AUERBACH PATRICK CARNEY
FAVORITE MUSICAL DUO
“The Everly Brothers.” “Are you supposed
to say Lennon
and McCartney
or Jagger and
Richards? I’m going
to say T. Rex.”
TOUR ESSENTIAL
“Pho. Every major
city in America has
a good pho spot,
seriously.”
“The MLB app. I can
watch the Cleveland
Indians from
anywhere, which is a
game-changer.”
FAVORITE BLACK KEYS SONG TO PERFORM
“It’s always fun to play
‘Lonely Boy.’ Everybody
always dukes out.”
“ ‘She’s Long Gone’ —
I just love the riffs to
that song so much.”
FAVORITE DANGER MOUSE TRACK
“ ‘Who’s Gonna Save My
Soul.’ Him and Cee Lo
[Green] did that [as Gnarls
Barkley]. That song blew me
away when he played it.”
“I think it’s clearly
[Gnarls Barkley’s] ‘Crazy,’
but there are so many
good ones.”
“He only sits
down to pee.
Oh yeah, we got
to go with that.”
“It used to be that he
only ate wonton soup
for lunch. It was so
fucking weird.”
HIGHEST RECENT HIGH
“I don’t know; I was pretty
high last night.”
“For my dad’s 70th birthday, I
went home to Cleveland and
took my family to an Indians
game. We went on the field
and met the star players.”
BANDMATE’S WEIRDEST QUIRK
98 BILLBOARD • SEPTEMBER 21, 2019