{"id":170898,"date":"2025-07-03T12:16:26","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/07\/03\/zeds-dead-lives-the-duo-returns-to-its-annual-red-rocks-gigs-with-a-not-clean-new-album-but-is-it-dubstep\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T12:16:26","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T16:16:26","slug":"zeds-dead-lives-the-duo-returns-to-its-annual-red-rocks-gigs-with-a-not-clean-new-album-but-is-it-dubstep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/07\/03\/zeds-dead-lives-the-duo-returns-to-its-annual-red-rocks-gigs-with-a-not-clean-new-album-but-is-it-dubstep\/","title":{"rendered":"Zeds Dead Lives! The Duo Returns to Its Annual Red Rocks Gigs With a \u2018Not Clean\u2019 New Album \u2014 But Is It\u00a0Dubstep?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tWhile making their new album, the gentlemen of Zeds Dead <\/a>put a whiteboard in the studio to jot ideas on while they worked, a go-to move for anyone in a creative swirl. What was unique about their notes however, is that they ultimately wrote just one: \u201cF\u2013k s\u2013t up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat was the only thing on the board,\u201d says the duo\u2019s Dylan Mamid. <\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Zeds<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tDance Moves: Zeds Dead, GT_Ofice, David Guetta & More Climb\u00a0Charts\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tHowever concise, the instruction contained the project\u2019s foundational approach \u2014 \u201cto sound like, kind of not clean,\u201d says other half Zachary Rapp-Rovan, \u201cjust very glitchy and messed with, but cohesive, but kind of chaotic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re forgiven if these guidelines sound confusing to you. But with the Zeds Dead skillset, honed over a 16-year career that contains a debut LP, multiple mixtapes, hundreds of singles and remixes and countless shows, the duo made its excellent second album, Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness<\/em>. Released in March, the 14-track project does sound simultaneously disorderly and controlled, at once bursting at the seams and laced with moments of contemplative chill.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeeting with Billboard <\/em>at a studio in L.A., Mamid and Rapp-Rovan are both relaxed and thoughtful as they take a break from prepping a live show to talk about life, music and the evolution of a dubstep genre that they\u2019re fairly sure they don\u2019t actually exist within.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re never really going for a genre,\u201d says Rapp-Rovan. \u201cDubstep and all these bass genres are just kind of things we dabble in. We have our fans, more so than being a genre-affiliated artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRoughly 40,000 of these fans are trekking to Red Rocks this week for Dead Rocks, Zeds Dead\u2019s standing engagement at the Colorado amphitheater that\u2019s happened every summer since 2014. (Although the 2020 event was cancelled due to the pandemic.) Today (July 3) is the second of Dead Rocks 2025\u2019s two-night run, with the duo headlining each evening after a supporting lineup featuring 10 bass and bass-adjacent artists. (Zeds Dead will also play three shows in Denver on July 4 \u2014 two sets at Mission Ballroom and a preceding \u201cBackyard Jamboree\u201d at Civic Center Park where fans can enjoy music and a hot dog eating contest.)<\/p>\n

\n\tEach Dead Rocks is surely special, but this year is especially so given that it\u2019s the first time since 2016 that the duo \u2014 who\u2019s built a sprawling fanbase with its hard, experimental and often heady bass music \u2014 has come to Dead Rocks with a new album to play. If some of it does sound familiar, however, you aren\u2019t losing your mind.<\/p>\n

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