Back in 2010, at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, electronic artist Joel Zimmerman, better known as Deadmau5, first introduced his audiences to The Cube. The 15-foot wide cube was used to project multi-colored lights out into the sprawling Empire Polo Field that pulsed along to his set.

Seven years later, Deadmau5 debuted Cube 2.1, which was 17-feet tall by 20-feet wide and 31 feet deep. It was covered with LED panels that could project video and a wide variety of graphics during his tour. Now, the visually and musically ever-evolving artist has busted out the Cube V3 for his 16-city tour, which will play out over five nights at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles Sept. 25-29.

Electronic artist Deadmau5 will bring his innovative Cube V3 2019 Tour to the Hollywood Palladium for five nights Sept. 25-29. (Photo by aLIVE Coverage for Ultra Music Festival)

Electronic artist Deadmau5 will bring his innovative Cube V3 2019 Tour to the Hollywood Palladium for five nights Sept. 25-29. (Photo by Leah Sems)

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Electronic artist Deadmau5 will bring his innovative Cube V3 2019 Tour to the Hollywood Palladium for five nights Sept. 25-29. (Photo by Leah Sems)

Electronic artist Deadmau5 will bring his innovative Cube V3 2019 Tour to the Hollywood Palladium for five nights Sept. 25-29. (Photo by Leah Sems)

Electronic artist Deadmau5 will bring his innovative Cube V3 2019 Tour to the Hollywood Palladium for five nights Sept. 25-29. (Photo by aLIVE Coverage for Ultra Music Festival)



The all-new design, which was created by Deadmau5 with Chris Schroeder of Chris Schroeder Productions and technical design by Collyns Stenzel, can now be completely programmed by Deadmau5 and made its stage debut at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami in March. The Cube V3 was designed, fabricated and produced in-house with Deadmau5’s production team at Chris Schroeder Productions and can now move more freely, changing positions from 90 degrees into 45 degrees and rotate 360 degrees.

After he played his first show of the tour in Dallas last week, we chatted with Deadmau5 about the evolution of The Cube and the logistics of performing with a giant cube of metal spinning around you for the entire performance. Of course he still spends a good amount of time during the performance sporting his iconic, glowing and oversized mouse head with jumbo ears.

Q: How important was it for you as an artist to evolve The Cube in your live shows and add to the overall aesthetic of the performance?

A: It’s just part of my thing. I am a technical artist and developer, so it’s not just music. It’s the visuals, the show production, all that stuff that I’m just as invested in if not more. The idea of the show, in my mind, is like a presentation of my art, music and design as opposed to ‘Welp, I just do music, guess I’ll stay in my lane.’ Now, I know and understand why people only do that, because it’s been driving me absolutely … crazy because there’s been a lot of challenges and learning experiences. It’s 48 hours a day, which is impossible, but we’re doing it.”

Q: Does the design ever inspire the music or vise versa?

A: No, I keep them separate. I find ways to marry them later. It’s an exercise in creative design because at some time in the future my music isn’t going to be so …. hot and I’m going to be 50 years old and I’ll do this for other people for a living and I’m not going to be writing their music, so you know, it’s good to keep those two things creatively separate.

Q: What is different about The Cube this time around?

A: Engineering wise it’s a lot different. It has more LED panels, but the show system now runs in real time so it’s no longer just haphazardly playing clips on a video wall as per the norm. So all systems are driven in real time, audio reactive and music reactive. The show system is capable of playing content I’ve coded myself so it bends, tilts and rotates and does a bunch of other cool little tricks that the other cube didn’t do.

Q: Do you ever get a bit queasy playing in front of, inside of or below The Cube?

A: I get a lot queasy being inside there and that has raised a lot of questions because people are saying ‘Oh well, he’s sitting.’ Well, yeah, there’s a half ton cube rotating directly over my head and when you’re sitting there looking at it, it looks like the whole world is spinning and around you but you’re sitting still and it’s really nauseating.

Then I’m performing on the touchscreen surface that I’ve developed and I have a lot of foot pedals down there too, so it’s hard to stand and do that at the same time. So, it’s not a laziness thing, it’s a motion sickness and I need to hit the pedals with my foot thing. But I will push the chair aside and rock out with the crowd when the cube rotates around and it’s behind me and I can show that I actually showed up to the game.

Q: When we first saw The Cube it was outside at Coachella in a huge festival setting. Are you worried about fitting The Cube into a venue like the Hollywood Palladium?

A: It’s going to be a challenge. The way the projection system works, we designed it to have a certain amount of angles to where if you’re too far stage right or too far stage left you kind of don’t get to take in the whole show. But we’ve done things like a big LED wall in the back that looks good from everywhere and some of the content on The Cube just looks good no matter what position you’re in. I think everyone will have a great time and obviously everyone who is directly huddled around the front of house will have the best view.

Deadmau5 Cube V3 2019 Tour

When: 7 p.m. Sept. 25-29

Where: Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles

Tickets: $59 general admission; $100 VIP balcony

Information: LiveNation.com