hree years ago a mysterious man arrived at Los Angeles International Airport with his head encased in a rigid 13.5-pound helmet shaped like a marshmallow. He reluctantly removed the fragile apparatus at the behest of a TSA agent and fed it through an x-ray machine. When he went khổng lồ retrieve it, his worst fears were confirmed.
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“It was cracked,” the headpiece’s owner, incognito DJ-producer Marshmello, told giasuviet.edu.vn in a rare interview.
Nowadays he can afford khổng lồ fly private. Marshmello earned $44 million over the past two years, thanks khổng lồ six-figure nightly fees and crossover hits lượt thích “Happier” (with Bastille) & “Wolves” (with Selena Gomez). Puffed up by his series “Cooking With Marshmello,” his YouTube channel is now the 50th largest on the planet—behind Bruno Mars and ahead of Maroon 5—averaging 250 million views và 1.4 million new subscribers every month.
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“What sets the world’s greatest DJs apart is that they are also great producers và songwriters, creating songs that transcend genre & appeal to lớn a global pop audience,” says Robb McDaniels, CEO of Beatport, the electronic music hub. “Marshmello is one of the select few who have defined this generation.”
Success has allowed Marshmello khổng lồ upgrade to lớn a $55,000 helmet that has an internal air-conditioning system and programmable LED lights & weighs just eight pounds. More important, the headgear has turned into a transcendent symbol that has placed Marshmello among the world’s five highest-earning DJs even as he refuses khổng lồ obey the music industry’s rules: He still hasn’t signed a major label record deal, much less shown his face in public.
The November 30, 2018 issue of giasuviet.edu.vn featuring Marshmello.
“For us it was, how vì chưng you create a brand that is accessible khổng lồ everybody, that everyone can be and relate to?” says Marshmello’s manager, Moe Shalizi, who lands on our new 30 Under 30 list; his client graces the cover. “The concept we had in mind with Mello was, How vị you create a universal character?”
The story begins in 2015, when the young DJ & Shalizi—who met Marshmello while he was still experimenting with different sounds và identities online—picked the name Marshmello in a nod to lớn his music’s mellow feel (during the 30 Under 30 vetting process last year, giasuviet.edu.vn confirmed his age, 26, and full name, Chris Comstock).
To this day, the DJ has never publicly acknowledged any biographical information. & when Marshmello made his musical debut, releasing a free download every few days for three weeks via Soundcloud, the mystery helped supercharge his popularity. Electronic music fans on Reddit became obsessed with discovering his identity, as did some of the genre’s superstars—like Skrillex, the earliest high-profile booster of his music.
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“I need khổng lồ know who Marshmello is,” Shalizi remembers Skrillex demanding. “I"m going through some stuff in my life & I really need to know who he is because the music is helping me.”
But Shalizi’s client wanted to lớn remain anonymous and didn’t seem particularly interested in fame. Even after he started texting Skrillex, Marshmello was so shy that he initially refused to liên hệ his hero about an in-person meeting. “Skrillex
Marshmello relented—and found a surprise on the other over of the line: Katie Couric, who happened to lớn be interviewing Skrillex for Yahoo on camera. (“It’s Chris,” she noted as the caller ID flashed onscreen. “Oh, Marshmello,” Skrillex replied). A week later the video clip interview went public—and Marshmello’s growing legion of fans got their first clue khổng lồ his identity. Mạng internet conspiracy theorists posited that he was actually a rotating cast of famous DJs including Skrillex, Martin Garrix and Tiësto (the latter trolled electronic music enthusiasts by showing up to lớn a gig in a Marshmello mask).
Shalizi insists Marshmello will earn around $50 million in 2019, which would put him on par with this year’s đứng đầu earner, Calvin Harris.
The buzz only helped drive Marshmello’s earning power: In late 2015, he took home $30,000 for his first major gig, a Halloween show in New York. Then Shalizi planned a tour, focusing on small clubs that would sell out & drive demand. Marshmello earned scores of new fans—and grew his social truyền thông media presence (he now boasts 7 million followers between Twitter and Facebook)—by spending hours posing for selfies after shows.
Marshmello got a boost from Coachella in năm nhâm thìn even though he didn’t play the festival. Shalizi rented a nearby highway billboard and splashed an image of the DJ across it. Then he hired two bodyguards & a photographer khổng lồ follow Marshmello around the festival, where he posed with celebrities lượt thích Zedd & DJ Khaled. “A year in, we already had over a million followers on Instagram,” says Shalizi (today’s count: 13.7 million). Marshmello returned to lớn Coachella in 2017 and headlined the Sahara Tent, the festival"s premier electronic stage.
His năm nhâm thìn breakout hit, “Alone,” racked up 1 billion views on YouTube; his first album, Joytime (2016), reached No. 5 on the U.S. Dance charts. Major labels came calling with multimillion-dollar record deals, but Marshmello và Shalizi weren’t convinced that giving up their independence was worth it. “They wanted to sign us just khổng lồ sign us,” says the DJ.
To be sure, Marshmello isn’t the first DJ lớn cash in on a mysterious image—he follows in the helmet-steps of electronic acts like Deadmau5 và Daft Punk—but his earnings total over the past year ranks as the best annual haul for an incognito DJ ever measured by giasuviet.edu.vn.
“It’s less about the masks and more about the actual talent,” Beatport’s McDaniels says of Marshmello. “He’s certainly got a long career in music ahead of him.”
Sure enough, his latest album, Joytime II, claimed the vị trí cao nhất spot on the dance charts this year. Shalizi insists Marshmello will earn around $50 million in 2019, which would put him on par with this year’s vị trí cao nhất earner, Calvin Harris. The young manager entertains even wilder dreams. “We always talk about taking Marshmello public one day,” says Shalizi, referring khổng lồ turning the DJ’s business into a publicly traded company. “He can bởi anything.”
“What sets the world’s greatest DJs apart is that they are also great producers and songwriters, creating songs that transcend genre & appeal lớn a global pop audience,” says Robb McDaniels.
Though that may be a bit far-fetched, Marshmello has certainly built a DJ business with room to grow. Like Marvel’s stable of superheroes, his image is one onto which anyone anywhere can project their hopes and dreams—Shalizi says his biggest markets range from Brazil to Singapore. Marshmello connects by nodding lớn local favorites, playing Bollywood theme songs at New Delhi gigs or posting Indonesian fried rice recipes on “Cooking With Marshmello” for his Jakarta fans.
And, in theory, Marshmello is infinitely scalable. Imagine an army of confectionary clones fanning out across the globe, paying Marshmello a cut of their nightly fees. Just don’t bet on that last part happening.
“Sometimes we talk to people & they’re surprised we aren’t doing that,” explains Marshmello. “And I’m like, That’s not why I did this.”
Reach Zack O"Malley Greenburg at zgreenburg
giasuviet.edu.vn. Cover image by Jamel Toppin for giasuviet.edu.vn. Marshmello pictured wearing Ermenegildo Zegna Couture.
Zack O"Malley Greenburg is senior editor of truyền thông media & entertainment at giasuviet.edu.vn and author of four books, includingA-List Angels: How a Band of Actors, Artists và Athletes Hacked Silicon Valleyand the Jay-Z biographyEmpire State of Mind. Zack"s work has also appeared in the New York Times,Washington Post, Billboard, Sports Illustrated, Vibe, McSweeney"s & the Library of Congress. In over a decade at giasuviet.edu.vn, he has investigated topics from Wu-Tang Clan"s secret album in Morocco khổng lồ the return of tourism in post-conflict Sierra Leone lớn the earning power of Hip-Hop"s Cash Kings, writing cover stories on subjects ranging from Richard Branson to Ashton Kutcher to Katy Perry. A former child actor, Zack played the title role in the film Lorenzo"s Oil (1992) & arrived at giasuviet.edu.vn in 2007 after graduating from Yale with an American Studies degree. For more, follow him on Twitter, Facebook, newsletter và via www.zogreenburg.com. Got a tip on a music, media & entertainment story? Send it over via SecureDrop. Instructions here: www.giasuviet.edu.vn/tips