Marshmello

Background and musical style

His musical style includes groove-oriented, synth and bass-heavy electronic dance music. Inspired by other masked DJs like Deadmau5 and Daft Punk, Marshmello appears wearing a full-head-covering white coloured bucket. Despite the anonymity, his career received international recognition in 2015 when he began releasing tracks online, including remixes of Zedd's "Beautiful Now", Jack Ü's "Where Are Ü Now" and others, as well as his own single "Alone".

Marshmello performed at New York's Pier 94, Pomona, California's HARD Day of the Dead festival, and Miami Music Week. In 2016, Marshmello released a compilation of his previously released tracks, Joytime, which reached number five on the US Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart. Included on the album was the single "Keep It Mello" featuring rapper Omar LinX.

He is managed by Moe Shalizi of Red Light Management, who also manages artists such as Jauz, Ookay and Slushii.

2015

On March 3, 2015, Marshmello posted his first song "WaVeZ" as an original mix on his SoundCloud page. As he released more songs, he began to receive support from established and well-known DJs like Skrillex who reposted his song "FinD Me" on his SoundCloud page.

Joytime and debut on Monstercat

On January 8, 2016, Marshmello self-released his debut album Joytime, consisting of 10 tracks, through his own label Joytime Collective. The album topped iTunes electronic album chart on the first day. As of 30 July 2016, the album is twelfth on the chart. Two singles were released from the album, titled "Keep It Mello" featuring rapper Omar LinX and "Want U 2". The album peaked number five on Billboard's electronic/dance albums chart.

Marshmello debuted on Monstercat with his song "Alone", which appeared on the compilation album Monstercat 027 - Cataclysm. On June 3, 2016, it was announced that there would be a remix contest for "Alone". The winner would have their remix released by Monstercat and a chance to play an opening DJ set at Camp Bisco. It was later announced that future house duo MRVLZ had won the contest. On July 2, 2016, he released the music video for Alone on his YouTube channel which has racked up over 325 million views as of March 2017, easily becoming the label's most successful release.

On August 20, 2016, Marshmello announced the Ritual Tour on Twitter, on which he will perform in several countries including the United States, China, South Korea, India and Paraguay from September 30, 2016 until January 21, 2017.

On October 27, 2016, he debuted on Skrillex's OWSLA label with a single titled "Ritual" featuring American singer-songwriter Wrabel. An official music video was uploaded to Marshmello's YouTube channel. He started his own record label Joytime Collective and signed Slushii as the first artist.

2017

Marshmello collaborated with Ookay to release the single "Chasing Colors" featuring vocals by Noah Cyrus.

Stage persona and identity

Marshmello's stage name, an alternative spelling of "marshmallow", and his marshmallow mascot head were both inspired by electro house music producer and DJ deadmau5, who also notably uses an alternate spelling for his stage name and performs only wearing a "dead mouse" mascot head. Acknowledgement of deadmau5's contribution to Marshmello's persona is evident in the music video for "Alone," which feature's Marshmello's pet mouse, Joel. While Marshmello has not yet confirmed his true identity, the most widespread theory is that the man behind the mascot is Chris Comstock, better known as Dotcom. Journalists have also speculated that Marshmello could be Martin Garrix, Jauz, Diplo, Sikdope, Kayliox, Cashmere Cat, or a collective of producers and djs managed by Shalizi.

EDC prank and debut on OWSLA

After his set at the 2016 Electric Daisy Carnival 2016, Marshmello took off his helmet and revealed himself as the Dutch DJ Tiësto. It's believed that this was a publicity stunt, and that Marshmello and Tiësto are not actually the same artist, as they have had conflicting tour schedules, and have also been photographed together. Later in July, he said on Twitter that he and Skrillex have "something awesome" for the fans which was believed to mean that they will release a collaboration.