deadmau5's first book is available to order now.
book_title_goes_here: 25 years of deadmau5 is a 320-page hardback with more than 1,000 colour images, many of them from Joel Zimmerman's own archive and never published before. It's made with us at Soi Books.
“It’s been a wild ride since I started in this business. It’s neat I can share some of the content captured over the years in this unique way with my fans.”
It lands just after his first Halloween shows at Red Rocks. And yes, before anyone asks, the title is the placeholder. It sits right next to Random Album Title (2008) and W:/2016ALBUM/ (2016), names that look like files nobody got round to renaming. For a book that took this long to arrive, it's a fair joke at everyone's expense.
Ours included.
A first look inside book_title_goes_here: 25 years of deadmau5: the mau5head spreads, the Cube chapters and the contents page.
Why the deadmau5 book took so long
If you're a fan and you've followed this project, you've seen announcements come and go. If you pre-ordered, you've watched the date move more than once: early listings said 2025, then February 2026. The book reaches UK shops from 16 November, orders ship on 28 November, and US shops get it from 8 December. Sorry it took so long.
The honest version: books take time, and this one took more than most. There were terabytes of images to go through, photography to clear, locations to check and a few design rethinks along the way. Then the world got in the way too, with tariffs, war and shipping delays, and time got the better of us.
The story also moved while we were making it. In late 2025 Joel retired the Cube, and a book that started as a career so far became the record of an era that had ended. We'd rather be late with that book than on time with the other one.
It’s nearly here, and it’s better for the wait!
What's inside the deadmau5 book
It's a large-format hardback, 320 x 245 mm, with 320 pages on 157gsm matt art paper and more than 1,000 colour images.
It runs from early gigs to world tours: archive photos, show shots and behind-the-scenes material, much of it never published. Along the way you'll find Joel with friends and collaborators including Tommy Lee, DJ Aero, Steve Duda and SOFI, plus his Kx5 show with Kaskade at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The chapters are named like files on Joel’s desktop:
1. early_days
2. the_mau5_helmet
3. tours_'n_stuff
4. the_cube_v1
5. memorabilia
6. the_cube_v3
7. retro5pective_tour
8. extras
9. credits_'n_stuff
x. autograph_zone
The book comes in two editions.
The mau5hop Edition is limited to 1,200 copies and will never be reprinted. It has a die-cut slipcase, red metallic foil, black metallic page edges, silver and laser-blue metallic inks, Cube schematics printed on architectural tracing paper, and two vinyl sticker sheets chosen by Joel. The Classic Edition is limited to 800 copies and comes without the sticker sheets.
The deadmau5 Cube, archived
For years the Cube was what a deadmau5 show looked like. It debuted at Coachella in 2010 and became one of the most recognisable stages in live electronic music. The book follows it from the first version to the last, alongside the mau5heads that went with it.
In October 2025 Joel said he was retiring the Cube for good, and he debuted a new show at Red Rocks that November. The Cube chapters are now the only place to see it properly, in large format and in order.
Once a live production retires, what's left is footage, memory and print. Print is the one you can still pick up in twenty years.
From the Cube Lite tour rider: one yoga mat, and DJ tables sturdy enough for the artist to jump on. Folding tables not acceptable.
Making the book
We went through hundreds of thousands of images, covering more than two decades, to get down to 1,000. That was hard enough before we got to checking and double-checking venues, dates and the people who've come and gone along the way.
A lot of this is personal for Joel. We'd build a layout we thought was working, even fun, and then hear it didn't work for him, often for reasons we'd never have guessed. That's how it should be. It's his story.
And plenty didn't make it in. There simply wasn't room. With Joel's and the mau5 crew's blessing, maybe there's a second book in the outtakes one day.
Huge credit goes to Joel and the team for the creative: the file-name title and chapters are theirs. The photography is by Leah Sems, Danny Mahoney, Timothy White, Matt Barnes, Drew Ressler and Paul Macrae, with renders by Collins Stenzel. Nat Summerbell, a master project manager, got it over the line through sheer persistence. Thank you to our Soi crew, Suzi Robinson, Steve Aston, Ryo Sanada and Suridh Hassan, and to Studio Ono for that extra bit of art direction.
“Joel trusted us with 25 years of his archive. It took more than two years and a lot of hard drives to do it justice, but we got there.”
Buying the book
The mau5hop Edition (1,200 copies) is $200 / £150 and available to order now: from mau5hop.com in the US and Canada, and from Soi Books everywhere else.
Orders ship on 28 November.
The Classic Edition (800 copies, without the sticker sheets) will be sold through selected shops. Look for the book in UK shops from 16 November and US shops from 8 December.
For labels, producers and artists thinking about a book
If you run a label or make music, you probably have an archive like Joel's: flyers, sleeve art, tour photos and hard drives nobody has opened in years.
Here's what making this book taught us about turning that into something that lasts.
The archive is the book. The best material is usually what was never meant for release. The real work is finding it and putting it in order.
The artist stays the author. This book reads like deadmau5: his titles, his jokes, his file names. A good music book sounds like the music it comes from.
Give it time. Hundreds of thousands of images, every date checked, every layout signed off by the artist. It's worth doing properly, and properly takes longer than you think.
A book outlasts the release cycle. A single gets a few weeks. A book stays on coffee tables and in collections for years. We wrote more about this in Why Books Are Becoming the New Cultural Status Symbol.
It sells where fans already shop. Record shops, bookshops, merch tables and online. We see it every time we're behind a table, most recently across three fairs in three days this summer.
Anniversaries make good deadlines. This one marks 25 years. A milestone gives a book a reason to exist now, and gives press a reason to cover it.
Scarcity only works if it's honest. The mau5hop Edition is limited to 1,200 copies and will never be reprinted.
Working with Soi Books
Soi Books is Ryo Sanada, Suridh Hassan and Steve Aston. We've been documenting underground culture since 2004, from music and skate to street art, and somewhere along the way Stickerbomb grew to 15 titles and 500,000 copies sold worldwide. We come from music documentaries, so we bring a filmmaker's eye to every book, working between London, Brussels and Jakarta. Our latest, True World Skate, is out now with Thames & Hudson in the UK and MIT Press in the US.
We take care of the editing, design, print and distribution. You keep control of the story. And if you want to see how it all comes together, we're filming more of the process on YouTube.
What to send us
Who you are and what you've released
Years active, and roughly how much material exists: photos, artwork, flyers, video
A few sample images
Whether the artist is involved
Any timing to aim for: an anniversary, a tour, an album
Send it over and we'll take a look.
