Son of a Disco Queen & Audiophile King, Christian Zero’s work and play with music began with ‘dance-running’ around the living room. Fresh disco vinyl and dance-hits, selected by his mom—aka “DJ RueRue”—belted through Onkyo amplification to 15” wooden Klipsch speakers.

Piano lessons and recitals followed. Fun at first, but with no cue to be creative with the instrument, it became more interesting for Christian to design video game journeys. He did this with a pencil, and long strips of dot-matrix paper, rolled out along the floor.

Soon, the influence of his uncles came into play. A writer and guitar player on his mom’s side, and a bedroom drummer on his dad’s, both exposed Christian to a broad range of rock music. Led Zeppelin; Todd Rundgren; The Alan Parsons Project, and Steely Dan could all be found in his uncles massive music collection.

After years of alternative rock, metal, and “Much Music TV”, it wasn’t until Aphex Twin’s “Come to daddy” that electronic music entered the picture. This excitement led to discovering satellite-radio DJ sets by Paul Oakenfold, Daft Punk’s ‘Homework’, Mark Farina’s ‘Mushroom Jazz’  ‘The Fat of the Land’ by The Prodigy, and Christian’s first rave experience. The plan was to see Daft Punk live, but the hypnotic sound of Drum & Bass ripping out of a neighbouring airplane hanger seduced him to dance there all night.

Fuelled with passion for sharing musical experiences with high-school friends, Christian was soon hosting parties in his parents basement, where he would beat-match tribal house and progressive trance on Technics 1200’s. His parents away for the weekend, these gatherings were the talk of the suburbs, until a big subwoofer was stolen, and the Audiophile King clamped down.

This propelled Christian to create his own events, where he could share his mixes, initially as “DJ Phlux.” This was his first alias, representing an intention to combine different music genres in fluctuating journey. Later switching to his given name, Christian Skjødt (pronounced ‘Scott’), one of the first events was called “Be Evolution.”

An early adopter of CD-DJing and downloading thousands of MP3’s to burn, Christian learned the hard way that their sound quality didn’t cut it. It was made clear at one of his own events, when the headliner he’d booked—DJ Deko-ze—played vinyl at the beginning of his set, following Christian’s:

“It was as if someone had taken a big condom off the Soundsystem!”

This made Christian an early adopter of source WAV and AIFF files, coupled with using high-end sound cards to maximize audio fidelity.

Christian Zero began DJing in a range of scenarios in 1999, and has been honing his craft ever since. From playing dark-progressive music at ‘bunker raves’ in Milton, to fancy restaurants like Monsoon in Toronto, where his forward-thinking selection of deep-sexy-house —a new sound at the time— earned him his first residency there. Word got around, and more bookings followed, including residencies at Diesel Fitness in Toronto, and then Groove Fitness in LA. 

Christian Zero’s experience working with a range of music genres since 1999, has led to his signature style of multi-genre “intuitive dance” journeys. This working experience includes: The launch party for HBO Canada; The Heineken fashion show in Montreal; Launch of the National Geographic Channel; Kajama Full-Moon Cruise for alienInFlux; Cherry Beach for Promise; Studio Parties for Platform Entertainment; Nuit Blanche for The Drake Hotel; Bring the Heat 3 for Yad Productions; Soulshine Festival; Chocolate Groove‘s Equinox & Solstice Specials;  Church of Dance; Sonic Springs Festival; Electric Island, CODA Nightclub, and Vertigo Toronto.  

Whether a result of these formative experiences, or his ‘Moon-in-Libra’, Christian’s love for music has been one of the few constants throughout his life, resulting in a massive uncompressed music collection spanning decades and genres.

After being invited to participate in ‘The Move’, a weekly ecstatic dance, Christian’s journey with music came full circle. “Ecstatic dance” emphasized a journey of the body, more than narrative aesthetics, but Christian aimed to integrate both, and Christian Zero was born.

“I prefer to call it ‘intuitive dance’, as I think a reverence for intuition can take the body and soul where it needs to go. If ‘ecstasy’ is where you end up going, great! Whatever the words we might use to try to describe these experiences, intuition is certainly a quality I hope my work and play with music empowers.”

When Christian isn’t DJing, he’s Co-Founder at Symbio ~ Resort for Holistic Wellness and the Arts, an embodied commUnity, dedicated to cultivating intuition and supporting personal evolution. Christian combines decades of experience as a VJ with his experience as a DJ to facilitate immersive multi-sensory experiences called VortexVoyages, first debuted at DREAMjunction.