Deadmau5 has apologised following a drunken set at Coachella, which was reportedly cut short.
The artist, whose real name is Joel Zimmerman, performed under his Testpilot alias alongside ZHU at the festival last Friday (18 April) on its electronic stage, Quasar. Videos later surfaced online showing them drinking together, with some showing Zimmerman falling over and slurring his words when speaking through the mic.
@edmboon Deadmau5 took to the mic after the set was stopped 👀 #Deadmau5 #ZHU #Coachella2025 #FestivalDrama #SetCutShort #EDM #MusicFestival #LiveSetGoneWrong #TooLit #DJLife #RaveCulture #CoachellaVibes #UnfilteredFestival
Zimmerman later took to Instagram to share that he doesn’t “remember a thing” from the set, and that it would likely be his last Coachella performance. The electronic artist has been an open critic of other festival performances in the past, notably Grimes’ when she suffered major technical difficulties last year.
Another post from him later reads, “Man, even my cat is disappointed in me. Though, it could be argued that she always has been. Sorry about last night. To be fair, I felt the first 3/4 was great! Huge shout out to Zhu for introducing me to whisky and carrying my dumb ass till the bitter end. Lemme quit smoking, do some personal resetting here at home, find my spirit animal, work on some new music, and come back better.” Another post shows a video of his cat, with the simple caption of “I’m fine thanks.”
In other deadmau5 news, back in March it was revealed that he had sold his catalogue to Create Music Group for $55 million. The deal means Create acquires the rights to the mau5trap Records catalogue, meaning the company now owns more than 4,000 new songs in total. It also marks the beginning of a new partnership between Create Music Group and deadmau5, who will work together on future deadmau5 records and mau5trap label releases.
