A lightly undercover Deadmau5 returned to the festival stage on Friday night, appearing in his Testpilot semi-secret alter ego to play a DJ set at the final weekend of Coachella 2025. And – in what has become a popular theme for this year’s dysfunction in the desert – things didn’t go exactly as planned.
The Mau5, aka Joel Zimmerman, appeared visibly lubricated during his performance which, alongside electronic artist Zhu, had been scheduled to soak up three hours of reveller’s time.
Instead, after being seen drinking shots, drunkenly heckling the audience and at one point falling over, his performance was brought to a close by security who escorted the inebriated superstar DJ from the booth.
And – ever the one to hurl mud and call out inadequacy and ineptitude wherever he spots it – Zimmerman was soon onto Instagram the following morning to point out, to anyone who didn’t already know it, what a complete and utter dufus he was.
“I don't remember a thing. But I don’t think I had a cig? So… that’s good I guess?” said the star, referring to the fact that he’d quit smoking a week earlier. “Going back to bed. Wake me up around Thursday-ish,” he continued, alongside a picture of an unopened water bottle.
Later in the comments he predicted that 2025 would be: “Probably my last Coachella” before posting a pic of his cat – “Man, even my cat is disappointed in me” – and shedding some further insight:
“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 fucken personal resetting here at home, find my spirit animal, work on some new music, and come back better. ;)” he offered.
Something to celebrate
It’s possible that Zimmerman was in high spirits due to recently being on the receiving end of a major pay day, having sold the rights to his work and the content from his mau5trap label, including tracks by Skrillex, Noisia, Rezz and more, to Create Music Group for $55 million.
The star is, of course, no stranger to controversy, having previously admitted that he plays pre-recorded DJ sets “all the time”, had fallen out with Spotify, announced that “I don't really enjoy dance music” and called “all DJs” “f______ c____”.
Ironically, DM was one of the first to criticise fellow electronic artist Grimes who’s DJ set went similarly awry (for altogether more technical reasons) last year.
What spins around comes around.
