LI Sound: Matthew Koma rips ex-collaborator Zedd as 'toxic' and 'self-serving'
Matthew Koma, left, at the iHeartRadio Ultimate Pool Party in 2014 in Miami Beach, Fla., and Zedd on ABC's "Good Morning America" in 2017 in Central Park. Credit: Composite: Getty Images for Clear Channel / Marano, left; AP/ Invision / Greg Allen
For years, Matthew Koma diplomatically dodged questions about why he and Zedd couldn’t find time to work together any more. After all, their creative collaborations resulted in the Grammy-winning “Clarity,” which also reached No. 8 on the pop charts, and a string of EDM hits including “Spectrum” and “Find You.”
However, the Seaford native finally broke his silence after Zedd tweeted “SPECTRUM CAME OUT 7 YEARS AGO AND CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER.” “I want to finally be transparent about this,” Koma posted on his social media accounts. “It’s a really sad truth because I’m extremely proud of the work he and I did together. Unfortunately, my good feelings toward those songs have all but disappeared as they were experienced alongside someone so toxic and self-serving that it occupied the space where any happiness could exist. It’s not that dramatic of a story and it comes down to something simple. (Expletive) people suck and when they’re successful, people are afraid to blow the whistle.”
He then went on to reveal how Zedd took credit for lyrics that Koma wrote and declined to pay Koma for singing on “Spectrum.” “More or less, I was just brushed under the rug while he took all the credit, which felt confusing because the millions of people who connected to ‘Clarity’ and those other songs seemed to connect to the lyrics/emotion/melodies I had written,” Koma wrote. “But he deemed his Kick Drum sound the driving force and left me out of all shared credit.”
Of course, both Zedd and Koma have gone on to collect more hits. Koma’s new band Winnetka Bowling League currently has a radio hit with “Kombucha” and is in the midst of a West Coast tour, supporting the “Cloudy With a Chance of Sun” (RCA) EP, while Zedd’s hit “The Middle,” which he co-wrote with six other songwriters, was nominated for both record and song of the year Grammys this year.
However, Koma has made it clear that their partnership is definitely over, adding that he would rather “work at Starbucks and clean the toilets than ever experience that abusive dynamic again.”
“He’s the worst,” Koma wrote. “With millions and millions of dollars and so many hit songs, you’d think you could afford to treat people with kindness and appreciate their role in helping you achieve your dream.”
However, Zedd responded on June 10 with a long post, in which he seemed to hold out an olive branch. “What hurts the most is that Matt feels under appreciated and treated unfairly while I have countless times mentioned him / his name while we’ve done promo together [and] performed our songs live together and I thought I was being supportive.”
And he added: "I am incredibly proud of our work together and I continue to wish him nothing but the best. Hopefully one day we can sit down together again as friends."
Contact The Long Island Sound at glenn.gamboa@newsday.com or follow @ndmusic on Twitter.
