Guess it wasn’t just friends ribbing each other…
Earlier this week, it was announced that Zach Bryan had inked a deal to sell his publishing catalog for $350 MILLION, while also signing a new deal with Warner Records to record two more albums.
Whatever your feelings on Zach, it pretty incredible how far he’s come in such a short time. He posted his first video on YouTube back in 2017, and here we are not even a decade later and he’s selling out stadiums and selling his music for hundreds of millions of dollars. Gotta respect it, whether you agree with it or not.
And apparently John Moreland doesn’t agree with it.
The always-outspoken former Zach Bryan collaborator, who joined him on “Memphis; The Blues” on The Great American Bar Scene, took to social media after news spread of Zach’s new deal to give his thoughts.
It was short but very much to the point:
“$350 M is a lot of money to pay for the f***** off-brand version of me. Y‘all have a great day”
It was a little weird to see Moreland take such a public shot at Zach, which led some (including us) to wonder whether it was just two friends joking around, busting each others’ balls a little bit, or whether it was truly a shot at Zach.
And it looks like we have our answer.
Zach took to his own Instagram today to address the comments from Moreland, and it sounds like he was completely blindsided…and now he’s going to release a new version of their duet without his collaborator:
“yooo just saw this from an artist I’ve always respected and supported. Not trying to be dramatic but refuse to have anyone with a problem with me on my records. Replacing Memphis the Blues. If it goes down for a bit just know this is the reason!
No hard feelings! Confused as s**t, Tulsans look out for Tulsans!”
He then followed it up with one last comment:
“Last thing I say on it! Not partial to arguing with butt hurt grown men”
Zach also clarified that he would be re-releasing the song once Moreland was removed.
It looks like the version with Moreland is still on streaming platforms, at least for now, but it sounds like that might not be the case for much longer. Zach didn’t say whether the new version would be a solo cut or whether he would find another collaborator, but there’s no doubt a ton of artists out there who would kill to have a duet on a Zach Bryan album, which just makes Moreland’s comments all the more bizarre.
Moreland co-wrote the song with Zach, so even if it’s re-released without him, he’ll still get 50% of the publishing royalties from the song, though he would no longer get the recording royalties from the new version.
The song is currently Moreland’s highest-streamed song on Spotify, which is really no surprise considering Zach’s star power (though it’s also a statement on how underrated John Moreland is). And it’s possible that he could choose to go the same route as Zach and just record his own version of “Memphis; The Blues” without Zach too.
Either way, you hate to see two artists beefing like this.
