Maren Morris and Zedd join Zane Lowe on New Music Daily on Apple Music 1 to discuss their new song "Make You Say” with BEAUZ. The duo tells Apple Music about how they came back together to collaborate following the global success of their prior collaboration “The Middle”, why they love to work together, how the track is different than “The Middle” — plus Zedd previews his forthcoming album, which he calls “a little bit darker” but that will definitely “live in the dance world”.
Zedd On Why He Wanted to Work with Maren Morris Again…
The first time with "The Middle", it was just her voice. At that time when I heard the vocal, I actually didn't know much about Maren's background or what kind of music she comes from. I just heard a demo. I don't even know if the file was labelled anything that would give away who the vocalist was. I literally just listened for the colour and I think Maren's voice just has everything that a good voice needs. It's got character. You immediately can tell who it is. She has this amazing rasp, which to me is always a bit of emotion that I look for.
Maren Morris On Working with Zedd Again and The Origin of “Make You Say"…
He is just the best. I don't know. It's like we did it once before. He sent me this song a couple months back. And I think when you just feel it in your gut, you'd be stupid not to say yes. I had big shoes to fill because Charlie's [Puth's] vocal on the demo was so good. And I just came in and tried to give it my flare, but a great song is a great song. So, I'm very flattered and honoured to be a part of it.
On His Forthcoming Album…
my next big project is my album and I started that before the pandemic. I actually sent you a song that I was working on. That is a little bit darker. Still is the feeling of the album is going to have some happy moments and some hands up moments, but that is still my direction for the record. It's going to be dance heavy, but I'm trying to incorporate some of my early influences in the song I sent you, which is a little bit dark and twisted to classical music, which I'm remaking an old classical piece. So, that's my next big project, but it's definitely going to live in the dance world.
On How the Track Differs From “The Middle”…
I think Maren and I talked about this briefly. I think it was never on our mind, top it, or do it again in that regard, but from the outside, when people look at both of our names together, they automatically are going to think about The Middle, whether we want that or not. It's not really up to us. I think our goal was to just make the best song possible. It tends to be more dancey, more clubby, I guess in a certain sense, but it doesn't lose the wide appeal and the pop in the song, will it do what The Middle has? I mean, nobody knows.
On The Global Success of “The Middle” with Zedd…
I think it definitely opened the world up to my music in a way that it hadn't before. So it was it's crazy coming from country music, just the global ness of pop and hearing it in cabs in Brazil. And so, it was definitely a new thing for me, for sure.
