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25.05.12 MusicWeek 25
DANCE SPECIALAVICII REACHING THE NEXT LEVELS
INTERVIEW BY TINA HART
M
adonna dubbed him “amazing” in front of thousands at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami.
With accolades like that from the Queen of
Pop, plus his forthcoming headline gig at the O2 Arena during the Queen’s Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend, 22-year-old Swede Avicii - aka Tim Bergling - is having a right royal time of it. He’s very much the bright new thing achieving crossover success with dance music. Music Week caught up with Bergling to talk
about his phenomenal rise to mainstream fame following chart-topping global anthem Levels (2.4 million sales worldwide and rising), his new single, when we might hear an album, and a certain high-profile fan of his…
Music Week spoke to you in late 2011 when your single Levels was released – what have been the highlights for you since then? There’s been so many. It’s been such a busy schedule and so many different experiences. There’s so much new stuff that I’m not used to doing – like this collaboration I’m doing with Ralph Lauren which is proper modelling. Headlining Ultra [in Miami] was a dream come true. Then there’s my new production… there’s just so much stuff I don’t even know where to begin.
Are you still working with singles deals or do you have an artist album in the pipeline? There’s no album in the pipeline – it’s something I want to do, but it’s almost impossible to find time for that right now and there are not many benefits to it. It’s more something I would want to do for me more than anything.
Your singles were signed under your LE7ELS Records/Atom Empire imprint – are you running anything else out of there at all apart from your own music? We are. We’re putting together a release, but I don’t want to reveal anything I shouldn’t yet…
Madonna’s been bigging you up and you’ve recently done a remix for her. Will she appear on a track of yours in the future? Ummm… it’s not something we’re talking about right now. You never know; she’s such a big musical icon and just to have her present me at Ultra was an honour – it’s really cool to get to do a remix for her. I’ve remixed so many people and I went away a lot from what I’m used to doing as well. But mostly, since I’ve been so busy touring, I’ve just been trying to finish off my own stuff I’ve been working on this past six months.
How are you feeling about your forthcoming headline show at The O2 Arena in London? I’ve been wanting to play in the UK more and the last time I was here was years ago. This is almost a premiere for me because so much has happened since I was last here. It’s such a legendary place to
The Swedish house DJ and producer’s music is taking over the world – and now he’s set to headline the O2
“There’s no album in the pipeline. It’s something I want to do, but it’s almost impossible to find the time and there are not many benefits to it. It’s more something I’d want to for me than anything else.” AVICII
play so I’m super excited. This is one of the places I haven’t been touring that much so of course there’s a bit of nervousness but I’m definitely mostly excited.
Tell us about your new single, Silhouettes which is coming out here on June 11… A Swedish musician called Salem Al Fakir is the featured vocalist – he’s amazing, a musical genius. He plays every instrument known to man and he plays them fluently. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time and we were put together in the studio and just made the track. We co-operated really well and did a bunch of other melody ideas and other stuff in just a day. He is definitely someone I want to work with again. [Our team] felt that Silhouettes was the right track to follow [previous mainstream release] Levels just because it’s a very different track. It’s also a track that all of us in our camp feels very strongly about and wanted to release for a while. I’ve been playing it for a year, so it was about time!
ABOVE And next up... Avicii’s Silhouettes will be released in the UK on June 11
What are you looking forward to in your schedule this summer? I’m doing Ushuaïa on Sundays from mid-July until the end of August – my first own thing in Ibiza. Plus I’m super excited as I’ve just found out I’m playing Creamfields which is one of those festivals that I can’t believe I haven’t played yet – I’ve been wanting to play it for such a long time.
Do you have any songs in adverts or films coming up? We’re constantly [doing ads]. I always see on my Twitter people saying, “I just heard this song in that commercial.” That’s the way I find out!
In January of this year you embarked on the ‘House for Hunger’ tour for charity – was that a difficult thing to organise and do you think it’s a kick up the butt for other dance artists to do more charity work? Definitely. It was something really hard to organise. It was in January and we wanted to reach a million dollars for charity so we wanted a big number in a low season month. It was a really big tour going all across America. We just wanted to kick start it in America pretty much. Hopefully in the future we will involve other
artists and bring together parts of the world and do it again as soon as possible. This is just the starting point.
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