Interview: Avicii

April 30, 2012 By 2,315 Comments

Tim Bergling, better known to us as the Swedish house producer Avicii, has sky rocketed to the top of the EDM world in a flash. He went from a fairly unknown producer just a couple years ago to headlining the biggest festivals and unveiling a brand new custom live show. Last year he ranked 6th on the DJ Mag Top 100, making a staggering jump after entering the poll in 2010 at 39th. His infectious melodies and up beat performances have people all around the world always hungry for the next Avicii track. With a massive arena tour and countless bangers in his arsenal, it is sure to be an epic summer for Avicii as well as his fans. He was nice enough to sit down with us and give us an exclusive techibeats interview. Check it out after the jump!

Avicii vs. Madonna – Girl Gone Wild (Avicii’s UMF Mix) | iTunes

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.


Techibeats: How are you doing today Tim?

Avicii: Great, thanks!

Techibeats: First tell me a little about how you got into producing and DJing. Which were you doing first? Do you prefer doing one over the other?

Avicii: I started producing first then I started DJing because that was the only way I could perform, so that is how I got started. Nowadays I am DJing so much, actually even more than I produce, so I love both equally. There no way I can choose one over the other.

 

TB:You have had an astounding rise of success in your career within a very short period of time. Is there any event in your career that you consider your ‘big break’?

Avicii: I mean everything has been moving so quickly so I haven’t been able to notice a specific big break for myself. It has been more of a step by step thing. Obviously headlining Ultra and the other festivals coming up is how I really see how far it has gone.

 

TB: You often talk about how much your manager, Ash Pournouri, has had such a large influence on your career. How did you two meet and give us a little more insight as to how he has helped your career so much.

Avicii: I mean he has helped me with everything. He noticed my music online on blogs and contacted me on facebook actually, then we met up for a coffee in Stockholm and since then we have been working together and it has just been such a good team. It is just one of those things that no one could have ever known how successfully and how well it would work. He has helped develop my sound, he has helped me deal with everything else so I can focus on making music and he has had so many ideas for marketing and this new stage production I have, just with everything.

 

TB: How did you come up with the name Avicii? What does that mean?

Avicii: Avicii means the lowest level of Buddhist hell. A friend of mine actually told me about it, and when I was making my Myspace page, so I had to pick something and a lot of names were taken so I just stuck with Avicii.

 

TB: Are there other genres of music that influence your music? I have seen in previous interviews of your’s that your family listened to a lot of rock, would you say that has influenced your music in anyway?

Avicii: It has definitely influenced me especially the way I make music, like I am always looking for new inspiration sometimes in older songs to see if I can make it more electronic and make it something that could fit more into this genre. Or just from something like a simple drum beat or maybe how the harmonies are put together, there are so many ways that I get inspiration from different genres.

TB: You obviously remain under your stage name, Avicii, for most of your productions, but have released some tracks under a number of aliases, most notably Tim Berg and Tom Hangs. To someone who hasn’t heard tracks from each, how would you explain the differences between them?

Avicii: I would say Tim Berg is kind of where I get to experiment a little bit and get the stuff out that really doesn’t fall under the Avicii name, but I still really want to release. It’s usually a little bit more underground, and a bit more experimental. Tom Hangs, I would say that is more of a funny alias that I use for stuff that might be on the verge of being too cheesy, but I still have a guilty pleasure for [laughs] and is still something that I want to release.

 

TB: Is there a genre of EDM that you would say you are uncomfortable with, or would never produce? Anything that you would never touch?

Avicii: Not really. I take influences from everywhere so there is nothing that I am really against.

TB: You tour all over the world, what have been some of your favorite places you have played? Where has the hottest girls?

Avicii: Wow, there are so many places. Right now it is really all over the states, it’s just blowing up so much right now, it feels new and it feels like everyone is so excited. Every gig I have here it feels like I am a part of a new scene and a new era of music. As for the hottest girls, that’s hard… I’d say Sweden or Brazil.


TB: You recently completed your House for Hunger tour, which you donated 1,000,000 to Feeding America. First, I would like to say that is really an incredible thing you did, and I hope it inspires more artists and DJs to follow suite. But how did you get the idea to do that, and what made you pick that organization?

Avicii: Me and my manager just wanted to do something for charity for a long time, and we have been thinking of ways of doing it and then we wanted to something that wasn’t just a one off gig, we really wanted to set the bar so we set it at $1,000,000. We found the right organization to work with, Feeding America, and we wanted to do something we could launch in the states because the country has given us so much. I have been touring here [US] so much and my fans have always been really supportive of me, so it seemed like a good place to start it out. Hopefully we will bring it to other parts of the world and involve more artists in the house for hunger movement.

 

TB: At Coachella you recently unveiled your new live show with a brand new stage. Tell us a little about that. What was the inspiration behind that? Are you still mixing the traditional CDs and mixer set up, or have you changed that up? I know the program Ableton is often used for more complex live shows?

Avicii: So I am still mixing with the CDs, but the way we have done it is that they are linked to Ableton through Serato. The production is so complicated, it’s basically 3D mapping on an organic surface, which is a big head shaped stage, and the content is unbelievable. When I first saw it, it blew me away. It feels like a fucking IMAX experience, it really does. Besides for that, it was important that I was going to be able to just play whatever I want and mix on the fly, so for that to work we had to come up with a new way of arranging all of these lights because everything is synced to the music and it is customized visuals for every track. It’s not just lighting, it’s like music videos. It’s really more of a show. For that to work there were a lot of things we needed to work out, but we had the right team working on it and we figured out a way for me to still be able to actually DJ and keep the control, while still having the full effect of the production.

 

TB: What made you choose Coachella to unveil the new show?

Avicii: Well my manager choose to unveil it their (Coachella). He has actually been the one really working on the production and when we really saw how massive this upcoming arena tour was going to be he decided that would be the best place to start it because there is a lot of attention and press. It was a show that really mattered to us and we really wanted to play at, and it just made sense to go there to be able to tease it before the big arena tour.

 

TB: You have recently announced your upcoming LE7ELS Tour, which is the first arena tour for an EDM act ever. That is an incredible milestone, congrats. Tell us a little bit about that, what should your fans expect? Are you going to be bringing anyone other djs along the tour with you? 

Avicii: Thanks! We will have supporting acts coming along, but we haven’t announced them yet though so I can’t say anything. Besides for the big production we just talked about, which is kind of the main thing, is that it is really going to be a show. It’s not me just standing behind a couple of LEDS, it’s really going to be a show but still have the Avicii experience I guess. I don’t really know how to put it, but it is going to be something that people have never seen before.

You know you don’t want to miss Avicii take things to the next LE7EL so buy tickets to all tour stops here: http://bit.ly/aviciilive

Also, make sure you stay up to date with any news you need to know about the tour on twitter at #AviciiOnTour

 


Other Tunes You'd Enjoy:

Tim_Avicii_mediumAvicii Levels Tour Avicii vs. Lenny Kravitz – Superlove (Avicii’s Space Mix) [Preview] Lucky-DateInterview: Lucky Date Madonna – Girl Gone Wild (Avicii Remix) [Live Preview]
Filed Under: Artist Interviews Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,