Avicii: True Stories Page #2

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He... He had a wife and kids.

You know, like, he knew that

he didn't really have the time

to pursue being a D.J.

I was doing one or two shows a month

at this point.

I was mainly still focusing on the music.

We spent a summer together in Ibiza.

He was staying in my house,

he was playing before me every week.

And, um, yeah, he was very

into... into, uh, to music and producing.

[Guetta]

He really developed his own sound,

and, uh, and then, a little later,

when we'd been to the studio together,

I was like:

"Wow, okay, this guy is very serious.

Like, he's really, really special."

[Avicii] My first track that really

started getting buzz was "Alcoholic",

and then "Bromance" came,

which was the first song that I think

got, like, commercial attention.

[blows]

["Something's Got a Hold on Me" sample

playing on laptop]

[speaking Swedish]

We'd found a clip, um,

of Etta James singing the hook...

And Tim tried to place it over different,

um, songs, and we couldn't really find

anything that sounded quite right,

and then Tim had this, um, loop.

["Levels" playing on stereo]

[Avicii laughing]

It had the right energy,

the right uplifting melody,

um, that... that we were looking for.

All of a sudden, it just made sense

for that vocal to be there.

[Avicii] That's kind of when things

really started kind of taking off.

Seeing that people come to your show

to hear your songs,

like, when they knew the songs.

And I remember the first time

I ever heard that

was when I played Governors Island

in New York.

[announcer] Give it up for Avicii!

[cheering]

And I remember that they were singing

along to every single one of my songs.

["Drowning - Avicii Remix" playing,

crowd singing]

I was just blown away

'cause this, like, never happened before.

And "Levels" just started spreading.

["Levels" playing]

[chanting to song]

[crowd cheering and whistling]

[chanting] Avicii! Avicii!

[laughs]

[laughing]

Eventually, you know, uh,

it was discussion with Ash,

who has... has been my main challenge

when it comes to discussing the deals

for "Levels" and Avicii.

I'll send you the big, you know,

the big rough outline of

whatever it is I'm looking for

and what I have on the table,

and then we can take it from there.

[Per] There is no person like Ash.

His obsessiveness of taking Tim

to the next level,

or to three, four, five levels up.

Uh, I think he will continue to be

very successful

because he is obsessed

of having success.

I'm not sending...

I'm not sending the vocal to anyone.

[exhales heavily]

[man laughing]

"Just tell him we will match EMI's offer."

[man exclaims]

Every day I'm hustling!

- F*** you!

- [man laughs]

And but the... the impact of the song,

as just an instrumental song,

was so huge at the club scenes,

at YouTube.

So we just felt this is gonna be huge.

- Hey, it's Ash.

- [man] Hello.

Advance has been put in at 500,000 euros.

Um...

Okay, thank you very much, everyone.

And, uh, speak on e-mail.

- Listen, thank you.

- Thank you, bye.

- Bye-bye.

- Thank you. Goodbye.

["Hustlin'" by Rick Ross playing]

I'm the f***in' boss.

He is a... He is a warm family man,

hardworking,

and, um, I mean, uh,

I call him a friend, yeah.

[Avicii]

Like, everything has gone in steps.

With "Levels", everything just kind of,

[imitates rocket] really took off.

We got these opportunities that

we'd never been presented with before.

Like, headlining Ultra was one of

the first dreams that really come true.

[helicopter whirring]

[dramatic string music]

Avicii is the headliner on the main stage.

He's coming up right now,

and, as you can see, there's a lot of hype

around him. There he is!

[people exclaiming]

[man] Tim, Tim!

[siren blaring]

There is a major surprise appearance...

[echoes]

[Avicii]

For her to come to Ultra Music Festival

just kind of shows how far dance music

has come.

- Hi.

- Hi, Im Tim. Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you, too.

- An honour.

It's a big honour, obviously,

to share the same stage as Madonna.

[cameras clicking]

She's the queen of pop.

- Are you ready? [chuckles]

- I am ready.

This is the first time I'm headlining,

so I'm nervous.

- Your first headline?

- Good?

- Yeah, the first one.

- Cool.

Are you ready for Avicii?

[cheering]

And then, after that,

I-I could afford a tour manager.

We're doing a lobby call

at 2:
00 a.m. in the lobby.

- 2:
30 in the lobby and then...?

- 2:
00 a.m. in the lobby.

[both laugh]

I didn't have to fly coach everywhere

by myself.

The only thing that makes sense is

just making the flying and the travelling

as comfortable as possible.

I was young, I was single, I was partying.

Every show was a big party, you know.

It was really a big party.

It was amazing. I didn't even realise

before that you could actually do Monday,

Tuesday, Thursday, Friday,

Saturday and Sunday, you know?

But then, once that opened up,

like, you could tour a whole year,

and that's kind of what we did.

[upbeat electronic music]

Avicii!

Yes! Yeah.

[announcer] Make some noise for Avicii!

[cheering]

[exclaims]

[crowd chanting] Avicii! Avicii! Avicii!

Avicii! Avicii! Avicii...

[Jesse]

At the time, Tisto was staying with me.

So I walked into my bedroom,

there's, like, cigarette butts

on my counters and beer cans.

I'm, like, shaking off little spit,

like, chew tobacco, the snus bags.

And there was this guy in bed

with these two girls

and I was like:

"You know, who the f*** are these guys?"

I'm like:

"Show 'em the door, get 'em out."

Another month goes by,

I-I walk up with Tisto to the D.J. booth

and I see this guy playing and he looks

over at me and, like, stops DJing

and starts apologising to me,

that was the guy in my bed.

And then since then, we, um,

we just became, you know, best friends.

In my eyes, best friends.

And with somebody like Tim,

he was very innocent and nave

and really genuine.

[Nile] I love Tim.

He is the most natural, melodic

music writer that I've ever met.

Electronic music has gotten to the point

where you don't have to sample it anymore.

You can just make it new.

Do you know what I mean?

- [both] Yeah.

- [Nile] Okay.

Such a different experience

to be a part of the whole process.

I've worked with Tim.

We walk into the studio, we have nothing.

We walk in, it's like:

"Yo, man, what do we do?"

[Nile] You can go like... [playing guitar]

And I play a little idea, and he'll go:

"What are the notes in that chord?"

It's... It's adding an octave

along with it,

- so it's not taking away...

- Okay.

This creative process, this ebb and flow,

as we call it, is what we live for.

That's the exciting moment.

I mean, I could play you... I could play

you a bunch of the sh*t I've done so far.

Yeah, let me hear

where you're coming from.

This is one I did with Al.

This is like, I don't know, country folk.

["Wake Me Up" instrumental playing]

This has a lot of, like,

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