Avicii : House For Hunger Interview

Avicii derived his moniker from a term Buddhists use to describe the last level of hell but when I caught up with him serving food at the New York City Rescue Mission it seemed unlikely he’d ever lay eyes on such a place. As part of perhaps the most ambitious charity effort undertaken by a musician in the electronic genre to date, Avicii and his manager Ash Pournouri have committed One Million dollars to Feeding America to fight the hunger problem in the United States. Their program, “House For Hunger” generated the money over the course of an ambitious 26 show tour that unfolded across just 27 days in January. The House For Hunger tour traveled by tour bus to reduce cost and donated 100% of the proceeds to ensure the team to hit its goal of a million dollars.  Avicii, who’s real name is Tim BergIing, had just finished serving food and packing to-go bags when I got the chance to ask the Stockholm native a few questions before he had to leave and do more press in support of his charity tour.

It’s impossible to not ask someone who’s been so integral to the exponential growth of electronic music in America about his thoughts on what it’s like to play stateside. “It’s so new here. It’s really cool to be a part of a scene that is growing so much. I did 300 shows last year and over half of them were done here.” He credits David Guetta (with whom he’s nominated for a Grammy for their collaboration “Sunshine”) and his work with hip-hop artists Flo Rida and Kelly Rowland as one of the biggest factors in the music increasing acceptance and radio play. But when Avicii is selling out Pier 94 on NYE in Manhattan and playing to 11,000 screaming fans it’s hard not to assign Avicii with the distinction of being the true torchbearer for commercial dance music in America.

With his next show in Madison, WI for Prime Social Group, I asked him about his upcoming 2 dates at the groundbreaking Electro Beach spring break music festival in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico which is being arranged by PSG and College Travel Experts. “All of the college shows have been great-you don’t get that energy anywhere else.” When I asked if college shows were his favorite to play, he quickly replied “100%.” 

Electro Beach is just the tip of the festival iceberg that Avicii has lined up for the spring, with additional headlining gigs at Miami’s Ultra and Coachella’s first-ever identical back-to-back weekend offering. I thought that the week off between the two Coachella shows might give Avicii the chance for a little R & R but he casually dismissed the idea. “I’m probably going to be working if I know my team right.” It’s a team he speaks fondly of which includes his general manager, Ash Pournouri, his tour manager Malik, and his production manager Phoenix-all of whom are in attendance at the soup kitchen to support and strike most onlookers as a bit of a brotherhood. 27 days on the road in a tour bus would drive most people to kill one another or develop a deep and lasting bond; in this case it clearly was the latter.

While he is known as one of America’s biggest names in dance music, over half of his shows last year were held abroad. He played India for the first time in December and left the country with plans to release an unlikely collaboration featuring vocals from Indian celebrity, Sonu Nigam. I asked Avicii for someone he’d like the opportunity to work with and he quickly selected “Adele.” Listen to his runaway hit “Le7els” which incorporates the vocals of recently passed blues and rock and roll icon Etta James and it’s hard not to see such an idea working out to the world’s aural benefit. But within his own genre of high-energy house music, Avicii has kept his alignments very selective and prefers to release his own music to working with other key figures in his musical realm. “I don’t really work with that many people in my type of music. I like doing my own stuff and that’s how me and my manager have planned it from the beginning.”

Production wise, Avicii also charts his own course, using FL Studio for all of his production work as opposed to more widely adopted programs such as Ableton Live or Logic. He said it’s difficult to work on music while on the road but makes up for the lag by making the most of his time off the road. “I smash it out really quickly when I’m home for a week and make like five tracks.” In reference to why he likes FL Studio he says “I need a program that doesn’t need me to sit on a track for four weeks.” With an output of nearly a track a day, it’s fair to say his workflow is sound.

It was impressive to spend some down time with a guy known more for rocking dance floors than serving the underprivileged. His commitment to balancing impressive production and relentless touring with generating awareness of social issues is admiralable and something not often seen in the dance music space. Perhaps the success of Avicii’s House For Hunger tour is more a testament to how, with the growing acceptance of this style of music as a legitimate art form in America, we can start referring to Avicii as simply an artist, and not an “electronic” artist.

Listen to Avicii on Pulse Radio.