Transcription
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Every time I saw him, he he didn't want to be on stage. The anxiety, you just can feel it.
Avichi was the biggest superstar DJ on the planet. I told him, "You're going to become bigger than me." And he's like, "Nah, come on." I'm like, "I'm tired of you." But behind the stadium anthems and soldout shows, he was just a young man trying desperately to find peace in a lifestyle that kept suffocating him.
The music business, you know, it it absorbs you.
Breaking news. [music] EDM star Avichi has died.
This is a tragic story of pressure, pain, and a search for happiness that never came.
I can only say that I think the the music business was too much for him. This is the story of Avichi. [music] [music]
To understand Avichi, you have to start in a Stockholm bedroom in the late 90s. Far from the drugfueled neon glow insanity of Ibita Super Clubs, Tim Bergling was born in 1989 in Stockholm, Sweden. His dad Clauss worked in business and his mom Anky Leen was a well-known Swedish actress, but none of that gave him confidence. He grew up introverted and sensitive. His teenage years were especially rough. He battled crippling social anxiety and had painful acne that destroyed his self-esteem.
He had anxiety and uh I think that he [music] needed something to to balance this.
While most kids his age were out partying, Tim spent his nights in his bedroom playing video games.
Did he talk to you about his anxiety?
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I had experienced myself as young. If you have experienced it yourself, you know that there are ways to get more balanced life. There is mental illness is is often connected with depressions and and I mean you can see it and you feel it and and you can almost say that this person need need help.
His anxiety eventually became so overwhelming it was clear he needed professional help. When you have a child that's not feeling well, you try everything to to to get the situation right again and you try to understand what's going on. So, we went to a psychiatrist and Tim was I think he was 14 or 15 and he sort of calmed down Tim. I always say that pain has a way of squeezing something creative out of you. And for Tim that something was music. So at about 16, he began experimenting with music softwares, [music] building tiny loops and little melodies that barely felt like songs. I had trying to play the guitar and stuff like that for like 2 [music] years, but I never got really good at it. And then I like read on on the internet about a program where [music] you could paint your melodies. I'm like, "Oh [ __ ] this is cool."
The creative process was his safe place. Late at night, while other kids were out partying and his parents slept, Tim stacked synths [music] and kick drums, chasing a feeling he couldn't find anywhere else. you know, when we told him, uh, you have to go to bed now because you have school tomorrow. And there [music] was a small discussion always and and then he went to bed and and turned off the light and and when I came up, let's say an hour later or two hours later or whatever, I went to a kitchen, I saw the small light under his door [laughter] and when he and when he heard me coming, it was, you know, he he turned off the light. I I started out with uh with FL Studio uh maybe two or 3 years ago and uh basically I just did um a few I started out cuz I want to do a remix of uh Carcraft 400 and after I uh finished that remix I kind of got hooked. So I spent like 9 hours a day uh 5 days a week just uh working on new solo stuff. making beats made him feel happy in a way the world around him couldn't [music]
because it's so cold in Sweden for 8 months out of 12. [music] So there's not that much to do. So you're kind of forced to to >> [music] >> um to find something to do. And I think DJing and production is is is [music] like is the perfect thing for people kind of escape from the Swedish winter in a way. [music] I I would say try to figure out what you're most passionate about in life and what you're good at and the mixture between those two. Uh, and then you should give it your all all the time. You shouldn't. You have to work really hard.
Under the moniker Timberman, Tim started posting his tracks and remixes on online forums, hoping someone out there would enjoy them as much as he did. I just I just started leaking stuff on blogs basically because uh it was easier and it was easy to get um the just [music] how do you say it when you the uh the the attention because it's hard to get labels when you're unknown, you know? So, I kind of started leaking stuff.
And it worked. His tunes [music] grabbed the attention of a talent scout and club promoter named Ash Puri. Ash had a scary good instinct for talent. He heard the music and didn't see a shy recluse hiding in his bedroom. Instead, [music] he recognized a talented kid who simply needed some direction.
I [music] was following these blogs online and and um just out of interest, I came over this guy. [music] >> [music] >> raw sound and I felt that there's um like a rawness in sound. There's always direction like and there's no structure that that was finished, you know, and I just wanted to help him out. Ash basically cold messaged Tim [music] and convinced him to let him help with the management side. Tim agreed and it turned out to be one of the best decisions he ever made. [music] And um I got found by my manager.
Ash wasn't just a promoter. He'd spent years navigating clubs, DJ booths, and back rooms [music] full of managers and agents. Uh, and basically he hooked me up with a lot of uh different people doing remixes uh and stuff like that. And then it makes it moved from there on.
So he tapped into his network and landed Tim his first record deal before he even turned 20.
Whenever you want to break something in in uh in in the music world, I mean, it's one of the most competitive um professions out there. But then he we when I met Ash, he just took it to a whole another level like professional. Like when I met him, he really took me out of nowhere and then really built my career. You know,
the two of them couldn't have been more different. A shy bedroom producer and an ambitious club promoter. They didn't know it yet, but this partnership was the start of a journey that would push Tim to global stardom. [music] [music]
My manager is handling pretty much everything surrounding everything. He's all he's helped me from the start with like absolutely everything. He helped me with my my sound even from the start when when I was we've been together for two years. So even from that he helped me develop myself and and everything. So he handles like everything. So So he's the one with the plan, not me. So So Tim needed a stage name that stood out. He came across the word avichi, the term for the lowest level of Buddhist hell. And the uniqueness of it caught his attention.
the lowest the lowest level I I think of hell in in the Buddhistic religion or something like that.
Later he mentioned that he added a second I simply because the original version wasn't available on MySpace.
Tried everything else and everything was taken and then Canvichi that's kind of cool cuz it means like the lowest level of Buddhist hell and and um I figured yeah let's do that. So then that was taken too and then I decided to add another eye to the end of it. Uh, and then it actually worked out because it kind of gave it looked cool. It looked kind of weird and kind of off but in a cool way. I think by 2009 he was releasing tracks one after another. Songs like Bromance showed his talent for bright, catchy melodies that felt uplifting, like almost like musical euphoria. But the person behind the music was still an introverted kid who had very little experience performing live. He reportedly spent most of his early shows staring down at the equipment. And this duality became a major part of his [music] story. His music was loud, bright, and full of energy while he remained quiet and reserved.
Yeah, I started out 100% producer and then the DJing was kind of first of all, it was something I held off on because both me and Ash wanted to like wanted wanted me to be comfortable enough behind the deck. [music]
In late 2011, Avichi released a track that changed the direction of modern dance music. Levels spread everywhere [music] from nightclubs to major festival stages, sports events, fashion shows. It was the song that pushed Avichi into global fame and helped move EDM into the mainstream. [music]
I told him like, "You're going to become bigger than me. That's it." He was like, "Nah, come on." I'm like, "I'm telling you."
What's interesting is that Levels almost had [music] a different vocal on top of it. Avvici sent the track to Mike Pausner, who wrote six different vocal ideas, but none of them matched the feel of the song, and ultimately Avichi [music] used an Eda James sample as the main hook. And he started testing the track early. In December 2010, [music] he played an unfinished version during a BBC radio essential [music] mix, giving listeners a first preview. Avichi played it on his Essential Mix way way back in like 2010. Avichi was playing the final version in sort of March time of 2011 and it was just everywhere. It was kind of leaked. I don't know if it was leaked on purpose or what, but DJs like me were playing this track all summer in the clubs and in the festivals, and it was already a huge track before it got its official release. [music]
The turning point came in Miami at the Ultra Music Festival. Still relatively unknown, Avichi played [music] the completed version with the ETA James vocal, and the reaction was huge. [music]
And when I played levels, I just see like [ __ ] 80,000 people jumping around to that song and singing along. And that's something I'll never forget.
So, by the time Levels officially dropped, kids had been obsessed with it for months. The wild thing is that the track is super simple, almost insultingly simple, but Tim had the guts to keep it that way. I mean, I I did really like the track, but I I didn't think it was anything that special. I did it in a couple of hours on like a flight. Yeah. I was going to uh to Monaco and I finished it and then I started playing it out for that week. The first week I made it and I started getting like really good reactions almost instantly.
While everyone else was busy making drop heavy dubstep monsters, he built [music] a track that lived off melody, emotion, and pure positivity. When you're doing levels, are you like, "Oh, [music] yeah. We got a winner right here."
Yeah. I mean, you of course you you kind of know what after a while you know what people are going to like, but then you never know the You guys must know this too. the longevity of a track is so [music] different and it's you can't um it's almost for me it's I for me it's been really impossible to [music] tell which ones cuz some of the tracks I've loved the most have gone the worst and some of the tracks I haven't liked nearly as much have gone the best. So
when levels dropped it basically bulldozed every chart in its path. Sweden kept it at number one for seven straight weeks and [music] handed it eight platinum records like it was nothing. Norway also put it at number one, but I mean Europe basically went nuts and half the continent shoved it into their top five for months and the UK locked it into the top 100 for almost an entire year. music as as kind of a universal language is the perfect way to reach out to uh all different places around the world.
And then it did the impossible. It cracked the United States. The US had treated European dance music like a joke up to that point. But levels forced its way onto the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for 20 weeks. It peaked at number 60, which sounds low until you remember this was a dance music track from a 22-year-old kid that no one knew in America. And it went triple platinum. Anyway, his song the the levels was it was like unlike things that had come before. It really had sort of that like really infectious rift. The lyrics were really recognizable. It wasn't kind of that what turns a lot of people off about EBM EDM that sort of wall of noise that overwhelms the lyrics.
It was commercial is what you're saying and no better proof of that than you and I both know that song and we're not EDM music fans by any measure, but he transcended and and Avichi was an artist that both you and I enjoyed as well and that's proof positive that he wasn't just trans music. He wasn't rave music in the traditional sense, but he also had credibility in that world. So it wasn't like he was a sellout and just went went pop. He brought EDM music to the masses.
Yeah. And it got it got Rolling Stone pointed out that in those years dance [music] music was exploding everywhere except in America. But that changed when Avichi released Levels.
He was one of the artists that that [music] helped bring it out of our little bubble. Not even a little, but like we had our own insular world. And there's certain artists that that that like that brought the music to to the [music] larger world. and he's definitely one of them.
Billboard even called it one of the greatest [music] songs of all time, praising its massive cultural impact. Vulture said the track felt shiny and sleek and like it could touch God, whatever that means. The main point here is that this song was like a Trojan horse that smuggled EDM into top 40 radio and mainstream charts. life. He was one of the most important people to really uh bring EDM to the place that it's at.
Suddenly DJs were the new rock stars. A flood of European DJs started clogging the American charts. You know, David Geta, Calvin Harris, or Swedish House [music] Mafia, just to name a few. Festivals like Ultra and EDC grew into massive mainstream events, and Las Vegas clubs began residency wars for superstar DJs. But for Avichi, the success of Levels was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it launched his career into the stratosphere, turning the shy kid into a globetrotting superstar. He went from producing music in his bedroom to headlining festivals and commanding six figure fees for club gigs
and and then I just went into touring and I've been doing it for 4 years now and almost constantly you know
he turned into a hit making machine and track [music] after track Avichi kept dominating the charts from co-producing Coldplay songs to teaming up with Madonna he found himself self collaborating with pop and rock royalty. In a few short years, he became a twotime Grammy nominee.
You're at the Grammys. You've been through this before. You were nominated in what 2013?
I think it was 13. Yeah. 13. Two years. Yeah. I think it was 12. 12 and 13, I think. Yeah.
Okay. So, what advice?
It was the epitome of living the dream.
But behind the scenes, Tim was still suffering from social anxiety. At his heart, he was still an introverted kid thrown into a very intense spotlight. [music]
Tim, he just like every time I saw him, he he didn't want to be on stage, you know? I mean, the anxiety, you just can feel it on him. [snorts] And um he just feel bad because his like he was so talented that like it pushed him to be on the stage because you know when you make really great music people want to see you play it you know and it just
it's such a it's such a tough place for him.
In 2012 alone he allegedly played more than 320 [music] shows spending nearly every night on stage. I probably spend about 20 30% of my time in cars. 20%. Yeah, 20%.
You know, the schedule I've had has always been so hectic. So, [music]
from 2011 through 2014, Avichi's tour schedule was absolutely bonkers.
I mean, it's that's the hard part of the job. That's actually the job. So like the actual shows
he performed hundreds of shows a year. Vegas one night, Ibita the next, then on to Tokyo [music] or Rome.
It's hard because it's like a whirlwind once you're in that world. It just like it's it's global.
Yeah.
It's not just like you're big in one one country, you're one city, you're big around the world, you know? Like that's the
that's like the the powerful thing about electronic music is that
it's global. When his debut album dropped in 2013 and the hits kept coming, Avichi appeared to be on top of the world. But that couldn't be further from the truth. [music]
So, the album's coming out later this month. What's your favorite track on it?
My favorite track is Lay Me Down. Um, it's it's been my ever since I made it, it's been been the favorite one.
Okay. After the mindblowing success of Levels, everyone expected Aichi to repeat the formula. Instead, he made True, a record that mixed dance music with country, folk, soul, disco, and rock in a way nobody had tried on this scale.
And [music] I was so in shock because it was uh such a fresh approach of of our music. Um, and you know, I was always a big fan, but I really felt it immediately. I'm like, that's it. that that that is going to take you to be the biggest, you know, EDM artist on the planet.
Wake Me Up was the first single from the album with acoustic guitars and Alo Black's warm, soulful vocal. It didn't sound like anything in dance music at the time. There's such [music] close like um partnership kind of with the texture of his voice and house music in the beginning of house music and he has that kind of like soul you know and that's how it started and like you know with [music] house divas and and stuff. So
if anything this track showed Avichi was willing [music] to experiment and follow his intuition regardless of what the market wanted from him. How do you react to [music] rumors that this song is proof that you are trying to step away from dance music?
I mean, it's not proof at all, you know. [music] It's it's it's an experiment to a sense. Uh, it's what [music] it's what it is. It's it's nothing more than this song and this album is nothing more than me sitting down with some time to spare and actually just making exactly the type of music I want to make.
Hey brother, perfectly fused bluegrass and electronic music. And I remember when she was sending it, my first thought was, "My daughter listens to everything." I reached out to her. I texted her and said, "Do you know who uh Avichi is?" And she responded instantly. Because I texted and didn't call her. She responded instantly. And she said, "Uh, yeah." She said, "Uh, Swedish DJ. He's he's a genius. Um, one of my favorites. Why?" And I said, "He want it sounds like he wants me to do a song on his [music] on his upcoming record." And I saw the little bubble where she was typing and one word came up. She said, "Bullshit."
That Hey brother experience with Avichi. I mean, I did not have a clue what I was getting involved with when I did it or how many people it could touch. I recorded that vocal to a click track and there was and I just sang the song, man. Everything that's on that song, he did all his magic after the fact. Shame on me is like Elvis meets daff punk in a bar fight. Liar. Liar is pure psychedelic chaos. and it shouldn't work, but it does because Tim made everything bend to his will.
And the album in general is everything from [music] folk and soul and funk and pure electronic track.
A big part of the album's unique texture came from the wide range of collaborators. Alo Black, Mike Einer from Incubis, Nile Rogers, Adam Lambert, and many others. I based myself in LA for the first time and got access to so many of these talented, you know, songwriters and and singers. And yet, despite such a large creative network, the album felt deeply personal. Songs about identity, struggle, and pressure reflected what Tim was going through behind the scenes. And despite the chaos in his life, this album proved that he was more than a conventional DJ. He was a real songwriter with a wideopen imagination.
I felt very free to do exactly what [music] I wanted to do. I've been involved in every note in every instrument. It's been one of the best things I've done in my life for sure.
But under all the fireworks and chart toppers, the cracks were already spreading. The touring grind was brutal. The pressure to deliver the next monster hit was nonstop. I um I can only say that I think the the music business was too much for him. He was uh you know he was he was cut from the cloth of the producer. He wasn't cut from the cloth of the [music] entertainer. And I think that's what what got him too much pressure. Most importantly, the disconnect [music] between the quiet person he felt like and the superstar he had to perform as was slowly wearing him down. Despite all the accolades, Tim was still introverted and sensitive. [music]
But he was working inside an environment built on constant noise, fake [music] hype, and social pressure.
To me, it feels like going from being normal to being like very like down because of all the work. It's so much workload, you know,
to handle the anxiety of performing in front of huge crowds, he began relying on alcohol. Over time, drinking became his way of managing fear, stress, [music] and exhaustion. But heavy drinking triggered some pancreatitis. [music] So, he added painkillers to the mix. He has an in in I don't know what call it inflammated um pancreatitis
and and um this is a very I mean he was taken into hospital because of that and that's an extremely painful uh thing. So he was treated by you know morphinbased painkillers.
I was sick. I was in hospital. I wasn't feeling well emotionally or physically and it just took a lot out of me.
In March 2013, Avichi was hospitalized while touring in Australia and doctors told him he needed his gallbladder removed. but he chose to keep working instead of taking time off for surgery. He was only 23, but the pressure he was under was already taking a serious toll on his health. Inevitably, a year later, his appendix and gallbladder burst, forcing an emergency surgery. Remarkably, he returned to performing just 2 weeks later. But to handle the pain, he relied on opioid medication to the point he became addicted to it.
Uh by that time we didn't know anything about these painkillers. We we didn't know how addictive it was. But I I would say that's that's the way that's that's where it started more or less. Desperate [music] and scared, he retreated to his parents' home in Sweden for a month, hoping that being with family would help him heal.
You know, I needed a break just [music] to be home.
But when he returned to the United States, doctors kept prescribing [music] pills.
When you get the prescription in a legal way, it probably feels a little bit better for you because you think it's it's a it's it's prescribed by the doctor. So, so you can hide you can hide your abuse [music] and you can also hide your your mental condition. Tim was stuck on a destructive treadmill and the machine around him kept it running.
And the way that his management were pushing him and he had social anxiety and [sighs] oh god, it just haunts me.
Despite it all, he somehow managed to release stories. This time, however, the reviews weren't glowing. Critics complained this album felt nothing like its previous, and many didn't know what to make of it. But when Avichi hit the mark, he really delivered. Sunset Jesus hits hard thanks to that pianoled drop. And City Lights is so clean and so well produced, it feels like it doesn't belong anywhere near the rest of the record. It's one of the few actual house tracks on the album, and the warped vocals, sharp pianos, and shimmering drop make it feel like a lost gem. But the real standout is Talk to Myself. It's a rumbling 80s fever dream. Synth strings, retro beeps, the whole package. And just when you think it's done, it throws in a xylophone style drop that ties everything together.
He really understood what melodies and [music] what rhythms he wanted to use and he was directing the whole show when he was creating the music.
The truth is stories suffers from the same thing that kills a lot of ambitious albums. It needed more editing. Too many tracks cover too many styles, and the album jumps between pop and country influences with no real continuity. If it had focused on just the pop songs, the album would have been stronger, or if it had fully leaned into the country half, [music] it would have been more coherent. We could argue that in some twisted way, the album's lack of focus mirrors what was happening in Tim's life. Everything was happening at once with no clear boundaries, too many directions, too much pressure, and no [music] space to breathe. By early 2016, Avichi finally hit [music] the brakes. He announced he would no longer perform live. Avvici officially announced his retirement from touring and live performances, citing the toll his relentless schedule had taken on his mental and physical health. He released [music] an open letter to fans explaining that he needed to prioritize his health instead [music] of the endless demands of the industry. It was clear to everyone that he was completely [music] burned out. Years of stress and mental strain had left him with no choice but to step away at the height [music] of his career. But quitting touring meant cutting off a massive money pipeline, [music] and that decision reportedly caused major friction with his longtime manager, Ash. They eventually split, [music] effectively dismantling the life of excess and pressure that had engulfed Tim. For a moment, it looked like Tim might recover. With touring behind him, he [music] settled into a much quieter routine. He divided his time between Stockholm, Tuscanyany, and the [music] Maldes. And by all indications, he began to find balance in his personal life. Spent more time with family and friends, exploring interests outside of music and traveling for leisure rather than work. [music]
There were no loud crowds, no more panic attacks [music] hidden backstage, and none of the drinking he used to rely on to get through a show. People close to [music] him said he even went back to therapy. He read philosophy. [music] He was trying to untangle the years of pressure that had worn him down. And [music] in between there was a constant, you know, talking and trying to get things better. And it went better. That I must say that uh that's the also the the thing here. It it went better. He returned to the one thing that made him [music] feel safe, making music just for fun. For the first time in years, he wasn't waking up to a flood of emails about tours or press or lastminute flights. He was simply creating again. You could hear the shift instantly. In August 2017, he [music] dropped a sixtrack EP that sounded like a vichi without the chains of the industry. Pure melody, pure emotion, none of the pressure that had crushed him for years. Fans loved it and critics said it felt like the beginning of a new direction. He even talked about making more volumes. Creatively, he seemed revived, maybe even personally. [music]
But peace can be fragile. And just when it looked like he had finally found it, everything fell apart. [music] [music]
Breaking news. EDM star Avichi has died. He was found dead in the city [music] of Muscat. That's in Oman.
It's also been revealed that just hours before he died, Avichi, whose real name was Tim Bergling, phoned a family member who was so distressed by the call that he immediately traveled to Aman in Saudi Arabia, but arrived just 2 hours too late. On April 20th, 2018, news outlets began reporting that Avichi was dead at just 28 years old. According to reports, Tim had been staying at a luxury resort with friends reportedly in good spirits. Initial statements were vague. [music]
His death comes days after he was nominated for yet another Billboard Music Award. So far, no word on the cause of death. Then came [music] the confirmation that no one wanted. He had taken his own life in a moment of crisis. [music]
Out of respect for Tim and because of YouTube's guidelines, I won't get into the specifics. [music] What matters is that he ended his life at 28. And that truth alone is heartbreaking. Tributes came almost instantly. Artists, fans, and major festivals all responded.
The biggest names in music paying their respects. Madonna writes, "So [music] sad, so tragic. Goodbye, dear sweet Tim." Nick Jonas performed in tribute in Ohio Friday.
Kaigo dedicated his Coachella set to his memory. Tiestto [music] performed a full Avichi tribute during his Vegas residency. Even you two paused a stadium tour to acknowledge him. It felt like a [music] collective moment of mourning. People across the music industry paid tribute to his influence. [music]
Charlie Puth called him a flatout genius. And Dead Mouse argued that no one had ever done more for modern dance music than Avichi. And other fellow DJs like Calvin Harris, Zed, and Paulie D labeled him as one of the most important EDM artists of all time. At the Billboard Awards, the Chain Smokers dedicated their win to Tim, openly thanking him for the influence he'd had on the entire dance music scene. [music]
Award, we want to dedicate this award to Avichi. None of us would be here. I know everyone that was nominated for this award was massively influenced by him. He is someone who
Tim's family released an open letter that made it painfully clear this wasn't a sudden isolated moment. It was a culmination. They described him as a fragile artistic soul and an overachieving perfectionist who could not go on any longer. In an open letter, Avichi's family paid tribute to the 28-year-old, describing him as a fragile artistic soul who truly battled thoughts about life, meaning, and happiness.
They [music] wrote, quote, "Our beloved Tim was a seeker, a fragile artistic soul, searching for answers to existential questions. He really struggled with thoughts about meaning, life, happiness. [music] He could not go on any longer. He wanted to find peace." The weight of expectation and [music] the dissonance between his inner world and the outer chaos had fractured something deep inside him. Aevichi would [music] later say he felt let down by his friends and his management team for continuing to push him forward when he desperately needed to back away. He said, quote, "I was expecting support in stopping, especially with what I've been through. Everyone knows that I've been anxious and I've been trying. So, I didn't expect people to try to push me to do more shows when they'd seen exactly how shitty I felt. I told them over and over, I won't be able to play anymore. I told them it will kill me. But, they were relentless. Avichi was a sensitive, brilliant musician [music] who battled anxiety, pancreatitis, alcohol dependency, [music] chronic pain, and industry fatigue. this music business, you know, another business where you have um [music] these famous people surrounding or or whatever. There is a lot of, you know, [music] stress and anxiety and um there's a pressure to deliver. So, it's very common with [music] abuse of alcohol or different drugs [clears throat] or whatever. He [music] sought peace but ultimately couldn't outrun the mental toll. The facts are consistent. They're supported [music] by his family, friends, interviews, and his own words. They are grim but grounded in reality. But going back to his parents, obviously they were aware of more, right? Their their their statement was one of resignation to the fact their child had been consumed by mental illness and by these existential fears that he faced. And I guess we can be as shocked as we want to be, but it sound like as parents, although devastated,
didn't seem as shocked.
Didn't seem as like we don't know where this came from. They they seem to know just where it came from. And that's the tragedy of it all. This is somebody who just suffered his whole life. His parents knew about it. Probably his close friends knew about it and they tried and tried, but there's just nothing they could do to overcome it.
Yeah.
But then came the other version, the one that goes against the so-called mainstream media. According to this alternative narrative, Avichi wasn't just a musician driven to despair. Instead, he was silenced. Some claim he was working on exposing a trafficking ring. This theory links his death to other artists who died under tragic circumstances like Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell, suggesting a terrifying pattern and a dark purge. His family, it must be said, has never supported these claims. Whether you believe he has taken his own life or that he was silenced, there may be common ground in the belief that the industry itself does destroy people. If not with violence, for sure with exhaustion, pressure, isolation, and numbing demands to keep performing even when the will to do it has long died.
the music business, you know, it it absorbs you. I mean, with with such a success that Tim went through
if if I mean, all the time he spent, you know, traveling, making music and and uh you may wonder why didn't you do anything? Yeah, we did a lot of things. That's for sure.
Yeah. And Tim was a grown-up. Yeah, that's something which is important to to um to see also. So he took his own decisions. We we couldn't lock him in.
On June [music] 8th, 2018, Tim was laid to rest in Stockholm at a private funeral. [music] No press, no public, just the people who knew the real Tim. [music]
the quiet, thoughtful guy who loved video games and hated fame. On the music front, he's undeniably a legend. [music] He helped catapult EDM into the mainstream, crafting songs that crossed over from clubs to radio to pretty much [music] every corner of the world. He was a pioneer in blending electronic music with other genres, mixing house beats with soul, country, folk, and pop in ways that purists initially sneered at, but ultimately couldn't resist. Without Avichi, artists like Kaigo or the Chain Smokers might not sound the way they do. [music] And Levels is undeniably one of the songs that defined its decade. That tells you everything about his influence. He defined [music] an era beyond the charts. His death put a spotlight on mental health in the music industry. He wasn't the first artist to struggle, but his openness and tragic end forced a lot of people to acknowledge that the party can have a very dark side. His family launched the Tim Bergling Foundation in 2019 focusing on mental health awareness. The same year they also released Tim, the postumous album Avichi had been working on in the months leading up to his death. The tracks felt like [music] messages, sometimes desperate, sometimes hopeful, but always personal and intimate. The release gave fans a kind of closure, one last ride, one final connection with the artist who'd soundtrack their happy memories. It [music] was a goodbye letter, not just from him, but to him. All proceeds from the album went to [music] the foundation. Though it's heartbreaking he didn't stay longer, his memory lives on every time his music [music] plays and gives someone a happy feeling, even if only for a moment. [music] [cheering] [music]
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