What I think is really important is that Avicii’s death has not been for nothing and I feel it
opened up an instant gateway for us DJ’s to talk about our mental health and to be very open about
mental health in general and if you meet people and you see they’re not doing well to
be able to speak up and talk about it and have compassion. Trying to function while you
still do your shows back to back, worldwide is tough and we have nothing to complain about
I mean we are living the dream absolutely but there is a darker side to it, and you can see it in
Avicii’s documentary. Stress is something we really need to be aware of and just keep that conversation open.
We met online by Tim popping up on my Laidback Luke forum
which was a big platform for up and coming
young producers and back in the day
he needed someone to listen to his music
and me and my community did that
actively on my forum so one day he popped up. What I think was the best thing we worked on
with Tim was developing his sound, developing his producer skills. I always came back with
feedback and sometimes within a track I had to come back to him two or three times saying,
“No, this sucks, do this and try to do that angle.” Instead of getting demotivated he always
used this as fuel to just become better and better.
I think Tim’s greatest gift as a musician was his melodies. When he started doing the really
melodic things, these melodies just caught on and influenced so many people in the world.
These melodies still hold a ton of emotions and as a musician when you can grasp that, that’s golden.
This is the guy who I sent demos to, how many years ago? Eight years ago?
Ages ago. Yeah 8-9 years ago. That’s where it started, thank you so much.
I only recently found out that Avicii was going to release new music which I’m very grateful for.
I actually always hoped that and especially when he stopped touring that we would
keep enjoying his music and his new music. I’m super honored to be able to remix “SOS” officially.
I was actually planning on making a bootleg for it to be able to play it my sets properly,
but then I got the request to do the remix for it and it’s been an emotional ride I must say.
Getting the stems in, the stem said “Avicii SOS, stems by Tim Berg” and I opened the folder
and I started to cry, man. It felt, what would Tim think if he would know that that I was finally
going to do a remix for him. So, it was a tough, emotional ride and I made a tribute remix so it’s
not really even a Laidback Luke remix. I tried capturing the "Levels" vibe and
“My Feelings For You” vibe in there and I actually stole or used Avicii’s “Levels” kick drum in there
as a tribute. So, it’s purely a tribute remix and I hope people will get the Avicii feels for it.
What would Tim think about the remix? It’s a tough question because I felt like he was
semi-watching over my shoulder while doing it and it’s been an emotional ride for me,
this remix, but I think he would be very happy. Yeah, I think he would be very pleased to
have me on this package and the honor is all mine. I’ve always wanted to work with him.
We did in the beginning, then we lost touch and now we're back postmortem.
I’m super grateful to be a part of it and I hope people will keep on enjoying his music.